1820 in poetry

Events

• January 16 - Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by "Northamptonshire peasant poet" John Clare is published in England by John Taylor
• April 22 - Walter Scott is created 1st baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
• The Cambridge Apostles, an intellectual discussion group, is established at the University of Cambridge in England
• John Keats begins showing worse signs of tuberculosis. On the suggestion of his doctors, he leaves London for Italy with his friend Joseph Severn and moves into a house on the Spanish Steps in Rome, where his health rapidly deteriorates. He will die in 1821.
• William Wordsworth completes another major revision of The Prelude. This revision was begun in 1819. His first version, in two parts, was done in 1798 and 1799. A second major revision, bringing the work to 13 parts, occurred in 1805 and 1806. The book is not published in any form until shortly after his death in 1850, in a 14-part version. The revisions do not just add text but remove and rearrange passages as well. Many of Wordsworth's friends read the book in manuscript during his lifetime.
• First translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into a modern language, Danish, Bjovulfs Drape, made by N. F. S. Grundtvig.

  Works published

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Alexander Balfour, Contemplation
• William Barnes, Poetical Pieces
• Bernard Barton:
• * A Day in Autumn
• * Poems
• William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion
• Elizabeth Barrett, The Battle of Marathon
• Edward Lytton Bulwer, Ismael: An Oriental Tale, with Other Poems
• Robert Burns, The Songs of Robert Burns
• Thomas Chalmers, Commercial Discourses
• John Clare, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery
• Introduction of the limerick in The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women
• William Combe, The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of Consolation, published anonymously, see also The Tour of Doctor Syntax, The Third Tour
• Bryan Waller Proctor, writing under the pen name "Barry Cornwall":
• * Marcian Colonna, verse drama
• * A Sicilian Story, with Diego de Montilla, and Other Poems
• George Croly, The Angel of the World; Sebastian; with Other Poems
• Ebenezer Elliott, Peter Faultless to his Brother Simon, and Other Poems
• Felicia Dorothea Hemans, The Sceptic

• John Abraham Heraud:
• * The Legend of St. Loy, with Other Poems
• * Tottenham
• William Hone:
• * The Man in the Moon, published anonymously, illustrated by George Cruikshank, ironically dedicated to George Canning
• * The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, published in August, about the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline; illustrated by George Cruikshank
• Leigh Hunt, Amyntas, translated from Torquato Tasso, dedicated to John Keats
• John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, and Other Poems including "To Autumn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to Psyche" and "Hyperion"
• Henry Hart Milman, The Fall of Jerusalem
• Thomas Love Peacock, The Four Ages of Poetry, which sparked Shelley to write his Defence of Poetry
• Sir Walter Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, in 12 volumes, first collected edition
• Percy Bysshe Shelley:
• * Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant, published anonymously; a burlesque on the trial of Queen Caroline
• * Prometheus Unbound: A lyrical drama, includes "The Sensitive Plant", "A Vision of the Sea", "Ode to Heaven", "Ode to the West Wind", "To a Cloud", "To a Skylark", "Ode to Liberty"
• Sydney Smith, "Who Reads an American Book", a notorious review of Adam Seybert's Annals of the United States, published by the well-known critic in the Edinburgh Review; Smith wrote: "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?"; widely noticed in the United States, the review prompts many responses; criticism
• William Wordsworth:
• * The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth
• * The River Duddon

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Maria Gowen Brooks, published anonymously "By a lover of the Fine Arts", Judith, Esther, and Other Poems, Boston: Cummings and Hilliard; the author's first book of poetry; praised by Robert Southey
• William Crafts, Sullivan's Island and Other Poems
• James Wallis Eastburn and Robert Charles Sands, Yamoyden, A Tale of the Wars of King Philip: in Six Cantos, New York: said to be "Published By James Eastburn"; very popular poem which treats Indian chief Metacomet as wise and courageous, a pioneering treatment of the Romantic image of the American Indian; when Eastburn died before completing the poem, Sands finished it and had it published
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Battle of Lovell's Pond", his first poem to appear in print, published on November 17 in the Portland, Maine, Gazette
• Robert Charles Sands, see Eastburn, above
• John Trumbull, The Poetical Works of John Trumbull... Containing M'Fingal, a Modern Epic Poem, Revised and Corrected, with copious explanatory notes; The Progress of Dulness; and a Collection of Poems on Various Subjects, Written Before and During the Revolutionary War, two volumes, Hartford: Lincoln & Stone
• Lorenzo Charqueño, The Raven, which was so intense that it caused a man to take his own life in anguish and terror of the monstrosity that is The Raven.

  Works published in other languages

• Alphonse de Lamartine, Méditations poétiques, France
• Alfred de Vigny, Le Bal, France
• Adam Mickiewicz, Ode to Youth, Poland
• Nguyễn Du, The Tale of Kiều, Vietnamese poet writing in chữ nôm script
• Alexander Pushkin, Ruslan and Ludmila, Russia
• Kondraty Ryleyev, To the Favourite, Russia
• Basílio da Gama, A declamação trágica, Brazilian poet who immigrated and published in Portugal, published posthumously

  Births

• January 17 - Anne Brontë, English novelist and poet, one of the Brontë sisters
• February 6 - Henry Howard Brownell, American poet and historian
• March 17 - Jean Ingelow, English poet and novelist
• April 16 - Charlotte Ann Fillebrown Jerauld, American poet and author
• April 26 - Alice Cary, American poet and short story writer, sister of poet Phoebe Cary
• July 5 - William John Macquorn Rankine, Scottish engineer, physicist, mathematician and poet
• October 28 - John Henry Hopkins, Jr., American clergyman and hymnist
• November 23 - Afanasy Fet, Russian lyric poet, essayist and short-story writer
• Dalpatram, Indian, Gujarati-language poet, father of poet Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi
• John Harris, English poet
• Maqbool Shah Kralawari, Indian, Kashmiri-language poet

  Deaths

• February - James Woodhouse, English
• February 5 - William Drennan, Irish
• March 20 - Eaton Stannard Barrett, Irish satirical poet and author
• September 16 - Nguyễn Du, Vietnamese
• September 21 - Joseph Rodman Drake, American
• November 12 - William Hayley, English writer