1708 in literature

• July 14 – Joseph Trapp becomes the first Oxford Professor of Poetry.:s:Trapp, Joseph (DNB00)
• unknown date – Edward Lhuyd becomes a Fellow of the Royal Society.{{Cite DWB|id=s-LHUY-EDW-1660 |title=Lhuyd, Edward (1660-1709), botanist, geologist, antiquary, and philologist |author=Thomas Jones |access-date=1 March 2019}}

• Joseph Addison – The Present State of the War (pro-Marlborough tract){{Cite journal |title=Joseph Addison and Eighteenth-Century "Liberalism" |author=Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=560–583 |jstor=2707486 |year=1951 |doi=10.2307/2707486}}
• Francis Atterbury – Fourteen Sermons Preach'd on Several Occasions{{Cite book |author=Eric Parisot |title=Graveyard Poetry: Religion, Aesthetics and the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Poetic Condition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BeUFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 |date=22 April 2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-12490-0 |pages=10}}
• Joseph Bingham – Origines Ecclesiasticae, or Antiquities of the Christian Church, vol. 1{{Cite book |author=Colin Kidd |title=British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I2EIlJISeUMC&pg=PA238 |date=13 March 1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-42572-8 |pages=238}}
• Laurent Bordelon – Mital; ou Aventures incroyables{{Cite book |author=Kenneth Thompson |title=Culture & Progress:Esc |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GeSAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA478 |date=21 August 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-47940-3 |pages=478}}
• Elizabeth Burnet – A Method of Devotion{{Cite book |title=The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIwnAQAAIAAJ |year=2007 |publisher=Department of English, Temple University |isbn=978-0-670-06320-8 |page=95}}
• Jeremy Collier – An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, Chiefly of England, vol. 1{{Cite book |author1=Saint Peter's Church, Cornhill (LONDON) |author2=Robert WILKINSON (of the parish of St. Peter's, Cornhill.) |title=An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Parish Church of St. Peter upon Cornhill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1N74NrneFKkC&pg=PA2 |year=1837 |publisher=Proprietor |pages=2}}
• 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){{cite book|author=Christine Gerrard|title=Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQi7TiXuo28C&pg=PA15|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-818388-4|pages=15}}
• 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){{cite book|author=François Le Guat|title=Voyage Et Avantures De François Leguat, & de ses Compagnons, En Deux Isles Desertes Des Indes Orientales...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQFUAAAAcAAJ|year=1708|publisher=Chez David Mortier}}
• 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{{cite book|author=David Oakleaf|title=A Political Biography of Jonathan Swift|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=581RCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA67|date=6 October 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-31552-0|pages=67}}
• The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions (together with part of the "Bickerstaff Papers")
• An Argument against Abolishing Christianity{{Cite book |author=Eugene Hammond |title=Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-In |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DXGoCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA311 |date=22 March 2016 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-61149-607-9 |pages=311}}

• Thomas Baker – The Fine Lady's Airs (first performed December 18){{Cite book |author=Thomas Baker |title=The Fine Lady's Airs |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8hnAAAACAAJ |date=March 2006 |publisher=Dodo Press |isbn=978-1-4065-0502-3}}
• Charles Goring – Irene
• Peter Anthony Motteux – Love's Triumph (opera)
• Nicholas Rowe – The Royal Convert{{Cite book |author=Michael Caines |title=The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe, Volume II: The Middle Period Plays |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fz4lDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA257 |date=3 November 2016 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-134-98114-4 |pages=257}}
• William Taverner – The Disappointment{{cite book|author=William J. Burling|title=A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMQJxeNpHR0C&pg=PA46|year=1992|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press|isbn=978-0-8386-3451-6|pages=46}}
• Lewis Theobald – The Persian Princess

{{main|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)

• April 23 – Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet (died 1754){{cite book|author=Franz J. L. Thimm|title=The Literature of Germany: From Its Earliest Period to the Present Time, Historically Developed|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zy8CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA21|year=1866|publisher=Franz Thimm|pages=21}}
• 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){{cite book|title=Revue des bibliothèques|author=Association des bibliothécaires français|publisher=Émile Bouillon|year=1909|pages=298–299}}
• 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){{cite book|author=Dr Teresa Barnard|title=Anna Seward: A Constructed Life: A Critical Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6hf3W3VwN7kC&pg=PA26|date=28 April 2013|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4094-7533-0|pages=26}}

• January 1 – Johannes Kelpius, German polymath (born 1673)
• March 4 – Thomas Ward, English Catholic writer (born 1652){{cite book|author=Thomas Ward|title=England's reformation ... A poem in four cantos ... The fifth edition. With marginal notes ... as also, the author's life, etc|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tqBhAAAAcAAJ&pg=PR13|year=1742|publisher=printed, and sold by Hue Firstfire|pages=13}}
• March 5 – Charles Le Gobien, French Jesuit writer (born 1653)
• March 15 – William Walsh, English poet and critic (born 1662){{Cite journal |first=James |last=Sambrook |title=Walsh, William (bap. 1662, d. 1708) |journal=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |edition=Online |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28620?docPos=2 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/28620 |accessdate=2015-07-15|url-access=subscription }} {{ODNBsub}}
• October 11 – Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, German philosopher (born 1651){{cite book|chapter=Pierre Costabel|title=Leibniz and Dynamics: The Texts of 1962|publisher=Hermann|year=1973|page=69}}
• 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){{cite book|author=J. Bertrand Payne|title=Haydn ́s Universal Index of Biography|publisher=Salzwasser-Verlag GmbH|year=2020|page=576|ISBN=9783846047712}}
• 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){{cite book|author=Nikolaos Chrissidis|title=An Academy at the Court of the Tsars: Greek Scholars and Jesuit Education in Early Modern Russia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dK68DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT201|date=10 August 2016|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-1-60909-189-7|pages=201}}

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