1742 in poetry

Events

• Jonathan Swift suffers what appears to have been a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realizing his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. To protect him from unscrupulous hangers on, who had begun to prey on him, Swift's closest companions had him declared of "unsound mind and memory."

  Works published

• William Collins, Persian Eclogues, published anonymously; supposedly a translation
• Thomas Cooke, Mr. Cooke's Original Poems
• Philip Francis, translator, The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare of Horace, very popular translation, published this year in Dublin ); Irish writer published in England
• John Gwynn, attributed, The Art of Architecture: A Poem In Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry
• James Hammond, Love Elegies, published anonymously this year, although the book states "1743", with a preface by the Earl of Chesterfield
• James Merrick, The Destruction of Troy, translated from the Ancient Greek of Triphiodorus
• Sarah Parsons Moorhead, "To the Reverend Mr. James Davenport on His Departure from Boston", criticizes evangelical clergyman; English Colonial America
• William Shenstone, The School-Mistress, the second version, with 28 stanzas
• William Somervile, Field Sports
• Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, The Country Girl: An ode, published anonymously
• Edward Young, The Complaint, or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality: Night the First, published anonymously; Night the Second and Night the Third also published this year, a signal work by one of the Graveyard poets

  Births

• February 14 – :de:Peter Wilhelm Hensler|Peter Wilhelm Hensler, German writer, poet and lawyer
• February 17 - Dositej Obradović, Serbian author, philosopher, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia
• March 25 – William Combe, born William Combes, English writer, poet and adventurer
• July 1 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German writer, poet, mathematician and the first German professor of experimental physics
• September 9 – Thomas Penrose, English poet
• October 6 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian poet
• December 12 – Anna Seward, called "the Swan of Lichfield", English poet
• December 25 – Charlotte von Stein, German member of the court at Weimar, poet and close friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller
• Approximate date
• * Mary Alcock, née Cumberland, English poet, essayist and philanthropist
• * Anne Hunter, Scots poet and songwriter who writes the lyrics to many of Haydn’s songs

  Deaths

• April 27 – Nicholas Amhurst, English poet and political writer
• July 9 – John Oldmixon, English historian, pamphleteer, poet and critic
• July 19 – William Somervile, English poet
• December 17 – François-Joseph de Beaupoil de Sainte-Aulaire, French poet and army officer
• Date not known – David French, English Colonial American translator