1644 in literature

Template:Short description Template:Year nav topic5 Template:Use British English This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1644.

Events

April 15 – The second Globe Theatre is demolished by the Puritan government to make room for housing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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.<ref name="censor"/>
December (end) – English Puritan controversialist Hezekiah Woodward is questioned for two days about "scandalous" pamphlets.<ref>Template:Cite web Template:ODNBsub</ref>
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).

John Milton
- Areopagitica (tract against censorship)<ref name="censor">Template:Cite book</ref>
- Of Education
Roger Williams – The Bloody Tenet of Persecution<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Marin Mersenne – Cogitata physico-mathematica
Evangelista Torricelli – Opera geometrica<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Giulio Strozzi (editor) – Le glorie della signora Anna Renzi romana (published in Venice; a tribute to Anna Renzi, the "first diva")<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lope de Vega – Fiestas del Santísimo Sacramento
Pierre Corneille – Le Menteur
Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Virtue's Triumph<ref>Tom Cain, ed., The Poems of Mildmay Fane, Second Earl of Westmorland: from the Fulbeck, Harvard, and Westmorland Manuscripts, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2001.Page 27</ref>

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)

January 30 – William Chillingworth, English religious controversialist (born 1602)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
March 5 – Ferrante Pallavicino, Italian satirist (born 1615)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
March 8 – Xu Xiake (徐霞客), Chinese travel writer and geographer (born 1587)
September 7 – Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, Italian historian (born 1579)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 8 – Francis Quarles, English poet (born 1592)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
November 10 – Luís Vélez de Guevara, Spanish dramatist and novelist (born 1579)
November 21 – Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky, Czech lawyer and writer (born 1580)