1617 in literature

Events

• March 4 – Shrovetide riot of the London apprentices damages the Cockpit Theatre. Impresario Christopher Beeston rebuilds it, and christens it the Phoenix for its rebirth, perhaps to designs by Inigo Jones.
• The collected works of John Calvin are published posthumously in Geneva.
• Martin Opitz founds the Fruitbearing Society at Weimar.
• Alcemist–Hermeticist 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 publishes her response to Swetnam, A Muzzle for Melastomus, under her own name.

  New books

Prose

• Johann Valentin Andreae – Menippus
• *Invitatio Fraternitatis Christi
• Declaration of Sports
• Miguel de Cervantes – Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
• Robert Fludd – Utriusque Cosmi...Historia, Tomus Primus
• Michael Maier
• *Silentium post clamores
• *Atalanta Fugiens
• Fynes Moryson – An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Years Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohemia, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland
• Anthony Munday – Survay of London
• Barnabe Rich – The Irish Hubbub, or the English Hue and Cry

  Drama

• Giambattista Andreini – The Penitent Magdalene published in Mantua
• Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero – De Spaanschen Brabander Ierolimo
• Ben Jonson
• *The Vision of Delight
• *Lovers Made Men
• Thomas Middleton and William Rowley – A Fair Quarrel published
• Théophile de Viau – Les Amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbé

  Births

• February 8 – Jonas Moore, English mathematician and surveyor
• May 22 – Johannes Andreas Quenstedt, German theologian
• July 13 – Ralph Cudworth, English philosopher
• July 31 – Nicolás Antonio, Spanish bibliographer
• December 9 – Richard Lovelace, English poet
• Unknown dates
• *Pierre Petit, French scholar, poet and Latin writer
• *Vavasor Powell, Welsh religious writer

  Deaths

• February 4 – Lodewijk Elzevir, Dutch printer
• February 16 – Kaspar Ulenberg, German theologian and translator
• May 7
• *David Fabricius, German theologian
• *Jacques Auguste de Thou, French historian
• August 13 – Johann Jakob Grynaeus, Swiss theologian
• September 25 – Francisco Suárez, Spanish philosopher and theologian
• October 12 – Bernardino Baldi, Italian mathematician and writer
• November 6 – John Layfield, English theologian
• November 10 – Barnabe Rich, English soldier and story-teller
• December – Thomas Coryat, English travel writer
• Unknown dates
• *Giovanni Botero, Italian political theorist and poet
• *Henry Perry, Welsh linguistic scholar and cleric