1746 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1746.

Events

May 9 – Voltaire, on being admitted into the Académie française, gives a discours de réception in which he criticizes Boileau's poetry.^[1]
June – Samuel Johnson is commissioned to compile A Dictionary of the English Language by a group of London booksellers.
August 28 – A Native American massacre of two white families in Deerfield, Massachusetts, this day gives rise to the first known poem by an African American, Lucy Terry (at this time a slave aged around 16), "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746".^[2]
October 4 – Irish actor Spranger Barry makes his London stage debut in the title role of Othello at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (with Charles Macklin as Iago).
Probable first performance of Carlo Goldoni's comedy Servant of Two Masters (Italian: Il servitore di due padronicode: it is deprecated ), at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice.
The oldest manuscript of Jean de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis is rediscovered in Brussels.
Élie Catherine Fréron founds his controversial journal Lettres de la comtesse de...

John Arbuthnot - Miscellanies (posthumous)
John Collier as "Tim Bobbin" - A View of the Lancashire Dialect
William Collins - Odes
Thomas Cooke - A Hymn to Liberty
Zachary Grey - A Word or Two of Advice to William Warburton
James Hervey - Meditations Among the Tombs
Soame Jenyns - The Modern Fine Gentleman
Pierre Louis Maupertuis - Astronomie nautique, volume 2
Tobias Smollett - Advice
Lauritz de Thurah - Den Danske Vitruvius, volume I
John Upton - Critical Observations on Shakespeare
Horace Walpole - The Beauties
Joseph Warton - Odes on Various Subjects
John Wesley
- The Principles of a Methodist Father Explain'd
- Sermons on Several Occasions

January 12 – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss educational reformer (died 1827)
March 27 – Michael Bruce, Scottish poet (died 1767)
April 3 – Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville, French fantasy novelist (died 1805)
December 21 – José de la Cruz (Huseng Sisiw), Filipino writer (died 1829)
Unknown date – Victor d'Hupay, French philosopher (died 1818)

February 4 – Robert Blair, Scottish member of the "Graveyard poets" (born 1699)
May 22 – Thomas Southerne, Irish dramatist (born 1660)
November 12 – Mary Leapor, English kitchenmaid poet (born 1722; died of measles)
December 6 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish poet (born 1665)
Unknown dates
- Anton Josef Kirchweger, Latin Pietist author (unknown birth year)
- Frederic Count de Thoms, German biographer of King Louis XIV of France and art collector (born 1669)

↑ In England, Voltaire's speech is quoted in The Gentleman's Magazine in July and the full text is translated into English in Dodsley's Museum for December 20. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
↑ The ballad is related orally for a century and first printed in Josiah Gilbert Holland's History of Western Massachusetts in 1855. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
↑ Shōriya, Aragorō. "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami." Kabuki21.com. Accessed 4 December 2008.