1656 in poetry

	… 1646; 1647; 1648; 1649; 1650; 1651; 1652; ; 1653; 1654; 1655; 1656; 1657; 1658; 1659; ; 1660; 1661; 1662; 1663; 1664; 1665; 1666 …;
	In literature 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Events

This year in England, John Phillips, a nephew of John Milton, is summoned before the privy council for his share in a book of licentious poems, Sportive Wit, suppressed by the authorities but almost immediately replaced by a similar collection, Wit and Drollery.
Hallgrímur Pétursson begins work on his Passion Hymns

Margaret Cavendish, Lady Newcastle, Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life, fiction, poetry and prose^[1]
Abraham Cowley:
- Miscellanies, including "On the Death of Mr. Crashaw"
- Poems^[1]
- Pindaric Odes^[2]
Sir John Denham, translator, The Destruction of Troy, published anonymously, partial translation of Virgil's Aeneid, Book 2^[1]
William Davenant, Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems
William Drummond, Poems^[1]
John Evelyn, translator, An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus, translation of the Latin of Lucretius' De rerum natura, with both English and Latin; including commendatory poems by Sir Richard Brown, Edmund Waller and Christopher Wase (in Latin);^[1] this work was the first attempt to translate the work into English; Evelyn translated only the first book after realizing that he didn't have the ability to write a translation, as he put it, "to equal the elegancy of the original", although some of his friends warned him of the danger of the atheistic work to his morals, spirituality and reputation^[3]
Richard Flecknoe, The Diarium, or Journall, anonymously published^[1]
Mary Oxlie, authored a commendatory poem of fifty-two lines, To William Drummond of Hawthornden

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Cox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6
^ Mark Van Doren, John Dryden: A Study of His Poetry, p 193, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, second edition, 1946 ("First Midland Book edition 1960")
^ Dunlop, John Colin, History of Roman Literature, From Its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age, p 575, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1823, retrieved via Google Books, May 31, 2009