1644 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1644.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• April 15 – The second Globe Theatre is demolished by the Puritan government to make room for housing.^[1]
• November 23 – The publication in London of Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England.^[2]
• December (end) – English Puritan controversialist Hezekiah Woodward is questioned for two days about "scandalous" pamphlets.^[3]
• The publication of The Bloody Tenet of Persecution marks the start of a major controversy between Roger Williams and John Cotton on religious tolerance in a Calvinist context. The controversy plays out through a series of works issued by both men in the coming years, through to Williams' The Bloody Tenet Yet More Bloody (1652).

New books

Prose

• John Milton
  • Areopagitica (tract against censorship)^[2]
  • Of Education
• Roger Williams – The Bloody Tenet of Persecution^[4]
• Francisco de Quevedo
  • Vida de Marco Bruto
  • Vida de San Pablo Apóstol
• Juan Eusebio Nieremberg – Vida del santo padre y gran siervo de Dios el beato Francisco de Borja
• René Descartes – Principia Philosophiae^[5]
• Marin Mersenne – Cogitata physico-mathematica
• Evangelista Torricelli – Opera geometrica^[6]
• Giulio Strozzi (editor) – Le glorie della signora Anna Renzi romana (published in Venice; a tribute to Anna Renzi, the "first diva")^[7]

Drama

• Lope de Vega – Fiestas del Santísimo Sacramento
• Pierre Corneille – Le Menteur
• Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Virtue's Triumph^[8]

Births

• August 6 – Louise de la Vallière, French royal mistress, subject of a Dumas novel (died 1710)
• October 2 – François-Timoléon de Choisy, French memoirist (died 1724)
• Unknown dates
  • Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉), Japanese poet (died 1694)
  • Elinor James, English pamphleteer (died 1719)

Deaths

• January 30 – William Chillingworth, English religious controversialist (born 1602)^[9]
• March 5 – Ferrante Pallavicino, Italian satirist (born 1615)^[10]
• March 8 – Xu Xiake (徐霞客), Chinese travel writer and geographer (born 1587)
• September 7 – Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, Italian historian (born 1579)^[11]
• September 8 – Francis Quarles, English poet (born 1592)^[12]
• November 10 – Luís Vélez de Guevara, Spanish dramatist and novelist (born 1579)
• November 21 – Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky, Czech lawyer and writer (born 1580)