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The year 1631 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• January 9 - Love's Triumph Through Callipolis, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace.
• February 22 - Chloridia, the year's second Jonson/Jones masque, is performed.
• The young Blaise Pascal moves with his family to Paris.
• Thomas Hobbes is employed as a tutor by the Cavendish family.
• Roger Williams arrives in Boston, Mass.
• The Master of the Revels refuses to license Philip Massinger's new play, Believe as You List, because of its seditious content.
• June 10 - The King's Men perform Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the Globe Theatre.

New books

• Johann Philipp Abelin - Arma Suecica, volume 1
• Moses Amyraut - Traité des religions
• Collected works of Jacobus Arminius published posthumously in Frankfurt
• Robert Fludd - Medicina Catholica (Volume 2)
• Thomas Harriot - Artis analyticae praxis
• James Mabbe - Celestina, or the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea, a 300-page closet drama or "novel in dialogue," translated from the Spanish-language original of Fernando de Rojas
• William Oughtred - Clavis mathematicae

New drama

• Anonymous - Fair Em published
• George Chapman - Caesar and Pompey published
• Henry Chettle - Hoffman published
• Thomas Goffe - The Raging Turk published
• Peter Hausted - Senile Odium
• Thomas Heywood - The Fair Maid of the West, Parts 1 and 2 published
• Ben Jonson - Chloridia (masque)
  • - Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (masque)
• Ralph Knevet - Rhodon and Iris (masque)
• James Mabbe - The Spanish Bawd published
• Jean Mairet - La Silvanire, ou la Morte-vive
• Shackerley Marmion - Holland's Leaguer runs for a highly-unusual six straight performances
• John Marston, with William Barkstead & Lewis Machin (?) - The Insatiate Countess published
• Philip Massinger - Believe as You List
  • - The Emperor of the East
• Thomas May - Antigone, the Theban Princess published
• Jean Rotrou - L'Hypocondriaque
• James Shirley - The Traitor
  • - Love's Cruelty
  • - The Humorous Courtier
  • - Love Tricks published as The School of Compliment
• Aurelian Townshend - Albion's Triumph (masque)
• Robert Ward (?) - Fucus Histriomastix
• Arthur Wilson - The Swisser
• Richard Zouche - The Sophister

Poetry

• Richard Braithwaite - The English Gentleman
  • - The English Gentlewoman

Births

• January 1 - Katharine Philips, poet, "Orinda" (died 1664)
• March 6 - René Le Bossu, critic (died 1680)
• August 9 - John Dryden, poet and dramatist (died 1700)
• date unknown - Richard Cumberland, philosopher (died 1718)
• date unknown - John Phillips, satirist and nephew of John Milton (died 1706)
• date unknown - Michael Wigglesworth, poet (died 1705)

Deaths

• March 31 - John Donne, poet (born 1572)
• May - Samuel Harsnett, religious writer (born 1561)
• May 6 - Robert Bruce Cotton, founder of the Cotton Library (born 1570)
• July - Enrico Caterino Davila, historian (born 1576)
• July 28 - Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, dramatist (born 1569)
• September 22 - Cardinal Federico Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, founder of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (born 1564)
• December 23 - Michael Drayton, poet (born 1563)