1687 - Literature

Literature

Nonfiction: Confucian Sinarum Philosophus is published in Latin at Paris with a short dedication to Louis XIV, who has supported its printing. The first Western-language version of Confucius's sayings (see 495 B.C.), it has been edited by Jesuits who include Philippe Couplet, recently returned from China with a young convert, Michael Shen, who has been taken to visit le roi de soleil at Versailles and later in the year is taken to visit England's James II at London; "Letter to a Dissenter" (pamphlet) by George Savile, marquis of Halifax, who was dismissed from public office 2 years ago by James II for opposing repeal of the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act.

Poetry: The Hind and the Panther by John Dryden: "By education most have been misled;/ So they believe, because they so were bred./ The priest continues what the nurse began,/ And thus the child imposes on the man"; The Country Mouse and the City Mouse by English poet Matthew Prior, 23, burlesques Dryden's The Hind and the Panther. Prior has written the poem in collaboration with Charles Montagu, 26; The Age of Louis the Great ("Le Siècle de Louis le Grand") by Paris poet-story teller Charles Perrault, 62, who was secretary to France's finance minister Jean Baptiste Colbert from 1664 until 1683.