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1656 in literature
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1656 literature
July 2020
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1656.
Events
April 25 – In London, the Council of State, usually busy with larger matters, has taken on the censorship of individual books and orders Robert Tichborne, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, to burn a volume entitled Sportive Wit, or the Muses' Merriment for its "scandalous, lascivious, scurrilous, and profane matter".Arthur F. Marotti Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric https://books.google.com/books?id=wuZHYXY_CxcC&pg=PA268 1995 Cornell University Press 0-8014-8238-0 268
May 9 – Choice Drollery, Songs, and Sonnets is ordered to be destroyed by Britain's Council of State.
May – The Siege of Rhodes, Part I, by Sir William Davenant, the "first English opera" (under the guise of a recitative), is performed in a private theatre at his home, Rutland House, in the City of London. This includes the innovative use of painted backdrops and the appearance of England's first professional actress, Mrs. Coleman as Ianthe.Bevis Richard W. English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century 1660-1789 https://books.google.com/books?id=3MgFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 2014 Routledge 978-1-317-87092-0 19
July 27 – Baruch Spinoza is excluded from the Jewish religious community in Amsterdam.Steven Nadler Spinoza: A Life Cambridge University Press 1st 2001 978-0-521-00293-6 120
November 12 – John Milton marries Katherine Woodcock at St Mary Aldermanbury, London.David Masson The Life of John Milton: 1654-1660 https://books.google.com/books?id=b2YpAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA281 1877 Macmillan and Company 281
unknown date – Two playbooks of old plays published in London in this year, The Careless Shepherdess and The Old Law, contain the first "play lists" or catalogs of published dramas ever issued in England.
New books
Prose
Cyrano de Bergerac – Comical History of the States and Empires of the MoonDavid Seed Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and its Precursors https://books.google.com/books?id=l7JrCBSaEaMC&pg=PA2 1 May 1995 Syracuse University Press 978-0-8156-2640-4 2
Thomas Blount – Glossographia; or, a dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue
Méric Casaubon – A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasm
Margaret Cavendish
A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and LifeMargaret Cavendish https://www.bl.uk/people/margaret-cavendish The British Library 26 March 2019 26 March 2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20190326131844/https://www.bl.uk/people/margaret-cavendish dead
Nature's Pictures
William Dugdale – Antiquities of Warwickshire (seen as a model for a county history)
James Harrington – The Commonwealth of Oceana
Thomas Hobbes – Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance
Michael Maier – Themis aurea: the Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Crosse (first English translation)
Marchamont Nedham – The Excellency of a Free State
Adam Olearius – Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung Der Muscowitischen und Persischen Reyse So durch gelegenheit einer Holsteinischen Gesandtschaft an den Russischen Zaar und König in Persien geschehen (Further new description of the Muscovite and Persian journey made on the occasion of a Holstein mission to the Russian Tsar and the King of Persia)
Francis Osborne – Advice to a Son (an anti-marriage book, condemned and burned for immorality)
Blaise Pascal (as Louis de Montalte) – Lettres provinciales (first letter in series, completed March 1657)
John Tradescant the Younger – Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a collection of rarities preserved at South-Lambeth neer London (descriptive catalog of museum)
Gerrard Winstanley – The Law of Freedom
Children
John Cotton – Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes (catechism)Robert F. Roden The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692: A History of the First Printing Press Established in English America, Together with a Bibliographical List of the Issues of the Press https://books.google.com/books?id=vaZ2bW3Rtq0C 1905 Dodd, Mead 67
Drama
Thomas Dekker (died 1632) and John Ford (died c. 1639) – The Sun's Darling (masque, 1624, publication)
Thomas Goffe (died 1629) – publication:
Three Excellent Tragedies (c. 1613–1618)
The Careless Shepherdess (c. 1625; attributed)
Thomas Middleton (died 1627), William Rowley (died 1626) and Philip Massinger (died 1640) – The Old Law (c. 1616, publication)
Molière – Le Dépit amoureux
Poetry
Pierre Corneille – L'Imitation de Jésus-Christ
Abraham Cowley – The Miscellanies
William Davenant – Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems
Andreas Gryphius – Kirchhofsgedanken (Cemetery thoughts)
Births
January 1 – Silvester Jenks, English Catholic theologian and philosopher (died 1714)
April 17 – William Molyneux, Irish natural philosopher and political writer (died 1698)Mark McCartney Andrew Whitaker Physicists of Ireland: Passion and Precision https://books.google.com/books?id=CyXOBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 15 September 2003 CRC Press 978-1-4200-3317-5 17
August 3 – Jean Galbert de Campistron, French dramatist (died 1723)
September 14 – Thomas Baker, English antiquary (died 1746)
November 17 – Charles Davenant, English economist (died 1714)
Deaths
January 19 – Godfrey Goodman, English theologian and bishop (born c. 1582)William Edward Flaherty The Annals of England: An Epitome of English History https://books.google.com/books?id=xGANAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA300 1857 John Henry and James Parker 300
August 24 – Aegidius Gelenius, German historian (born 1595)
September 8 – Bishop Joseph Hall, English satirist (born 1574)
October 3 – Myles Standish, American colonist (born c. 1584)
December – John Edwards (Siôn Treredyn), Welsh Anglican priest and translator (born c. 1605)
unknown date – Thomas Gage, English writer and cleric (born c. 1597)Thomas Gage The History of Rowley: Anciently Including Bradford, Boxford, and Georgetown, from the Year 1639 to the Present Time https://books.google.com/books?id=10EuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA382 1840 F. Andrews 382
References
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