1796 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Events

July 21 - Death of the Scottish national poet, Robert Burns, in Dumfries, at the age of 37. His funeral takes place on July 25 while his wife, Jean, is in labour with their ninth child together, Maxwell. Burns is at first buried in the far corner of St. Michael's Churchyard in Dumfries. The volume of The Scots Musical Museum published this year includes his versions of the Scots poem "Auld Lang Syne" and "Charlie Is My Darling".

Mary Matilda Betham, Elegies, and Other Small Poems
William Lisle Bowles, Hope
Sir James Burges, The Birth and Triumph of Love
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
* Ode on the Departing Year
* Poems on Various Subjects including "Lines Written at Shurton Bars", the first full publication of "Religious Musings" and a revised version of "Monody on the Death of Chatterton"
M. G. Lewis, published anonymously, Village Virtues
Sir Walter Scott, The Chase, and William and Helen, translation from the German of Gottfried August Burger's Der Wilde Jager and Lenora
Robert Southey:
*Joan of Arc
* Poems, partly a reprint of poems originally published in 1795 and partly new works, including "After Blenheim"
William Taylor, Ellenore, translation
Ann Yearsley, ''The Rural Lyre''

Joel Barlow. The Hasty Pudding, a mock epic on the virtues of cornmeal mush, written in France; it became Barlow's most popular work
William Cliffton, The Group; or, An Elegant Representation, political verses defending Jay's Treaty and a satire on common people ignorantly discussing politics
Lemuel Hopkins, "The Guillotina; or, A Democratic Dirge", a New Year's poem praising George Washington and Alexander Hamilton while attacking Thomas Jefferson and his party
John Blair Linn, The Poetical Wanderer
Thomas Morris, Quashy; or, The Coal-Black Maid, the author's most notable poem, describing the life of a black slave in Martinique and criticizing the British and French systems of slavery
Robert Treat Paine, Jr., The Ruling Passion
Isaac Story, "All the World's a Stage", published under the pen name "The Stranger", blank verse; includes popular satirical sketches
St. George Tucker, The Probationary Odes of Jonathan Pindar, popular book of anti-Federalist satires on Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and others; written in the style of John Wolcot, who wrote under the pen name "Peter Pindar"; first published in 1793 in The National Gazette, which was edited by Philip Freneau, so the poems have been wrongly attributed to Freneau.

Johann von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, Musenalmanach für das Jahr 1797, published in October, including hundreds of epigrams, both cuttingly satirical and "tame", constructive general comments on literature and art:
* Xenien, 414 satirical epigrams targeting critics but with a broader aim of denouncing narrow-mindedness and poor-thinking among intellectuals, with each epigram a classical distich composed of a hexameter and pentameter; published in October in Musenalmanach für das Jahr 1797; principal critics targeted were L. H. Jakob, J. K. F. Manso, and F. Nicolai; deep offense and bitter reaction resulted
* Tabulae votivae, 124 "tame" distichs organized into 103 tabulae
* Vielen, 18 "tame" distichs
* Einer, 19 "tame" distichs presented as a single, continuous poem
J. H. Voss, Homers Werke, one of the most widely read German translations of Homer

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