1642 in literature
# 1642 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1642.

## Events

* May – The 35-year-old John Milton marries the teenage Mary Powell. A few weeks later she leaves him in London and returns to her family in Oxfordshire.
* May/June – English Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace is incarcerated in the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster for defying Parliament. During his time there he may be writing "To Althea, from Prison".
* September 2 – The theatres in London are closed by the Puritan government; the "lascivious mirth and levity" of stage plays are to "cease and be forborn" for the next 18 years, during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew is reportedly staged on the final day, making it the last to be performed in the era of English Renaissance theatre.

## New books

### Prose

* Thomas Browne – Religio Medici
* Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède – Cassandre
* Thomas Fuller – The Holy State and the Profane State
* Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft – Nederduytsche Historiën (History of the Netherlands, publication begins)
* Sir Walter Ralegh – The Prince, or Maxims of State
* Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – La garduña de Sevilla y anzuelo de las bolsas
* Tohfatu'l-Ahbab, a Persian-language work by Muhammad Ali Kashmiri

### Drama

* Antonio Coello – Los empeños de seis horas (approximate date)
* Pierre Corneille – Polyeucte
* François le Métel de Boisrobert – La Belle Palène
* Donaires del gusto
* Pierre du Ryer – Saul
* Francis Jaques – The Queen of Corsica
* James Shirley – The Sisters
* Jan Vos – Klucht van Oene (The Farce of Oene)

### Poetry

* John Denham – Cooper's Hill, the first example in English of a poem devoted to local description, in this case the Thames scenery around the author's home at Egham in Surrey
* Richard Lovelace – "To Althea, from Prison"
* Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – Academias morales de las musas

## Births

* March 15 (baptised) – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, English politician and writer (died 1711)
* April 21 – Simon de la Loubère, French diplomat, writer, mathematician and poet (died 1729)
* April 30 – Christian Weise, German dramatist and poet (died 1708)
* December 30 – Vincenzo da Filicaja, Florentine poet (died 1707)
* Unknown dates
   * Abdul-Qādir Bīdel, Persian Sufi poet (died 1720)
   * Josep Romaguera, Catalan author (died 1723)
   * Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴), Japanese poet and creator of the ukiyozōshi (floating world) genre of prose (died 1693)
   * James Tyrrell, English political philosopher (died 1718)
* Probable year of birth
   * Thomas Shadwell, English dramatist (died 1698)
   * Edward Taylor, English-born colonial American poet and author (died 1729)

## Deaths

* May 14 – Nicolas Ysambert, French theologian (born c. 1565)
* June 1 – Sir John Suckling, English poet (born 1609)
* July 5 – Festus Hommius, Dutch Calvinist theologian (born 1576)
* Unknown dates
   * Abdul-Haqq Dehlavi, Indian Islamic scholar and writer (born 1551)
   * Sir Francis Kynaston, English poet (born 1587)
   * James Mabbe, English scholar, poet and translator (born 1572)
