1636 in literature

Events

• January 31 – The King's Men perform Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at St James's Palace, London.
• February – James Shirley's tragicomedy The Duke's Mistress is performed at St James's Palace.
• March 3 – A "great charter" to the University of Oxford establishes the Oxford University Press as the second of England's privileged presses.
• April – Thomas Hobbes travels from Rome to Florence.
• May 10 – London theatres close, and remain almost continuously closed until the end of the year, due to an outbreak of bubonic plague. Playing companies are profoundly impacted; the King's Revels Men dissolve and other companies tour the countryside to survive.
• June – Tommaso Campanella, having left Italy for France, because of his pro-French views, gives a speech in front of Cardinal Richelieu; he teaches at the Sorbonne.
• August – King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria visit the University of Oxford. They are entertained with college theatricals, including William Strode's allegory The Floating Island, which mocks William Prynne as the play-hating Melancholico; George Wilde's Love's Hospital; and William Cartwright's The Royal Slave. Henrietta Maria enjoys the last so much that she brings it to be performed at Hampton Court by her Queen Henrietta's Men.
• November – Compilation of the Irish language Annals of the Four Masters is completed by Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, assisted by Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, Fearfeasa Ó Maol Chonaire and Peregrine Ó Duibhgeannain, in the Franciscan friary in Donegal Town in Ireland, under the patronage of Fearghal Ó Gadhra.
• December 8 – The King's Men perform Shakespeare's Othello at Hampton Court Palace.

  New books

• Athanasius Kircher – First grammar of the Coptic language
• Sir Henry Blount – A Voyage to the Levant
• Juan Pérez de Montalbán – Fama póstuma a la vida y muerte de Lope de Vega Carpio
• Salvador Jacinto Polo de Medina – Hospital de incurables y Viaje de este mundo y el otro
• Cristóbal de Salazar Mardones – Ilustración y defensa de la Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe
• José García de Salcedo Coronel – Comentario a las Soledades de Góngora

  New drama

• Richard Brome – The New Academy
• Lodowick Carlell – Arviragus and Philicia
• William Cartwright – The Royal Slave
• John Cayworth – Enchiridion Christiados
• Pierre Corneille – L'Illusion Comique, performed
• Sir William Davenant – The Triumphs of the Prince D'Amour, The Wits, and The Platonick Lovers published
• Pierre Corneille – Le Cid
• Henry Glapthorne – The Hollander and perhaps Wit in a Constable
• François Tristan l'Hermite – La Mariane
• Thomas Heywood – A Challenge for Beauty published
• Thomas Killigrew – Claracilla
• Philip Massinger – The Bashful Lover performed; The Great Duke of Florence published
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca
• *Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar
• *La dama duende
• *La devoción de la cruz
• *La vida es sueño
• Parte XXX de comedias de varios autores
• Tirso de Molina –
• *La vida de Herodes
• *Marta la piadosa
• Thomas Nabbes – Microcosmus, a Moral Masque
• Jean Rotrou – Les Deux Sosies
• William Sampson – The Vow-Breaker, or The Fayre Maid of Clifton
• James Shirley – The Duke's Mistress
• William Strode – The Floating Island
• George Wilde – Love's Hospital

  New poetry

• Abraham Cowley – Sylva
• William Sampson – Virtus post Funera vivit, or Honour Tryumphing over Death, being true Epitomes of Honorable, Noble, Learned, and Hospitable Personages

  Births

• April 7 – Gregório de Matos, Brazilian poet
• November 1 – Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic
• November 11 – Yan Ruoqu, Chinese scholar and polymath
• Unknown dates
• *Joseph Glanvill, English philosopher and cleric
• *James Janeway, English children's writer and Puritan minister
• *Jean de Montigny, French poet and philosopher
• Probable year of birth – Thomas Traherne, English poet and religious writer

  Deaths

• January 19 – Daniel Schwenter, German Orientalist, polymath, poet and librarian
• February 4 – James Perrot, Welsh politician and philosophical writer
• April 26 – Paul Hay du Chastelet, French orator and writer
• September 15 – Cuthbert Burbage, English theatre owner, associate of William Shakespeare
• December 9 – Fabian Birkowski, Polish writer and preacher
• Unknown dates
• *Henning Arnisaeus, German political theorist and philosopher
• *Johannes Messenius, Swedish dramatist and historian
• *Cesare Rinaldi, Italian poet
• *Wen Zhenmeng, Chinese artist and author
• Probable date
• *Antonio Mira de Amescua, Spanish dramatist
• *William Sampson, English dramatist