1677 in literature

Events

• January 1 – Jean Racine's tragedy Phèdre is first performed, at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
• February
• *Nathaniel Lee's blank verse tragedy The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great is performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, with Mrs. Charlotte Melmoth as Roxana.
• *Thomas Killigrew, ineffective after four years as Master of the Revels, is replaced by his son Charles.
• September – Edward Ravenscroft's tragicomedy King Edgar and Alfreda, on the subject of King Edgar of England. Thomas Rymer's less successful play on the same subject is published in 1678.
• date unknown
• *Roger Morrice begins his Entring Book, a manual diary describing society in the period 1677 to 1691.
• *Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh's Grammatica Latino-Hibernica nunc compendiata, the first printed grammar of the Irish language, is published by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome in the year of his death.

  New books

Prose

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – Treatise of the Art of War
• Edward Cocker – Cocker's Arithmetick
• Christian Knorr von Rosenroth – Kabbala Denudata
• John Mason – Major Mason's Brief History of the Pequot War
• John Milton – The History of Britain
• Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford – A Philosophical Essay of Music
• Eirenaeus Philalethes – An Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Vision.
• Baruch Spinoza – Opera Posthuma
• Fabian Stedman – Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing

  Drama

• John Banks – The Rival Kings
• Aphra Behn
• *The Rover
• *The Debauchee
• Thomas Betterton – The Counterfeit Bridegroom
• William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle – The Humorous Lovers and The Triumphant Widow published
• John Crowne – The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian, Parts 1 and 2
• Charles Davenant – Circe
• Thomas d'Urfey – The Fond Husband, or the Plotting Sisters
• John Learned – The Country Innocence
• Nathaniel Lee – The Rival Queens
• Thomas Otway
• *The Cheats of Scapin
• *Titus and Berenice
• The French Conjurer by T. P
• Jean Racine – Phèdre
• Edward Ravenscroft
• *King Edgar and Alfreda
• *Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a Schoolboy, Bravo a Merchant and Magician
• Thomas Rymer – Edgar, or the English Monarch
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca
• *Amar después de la muerte o El Tuzaní de la Alpujarra
• *Parte I de autos sacramentales, alegóricos e historiales

  Poetry

• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery – On the Death of Abraham Cowley

  Births

• August 23 – Marie Anne Doublet, French scholar, writer and salonnière
• August 25 – Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy, French theologian
• Unknown date – Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw, English ballad writer
• Probable date – George Farquhar, Irish-born dramatist

  Deaths

• February 21 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher
• May 24 – Anders Bording, Danish poet and journalist
• June 18 – Johann Franck, German poet, hymnist and politician
• June 24 – Dudley North, English poet, writer and politician
• July 9 – Angelus Silesius, German poet and mystic
• September 5 – Henry Oldenburg, German-born theologian and natural philosopher
• September 11 – James Harrington, English political theorist
• October 14 – Francis Glisson, English medical writer and physician
• December 24 – Jacques de Coras, French poet