1684 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1684.

Events

June 25 – The death of Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, gives rise to establishment of the Leighton Library at Dunblane, the oldest surviving public subscription (lending) library in Scotland.
July 25 – The English novelist and dramatist Mary Griffith marries merchant George Pix.
November 11 – The English dramatist Nathaniel Lee is admitted to Bedlam Hospital for the insane.^[1]
unknown dates
- The Protestant Academy of Saumur is closed down by King Louis XIV of France.^[2]
- John Banks' historical play The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary Queen of Scotland is banned from the stage; it is produced as The Albion Queens twenty years later (1704).
- Pierre Bayle begins his journal of literary criticism, Nouvelles de la république des lettres.

Jean de La Chapelle – Ajax
John Horne – Fortune's Task, or the Fickle Fair One^[3]
John Lacy – Sir Hercules Buffoon^[3]
Simon Neale – The Mistaken Beauty (adapted from Corneille)
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (possible author) – Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery
Thomas Southerne – The Disappointment, or the Mother of Fashion^[3]
Pedro Calderon de la Barca
- Los cabellos de Absalón
- Guárdate del agua mansa

Jakob Abbadie – Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne
Dorcas Dole – Once More a Warning to Thee, O England, but more particularly to the inhabitants of the city of Bristol (by a Quaker)
Edward Phillips – Enchiridion linguae latinae
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth – Kabbala Denudata (publication completed)
Christopher Sandius – Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax – The Character of a Trimmer
Antonio de Solís y Rivadeneyra – Historia de la conquista de México

February 21 – Justus van Effen, Dutch journalist writing also in French (died 1735)
October 16 – Peter Walkden, English diarist (died 1769)
December 3 – Ludvig Holberg, Danish/Norwegian essayist, philosopher and playwright (died 1754)

April 1 – Roger Williams, English-born American theologian (born 1603)
October 1 – Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (born 1606)^[5]
December 7 – John Oldham, English satirical poet and translator (born 1653)
Unknown date – Francisco de Avellaneda, Spanish dramatist and poet (born c. 1625)

^ Arnold, Catharine (2009). Bedlam: London and Its Mad. Simon and Schuster. p. 110. ISBN 9781847390004.
^ Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward; William Leist Readwin Cates (1872). Encyclopaedia of Chronology: Historical and Biographical. Lee and Shepard. pp. 1250–.
^ ^a ^b ^c Sylvia Stoler Wagonheim (21 August 2013). The Annals of English Drama 975-1700. Routledge. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-134-67634-7.
^ Wright, Gillian (2013). Producing Women's Poetry, 1600–1730: Text and Paratext, Manuscript and Print. Cambridge University Press. p. 247. ISBN 9781107355668.
^ John Flower (17 January 2013). Historical Dictionary of French Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8108-7945-4.