# 1648 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1648.

## Events

* February
** Ordinances are passed in England against plays; actors are to be fined and theatres pulled down.
** Richard Flecknoe sails from Lisbon to Brazil.
* April 7 – Edward Pococke becomes Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, in succession to Dr Morris.
* April 16 – René Descartes meets Frans Burman, resulting in the Conversation with Burman.
* June 9 – Richard Lovelace, an English Cavalier poet, begins his second imprisonment for opposition to Parliament.
* June – Pierre Gassendi, having given up lecturing at the Collège Royal because of ill-health, returns to his home area of Digne.
* July 14 – During the siege of Colchester, a cannon nicknamed Humpty Dumpty, is blown off the walls, possibly inspiring the nursery rhyme.
* December – King Charles I is imprisoned in Windsor Castle, where he reportedly spends much of his time reading the plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
* unknown dates
** Robert Boyle writes Seraphic Love, his first important work. Although it will not be published until 1660, he produces presentation copies for friends.
** Richard Crashaw, exiled in Paris, publishes two hymns in Latin.
** King Frederick III of Denmark establishes the Royal Library, Denmark.

## New books
### Prose

* Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède – Cléopâtre
* Robert Filmer – Freeholders Grand Inquest touching our Sovereign Lord the King and his Parliament
* Thomas Gage – The English-American, or a New Survey of the West Indies
* Baltasar Gracián – Agudeza y arte de ingenio
* Francisco Martínez de Mata – Memorial a razón de la despoblación y pobreza de España y su remedio
* José García de Salcedo Coronel – Comentarios al Panegírico del Duque de Lerma de Luis de Góngora
* Fray Marcos de Salmerón – El príncipe escondido
* Madeleine de Scudéry – Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus, volume 1
* John Wilkins – Mathematical Magick
* Gerrard Winstanley – The Mystery of God

### Drama

* Anonymous – Crafty Cromwell
* Anonymous – Kentish Fair, or the Parliament Sold to Their Best Worth
* Anonymous ("Mercurius Melancholicus") – Mistress Parliament Her Gossiping
* Jasper Mayne – The Amorous War

### Poetry

* Christen Aagaard – Threni Hyperborci
* Richard Corbet – Poetica Stromata
* Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Otia Sacra
* Robert Herrick
** Hesperides
** Noble Numbers
* Francisco de Borja y Aragón – Obras en verso
* Francisco López de Zárate – La invención de la Cruz
* Francisco de Quevedo (ed. Jusepe Antonio González de Salas) – El Parnaso español, en dos cumbre dividido, con las nueve musas

## Births

* February 1 – Elkanah Settle, English poet and dramatist (died 1724)
* November 12 – Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican Hieronymite nun, polymath, poet and playwright (died 1695)
* Unknown date – Gaspard Abeille, French poet (died 1718)
* Earliest year – Mihai Iștvanovici, Wallachian typographer and poet (died c. 1720)

## Deaths

* February 2 – George Abbot, English writer (born c. 1603)
* February 22 – Wilhelm Lamormaini, Luxembourgish Jesuit theologian (born 1570)
* March 12 – Tirso de Molina, Spanish dramatist (born 1571)
* May 26 – Vincent Voiture, French writer and poet (born 1597)
* May 28 (bur.) – William Percy, English poet and playwright (born 1570/74)
* July 31 – Benedictus van Haeften, Dutch theologian (born 1588)
* August 20 – Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury Anglo-Welsh writer and soldier (born 1574)
* September 1 – Marin Mersenne, French theologian and philosopher (born 1588)
* December 16 – Arthur Duck, English lawyer and author (born 1580)