1617 in literature

The year 1617 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• March 4 - Shrovetide riot of the London apprentices damages the Cockpit Theatre. Impressario Christopher Beeston rebuilds it, and christens it the Phoenix for its rebirth.
• The collected works of John Calvin are published posthumously in Geneva.
• Martin Opitz founds the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft at Weimar.
• Ben Jonson becomes Poet Laureate.
• Alcemist–Hermeticist esoteric thinker Robert Fludd begins the publication of his life's work, the Utriusque Cosmi...Historia, which in future years proliferates through multiple published Volumes, Tractates, Sections, and Portions, only to remain incomplete at the time of Fludd's death two decades later.
• Two pseudonymous publications in the Joseph Swetnam anti-feminist controversy appear in 1617: Esther Hath Hang'd Haman by "Esther Sowernam", and The Worming of a Mad Dog by "Constantia Munda". Only Rachel Speght published her response to Swetnam, A Muzzle for Melastomus, under her own name.

New books

• Miguel de Cervantes - Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (posthumous)
• Robert Fludd - Utriusque Cosmi...Historia, Tomus Primus ("The History of the Two Worlds, Volume 1")
• Barnabe Rich - The Irish Hubbub, or the English Hue and Cry

New drama

• Giambattista Andreini - The Penitent Magdalene published in Mantua
• Ben Jonson - The Vision of Delight; Lovers Made Men
• Thomas Middleton & William Rowley - A Fair Quarrel published
• Théodore de Viau - Pyramus et Thisbe

Births

• May 22 - Johannes Andreas Quenstedt, dogmatician (died 1688)
• July 31 - Nicolás Antonio, bibliographer (died 1684)
• date unknown
  • Ralph Cudworth, philosopher (died 1688)
  • William Gurnall, Christian writer (died 1679)
  • Pierre Petit, scholar, physician, poet and Latin writer (died 1687)
  • Vavasor Powell, Nonconformist writer (died 1670)

Deaths

• February 16 - Kaspar Ulenberg, theologian and translator (born 1549)
• May 7
  • David Fabricius, theologian (born 1564)
  • Jacques Auguste de Thou, historian (born 1553)
• September 25 - Francisco Suárez, philosopher and theologian (born 1548)
• October 12 - Bernardino Baldi, mathematician and writer
• November 10 - Barnabe Rich, soldier and story-teller (born c. 1540)
• date unknown
  • Giovanni Botero, political theorist and poet (born 1544)
  • Thomas Coryat, travel writer (born c. 1577)
  • John Layfield, theologian
  • Henry Perry, Anglican priest and linguistic scholar (born c.1560)