1747 in poetry

Events

• February – Horace Walpole's tabby cat Selima drowns in a Chinese porcelain vase while pursuing goldfish in his London home; he commissions an epitaph from Thomas Gray, who sends him "" on March 1.

  Works published

• Sir William Blackstone, The Panthion, published anonymously, attribution uncertain
• William Dunkin, Boeotia
• Philip Francis, A Poetical Translation of the Works of Horace, parallel Latin and English texts; first collected edition
• Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, published anonymously
• Charlotte Lennox, Poems on Several Occasions
• William Livingston, Philosophic Solitude; or, The Choice of a Rural Life, celebrating rural life and nature; the book would go through five printings in the author's life; English Colonial America
• David Mallet, Amyntor and Theodora; or, The Hermit
• William Mason, Musaeus, a Monody to the memory of Pope, published anonymously; written in imitation of John Milton's Lycidas
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Six Town Eclogues, with some other Poems
• Samuel Niles, A Brief and Plain Essay on God's Wonder Working Providence for New-England , a verse account of the battle of Louisburg in Nova Scotia, described as a sign of God's favor for the victors; English Colonial America
• Josiah Relph, A Miscellany of Poems
• Tobias Smollett, Reproof: A satire, published anonymously; a sequel to Advice 1746
• Thomas Warton, the younger, The Pleasures of Melancholy, published anonymously

  Works wrongly dated as 1747

• William Collins, Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects, published 1746, although the book is dated this year

  Births

• January 12 – Susanna Blamire, English poet and writer of Lallans songs
• January 15 – John Aikin, English doctor, writer and poet
• February 19 – Heinrich Leopold Wagner, German writer and poet
• June 24 – John O'Keeffe, Irish dramatist and poet
• October 31 – Johann Karl Wezel, German poet, writer and educator
• December 22 – Johann Jakob Thill, German
• December 31 – Gottfried August Bürger

  Birthdate of Gottfried August Bürger

Deaths

• January 16 – Barthold Heinrich Brockes, German poet
• August – Leonard Welsted, English poet and "dunce" in Alexander Pope's writings
• Also:
• * Benjamin Colman, English Colonial American clergyman and poet
• * Thomas Gilbert