1708 in poetry

Events

• July 14 – Joseph Trapp becomes the first Oxford Professor of Poetry.

  Works published

• Edmund Arwaker, Truth in Fiction; or, Morality in Masquerade
• Sir Richard Blackmore, The Kit-Cats
• Ebenezer Cooke, "The Sot-Weed Factor: The Laws, Government, Courts, and Constitution of the Country; and also the Buildings, Feasts, Frolics, Entertainments, and Drunken Humours of the Inhabitants of that Part of America' ', a satirical poem by an English Colonial American in Maryland
• Elijah Fenton, Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems
• John Gay, Wine, published anonymously
• Charles Gildon, Libertas Triumphans, on the battle of Oudenarde, July 11
• Aaron Hill, The Celebrated Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses for the Armour of Achilles, published anonymously, translated from Ovid's Metamorphoses
• William King, The Art of Cookery
• John Philips, Cyder
• Matthew Prior, Poems on Several Occasions, published this year, although the book states "1709"
• Benjamin Tompson, The Gramarrian's Funeral, English Colonial America
• Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs

  Births

• April 23 – Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet
• July 19 – Philip Francis,, Anglo-Irish translator, poet and playwright
• August 29 – Olof von Dalin, Swedish poet
• October 16 – Albrecht von Haller, Swiss physiologist and poet
• December 8 – Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Welsh-born English diplomat and satirical poet
• December 18 – John Collier English caricaturist and satirical poet known by the pseudonym "Tim Bobbin"
• Also:
• * Georg Heinrich Behr, German poet
• * John Seccomb, Colonial American clergyman and poet
• * Thomas Seward, English poet
• * Jane Turell, Colonial American poet, daughter of Benjamin Colman

  Deaths

• March 15 - William Walsh, English poet and critic
• October 21 - Kata Szidónia Petrőczy, Hungarian Baroque writer
• December 27 - Johanna Eleonora De la Gardie, Swedish poet
• Also:
• * Francisco Ayerra de Santa María, first native-born Puerto Rican poet
• * Pan Lei, Chinese Qing dynasty scholar and poet