Events
- January 1 - Local authorities raid the four remaining London theatres (the Salisbury Court, Red Bull, Cockpit, and Fortune) to suppress clandestine play-acting. The actors found are arrested — except for the Red Bull company, who manage to escape.
- March 24 (Saturday) - The authorities damage the Cockpit Theatre to inhibit continued attempts to use it for plays. (The building is not destroyed, however, and in 1660, when drama resumes in England with the Restoration, the theatre is fixed and used again.)
- April 23 - William Everard a Digger issues "The Declaration and Standard of the Levellers of England."
- With the London theatres remaining closed since 1642, the trend toward closet drama (often highly politicized) continues — and is accentuated by the January 30 execution of Charles I. In the play Newmarket Fair, Oliver Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders commit suicide when they learn of the accession of Charles II (an event that, in actuality, still lies eleven years in the future).
- Eikon Basilike, supposedly Charles I's account of his final days, is published, and becomes an enormous popular success. The work is now attributed to John Gauden.
- Antoine Girard's poem Rome Ridicule starts a fashion for burlesque poetry.
- Alexander Ross, the Scottish controversialist, publishes the first English translation of the Qur'an. Knowing no Arabic, Ross works from Andre du Ryer's 1647 French version, L'Alcoran de Mahomet.
- Sir William Davenant is appointed treasurer of the colony of Virginia.
Read more about this topic: 1649 In Literature
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