1672 in literature

Events from the year 1672 in literature.

Events

• January 25 – London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is destroyed by fire.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The King's Company moves to the theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields, which the rival Duke's Company left the previous year.
• June – Thomas Killigrew mounts another all-female production of his The Parson's Wedding with the King's Company.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (The first occurred in 1664.) Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster and Dryden's The Maiden Queen are also staged with all-women casts and new prologues by Dryden for the productions.
• September 13 – John Bunyan is released after twelve years' imprisonment for preaching without a licence.<ref name="Pocket On This Day">Template:Cite book</ref>
• December – John Dryden's play Marriage à la Mode is first performed in London by the King's Company.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Mercure de France is first published, under the title Mercure galant.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

New books

Prose

• Nicolás Antonio – Bibliotheca Hispana Nova<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Nicolas Denys – Description Géographique et Historique des Costes de l’Amérique Septentrionale (Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America)
• Richard Cumberland – De legibus naturae (On natural laws)
• Melchor Fuster – Conceptos predicables
• Gadla Walatta Petros (Ethiopian hagiography in Ge'ez language)<ref>Wendy Laura Belcher: "Of Saints and Kings", History Today, November 2016.</ref>
• Nathaniel Hodges – Loimologia<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• James Janeway – A Token for Children, Part 2
• John Milton – Art of Logic
• Pierre Nicole – A Discourse Against Plays and Romances
• César Vichard de Saint-Réal – Dom Carlos

Drama

• Anonymous – Emilia (adapted from the Costanza di Rosamondo of Aurelio Aureli)
• Anonymous – The Illustrious Slaves
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca
  • Eco y Narciso
  • El hijo del sol, Faetón
  • La niña de Gómez Arias
• Thomas Corneille – Ariane
• John Dryden
  • The Assignation
  • Marriage à la mode (first performed; published the following year)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• John Lacy (published)
  • The Dumb Lady, or The Farrier Made Physician
  • The Old Troop, or Monsier Ragou
• Molière – Les Femmes Savantes
• Henry Nevil Payne – The Morning Ramble
• Jean Racine – Bajazet
• Edward Ravenscroft – The Citizen Turned Gentleman
• Thomas Shadwell
  • Epsom Wells
  • The Miser
• George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and others – The Rehearsal (published)

Poetry

• Miguel de Barrios – El coro de las musas

Births

• January 18 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer, (died 1731)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• March – Sir Richard Steele, Irish dramatist, satirist and politician (died 1729)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• May 1 – Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet and politician (died 1719)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss paleontologist, historian and travel writer (died 1733)
• October 27 – Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna, Swedish writer (died 1737)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Deaths

• June 14 – Matthew Wren, English scholar and cleric (born 1629)
• June 20 – Alonso Andrada, Spanish biographer and ascetic writer (born 1590)
• September 12 – Tanneguy Le Fèvre, French classicist (born 1615)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• September 16 – Anne Bradstreet, pioneering American female author (born c. 1612)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• November 21 – Robert Creighton, Scottish classicist, politician and bishop (born 1593)
• December 27 – Jacques Rohault, French philosopher (born 1618)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>