1705 in literature

• c. May – Richard Steele, having left the army, marries a wealthy widow, Margaret Stretch.
• July 29 – Richard Challoner enters the English College, Douai.
• October 30 – John Vanbrugh's play The Confederacy, adapted from the French, is first performed at his new London playhouse, The Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket.[1][2]
• December 27 – John Vanbrugh's play The Mistake is likewise adapted from the French and first performed at The Queen's Theatre.[1][2]

Uncertain dates

• George Hickes' Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus vol. 2 (published in Oxford) includes the first published reference to Beowulf and the single surviving transcript of the Finnesburg Fragment.
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松 門左衛門) almost abandons writing kabuki plays and becomes a staff writer to the bunraku theater in Osaka.[3]
• William Somervile inherits his father's estate, where field sports will inspire much of his poetry.
• Claude Pierre Goujet, religious historian and Jansenist, enters holy orders.
• William Walsh begins a correspondence with Alexander Pope.
• Work begins on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, designed by the playwright John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Marlborough.[4]

• January 21 – Isaac Hawkins Browne, English poet (died 1760)
• February 13 – Franciszka Urszula Radziwillowa, Polish dramatist[5] (died 1753)
• May – Ambrosius Stub, Danish poet (died 1758)
• June 21 – David Hartley, English philosopher (died 1757)
• September 2 – Abraham Tucker (Edward Search), English philosopher (died 1774)
• October 29 – Gerhardt Friedrich Müller, German historian (died 1783)
• November 23 – Thomas Birch, English historian (died 1766)

Probable year of birth

• Stephen Duck, English poet (died 1756)

• January 4 – Madame d'Aulnoy, French author of fairy tales (born c. 1650)
• January 10 – Étienne Pavillon, French lawyer and poet (born 1632)
• February 5 – Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian (born 1635)
• April 2 – John Howe, English theologian (born 1630)
• May 5 – Johann Ernst Glück, German writer and translator (born 1654)
• June 10 – Michael Wigglesworth, English poet (born 1631)
• October 17 – Ninon de l'Enclos, French courtesan and salonnière (born 1620)
• November 10 – Justine Siegemund, German writer on midwifery (born 1636)[6]