1672 in literature explained

Events from the year 1672 in literature.

Events

• January 25 – London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is destroyed by fire.^[1] 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.^[2] (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.^[3]
• December – John Dryden's play Marriage à la Mode is first performed in London by the King's Company.^[4]
• The Mercure de France is first published, under the title Mercure galant.^[5]

New books

Prose

• Nicolás Antonio – Bibliotheca Hispana Nova^[6]
• 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)^[7]
• Nathaniel Hodges – Loimologia^[8]
• 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)^[9]
• 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)^[10]
• March – Sir Richard Steele, Irish dramatist, satirist and politician (died 1729)^[11]
• May 1 – Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet and politician (died 1719)^[12]
• August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss paleontologist, historian and travel writer (died 1733)
• October 27 – Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna, Swedish writer (died 1737)^[13]

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)^[14]
• September 16 – Anne Bradstreet, pioneering American female author (born c. 1612)^[15]
• November 21 – Robert Creighton, Scottish classicist, politician and bishop (born 1593)
• December 27 – Jacques Rohault, French philosopher (born 1618)^[16]

Notes and References

1. Book: The Month and Catholic Review Vol. XXIII. 1881. 544.
2. Book: Howe, Elizabeth . The First English Actresses: Women and Drama, 1660–1700 . registration. Cambridge University Press . 1992 . 57–8.
3. Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
4. Web site: Chadwyck-Healey Database of English Prose Drama (through 1750) . 2011-03-16.
5. Book: Darnton, Robert . Robert Darnton

   . Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775–1800 . Robert Darnton. Roche, Daniel . 1989 . University of California Press . Berkeley, CA . 0-520-06431-3 . 148 .

6. Book: An Introduction to the Study of Bibliography.... 1814. 433.
7. Wendy Laura Belcher: "Of Saints and Kings", History Today, November 2016.
8. Book: Frank Karslake. Book Auction Records. 1979. Wm. Dawson. 978-0-7129-1017-0. 226.
9. Book: John Dryden. Marriage ? la Mode. 1 January 1981. U of Nebraska Press. 0-8032-6556-5. 15.
10. Book: St James Press. Anthony Levi. Retired Professor of French Anthony Levi. Guide to French Literature: Beginnings to 1789. 1992. St. James Press. 978-1-55862-159-6. 355.
11. Book: George Atherton Aitken. The Life of Richard Steele. 1889. W. Isbister, limited. 978-1-4047-7407-0. 3.
12. Book: Joseph Addison. Addison's Spectator. 1858. Derby & Jackson. 306.
13. Web site: Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna. Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon. 8 March 2018. Valborg Lindgärde. 2 April 2021.
14. Book: J. Bertrand Payne. Haydn ́s Universal Index of Biography. 6 April 2020. BoD – Books on Demand. 978-3-8460-4770-5. 321.
15. Book: Evert Augustus Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American literature, by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck. 1855. 49.
16. Book: Copleston, Frederick Charles . Frederick Copleston . A history of philosophy, Volume 4 . Continuum International . 2003 . 174 . 978-0-8264-6898-7.