1642 in literature

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.<ref>Template:Cite web Template:ODNBsub</ref>
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".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 2 – London theatre closure 1642: The theatres in London are closed by order of the Puritan Long Parliament; 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 legitimately performed in the era of English Renaissance theatre.

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<ref>Muḥammad, A. K., & Pandit, K. N. (2009). A Muslim missionary in mediaeval Kashmir: Being the English translation of Tohfatu'l-ahbab. New Delhi: Voice of India.</ref>

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

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)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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)

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)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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)