1677 in literature

The year 1677 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• February - Nathaniel Lee's blank verse tragedy The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great, is performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with Mrs Charlotte Melmoth as Roxana.^[1]
• Roger Morrice begins his Entring Book.
• Francis North's A Philosophical Essay of Music published.
• Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh's Grammatica Latino-Hibernica nunc compendiata, the first printed grammar of the Irish language (in Latin), is published by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome^[2] in the year of his death.
• Thomas Killigrew, ineffective after four years in the office of Master of the Revels, is replaced by his son Charles.
• Two plays on the same subject of King Edgar are acted: Edward Ravenscroft's tragicomedy King Edgar and Alfreda, and Thomas Rymer's Edgar, or the English Monarch. Rymer's play is a flop; it precedes his famous The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered by a scant year.

New books

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery - Treatise of the Art of War
• Edward Cocker - Cocker's Arithmetick
• John Milton - The History of Britain
• Eirenaeus Philalethes - An Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Vision.
• Baruch Spinoza - Opera Posthuma. Includes the first known publication of his Ethics.

New drama

• John Banks - The Rival Kings (adapted from la Calprenède's Cassandre)
• Aphra Behn
  • The Rover
  • The Debauchee (adapted from Richard Brome's A Mad Couple Well-Match'd)
• Thomas Betterton - The Counterfeit Bridegroom
• William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle - The Humorous Lovers and The Triumphant Widow published
• John Crowne - The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian, Parts 1 and 2
• Charles Davenant - Circe (a "semi-opera" with music by John Banister)
• Thomas d'Urfey - The Fond Husband, or the Plotting Sisters
• John Learned - The Country Innocence
• Nathaniel Lee - The Rival Queens
• Thomas Otway
  • The Cheats of Scapin (adapted from Molière's Fourberies de Scapin)
  • Titus and Berenice (adapted from Racine's Bérénice)
• The French Conjurer by T. P (once attributed to Thomas Porter)
• Jean Racine - Phèdre
• Edward Ravenscroft
  • King Edgar and Alfreda
  • Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a Schoolboy, Bravo a Merchant and Magician
• Thomas Rymer - Edgar, or the English Monarch
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca
  • Amar después de la muerte o El Tuzaní de la Alpujarra
• Parte I de autos sacramentales, alegóricos e historiales

Poetry

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery - On the Death of Abraham Cowley

Non-fiction

• Fabian Stedman - Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing
• Christian Knorr von Rosenroth - Kabbala Denudata is started to be published.

Births

• August 23 – Marie Anne Doublet, French scholar, writer and salonnière (died 1771)
• August 25 – Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy, French theologian (died 1753)
• Unknown date – Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw, English ballad writer (born 1727)

Deaths

• February 21 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (born 1632)
• May 24 – Anders Bording, Danish poet and journalist (born 1619)
• June 18 – Johann Franck, German poet, hymnist and politician (born 1618)
• July 9 – Angelus Silesius (Johann Scheffler), German poet and mystic (born 1624)
• September 5 – Henry Oldenburg, German-born theologian and natural philosopher (born c. 1619)
• September 11 – James Harrington, English political theorist (born 1611)
• October 14 – Francis Glisson, English medical writer and physician (born 1597)
• December 24 – Jacques de Coras, French poet (born 1630)

References