1708 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1708.

Events

• July 14 – Joseph Trapp becomes the first Oxford Professor of Poetry.[1]
• unknown date – Edward Lhuyd becomes a Fellow of the Royal Society.[2]

New books

Prose

• Joseph Addison – The Present State of the War (pro-Marlborough tract)[3]
• Francis Atterbury – Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions[4]
• Joseph Bingham – Origines Ecclesiasticae, or Antiquities of the Christian Church, vol. 1[5]
• Laurent Bordelon – Mital; ou Aventures incroyables[6]
• Elizabeth Burnet – A Method of Devotion[7]
• Jeremy Collier – An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, Chiefly of England, vol. 1[8]
• Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury – A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm (opposing radical Protestantism)
• Edmund Curll – The Charitable Surgeon
• Anne Dacier (Anne Lefèvre) – Homer's Odyssey (prose, first translation into French)
• John Downes – Roscius Anglicanus (historical review of the stage)
• John Fisher, Cardinal Bishop of Rochester (executed 1535) – Funeral Sermon for Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (originally delivered 1509; published with an anonymous preface by Thomas Baker)
• John Gay – Wine
• Charles Gildon
  • Libertas Triumphans (re Battle of Oudenarde)
  • The New Metamorphosis (fiction)
• John Harris – Lexicon Technicum: Or, A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, vol. 1 (2nd edition)
• Aaron Hill & Nahum Tate – The Celebrated Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses, for the Armour of Achilles (from Ovid)[9]
• Benjamin Hoadly – The Unhappiness of the Present Establishment, and the Unhappiness of Absolute Monarchy
• Anne de La Roche-Guilhem – La Foire de Beaucaire
• François Leguat – Voyage et avantures de François Leguat et de ses compagnons, en deux isles désertes des Indes orientales (A new voyage to the East-Indies)[10]
• John Locke (died 1704) – Some Familiar Letters
• Simon Ockley – The Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Aegypt by the Saracens (vol. 1 of History of the Saracens)
• John Oldmixon – The British Empire in America
• Jonathan Swift
  • Predictions for the Year 1708[11]
  • The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions (together with part of the "Bickerstaff Papers")
  • An Argument against Abolishing Christianity[12]

Drama

• Thomas Baker – The Fine Lady's Airs (first performed December 18)[13]
• Charles Goring – Irene
• Peter Anthony Motteux – Love's Triumph (opera)
• Nicholas Rowe – The Royal Convert[14]
• William Taverner – The Disappointment[15]
• Lewis Theobald – The Persian Princess[15]

Poetry

Main article: 1708 in poetry

• Richard Blackmore – The Kit-Cats
• Ebenezer Cooke – The Sot-Weed Factor (poem)
• Elijah Fenton – Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems
• William King – The Art of Cookery (poem)
• Matthew Prior – Poems on Several Occasions (see also 1707)

Births

• April 23 – Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet (died 1754)[16]
• July 8 – Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon, French dramatist (died 1775)
• August 29 – Olof von Dalin, Swedish poet (died 1763)
• September 2 – André le Breton, French publisher (died 1779)[17]
• October 16 – Albrecht von Haller, Swiss biologist and poet (died 1777)
• unknown dates
  • Richard Dawes, English classical scholar (died 1766)
  • Thomas Seward, English poet (died 1790)[18]

Deaths

• January 1 – Johannes Kelpius, German polymath (born 1673)
• March 4 – Thomas Ward, English Catholic writer (born 1652)[19]
• March 5 – Charles Le Gobien, French Jesuit writer (born 1653)
• March 15 – William Walsh, English poet and critic (born 1662)[20]
• October 11 – Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, German philosopher (born 1651)[21]
• October 21
  • Kata Szidónia Petrőczy, Hungarian Baroque writer (born 1659)
  • Christian Weise, German dramatist and poet (born 1642)
• October 22 – Hermann Witsius, Dutch theologian (born 1636)[22]
• November 15 – Gregory Hascard, English religious writer and cleric (year of birth unknown)
• unknown date – Nikolai Spathari (Nicolae Milescu), Moldavian travel writer and diplomat (born 1636)[23]

References

1. s:Trapp, Joseph (DNB00)
2. Thomas Jones. "Lhuyd, Edward (1660-1709), botanist, geologist, antiquary, and philologist". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
3. Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom (1951). "Joseph Addison and Eighteenth-Century "Liberalism"". Journal of the History of Ideas. 12 (4): 560–583. doi:10.2307/2707486. JSTOR 2707486.
4. Eric Parisot (22 April 2016). Graveyard Poetry: Religion, Aesthetics and the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Poetic Condition. Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-317-12490-0.
5. Colin Kidd (13 March 1999). British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800. Cambridge University Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-139-42572-8.
6. Kenneth Thompson (21 August 2013). Culture & Progress:Esc. Routledge. p. 478. ISBN 978-1-136-47940-3.
7. The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats. Department of English, Temple University. 2007. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-670-06320-8.
8. Saint Peter's Church, Cornhill (LONDON); Robert WILKINSON (of the parish of St. Peter's, Cornhill.) (1837). An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Parish Church of St. Peter upon Cornhill. Proprietor. p. 2.
9. Christine Gerrard (2003). Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-818388-4.
10. François Le Guat (1708). Voyage Et Avantures De François Leguat, & de ses Compagnons, En Deux Isles Desertes Des Indes Orientales... Chez David Mortier.
11. David Oakleaf (6 October 2015). A Political Biography of Jonathan Swift. Routledge. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-317-31552-0.
12. Eugene Hammond (22 March 2016). Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-In. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 311. ISBN 978-1-61149-607-9.
13. Thomas Baker (March 2006). The Fine Lady's Airs. Dodo Press. ISBN 978-1-4065-0502-3.
14. Michael Caines (3 November 2016). The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe, Volume II: The Middle Period Plays. Taylor & Francis. p. 257. ISBN 978-1-134-98114-4.
15. William J. Burling (1992). A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-8386-3451-6.
16. Franz J. L. Thimm (1866). The Literature of Germany: From Its Earliest Period to the Present Time, Historically Developed. Franz Thimm. p. 21.
17. Association des bibliothécaires français (1909). Revue des bibliothèques. Émile Bouillon. pp. 298–299.
18. Dr Teresa Barnard (28 April 2013). Anna Seward: A Constructed Life: A Critical Biography. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-4094-7533-0.
19. Thomas Ward (1742). England's reformation ... A poem in four cantos ... The fifth edition. With marginal notes ... as also, the author's life, etc. printed, and sold by Hue Firstfire. p. 13.
20. Sambrook, James (2004). "Walsh, William (bap. 1662, d. 1708)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28620. Retrieved 2015-07-15. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
21. "Pierre Costabel". Leibniz and Dynamics: The Texts of 1962. Hermann. 1973. p. 69.
22. J. Bertrand Payne (2020). Haydn ́s Universal Index of Biography. Salzwasser-Verlag GmbH. p. 576. ISBN 9783846047712.
23. Nikolaos Chrissidis (10 August 2016). An Academy at the Court of the Tsars: Greek Scholars and Jesuit Education in Early Modern Russia. Cornell University Press. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-60909-189-7.