1831 in poetry

Works

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• John Banim and Michael Banim, The Chaunt of the Cholera
• Henry Glassford Bell, Summer and Winter Hours
• Thomas Campbell, Poland: A Poem. Lines on the View from St. Leonard's
• James Hogg, Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd
• Thomas Hood, The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer
• Charles Lamb, anonymously published, Satan in Search of a Wife
• Walter Savage Landor, Gebir, Count Julian and Other Poems
• Winthrop Mackworth Praed, The Ascent of Elijah
• Letitia Elizabeth Landon, writing under the pen name "L.E.L." Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832

United States">American poetry">United States

• William Cullen Bryant, "Song of Marion's Men", lyric poem, about Francis Marion, an American military figure in the American Revolution
• Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., "The Last Leaf", about an aging participant in the Boston Tea Party
• Lowell Mason, Church Psalmody
• Edgar Allan Poe, Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Second Edition, including early, unrevised versions of some of the author's most significant verses, including "To Helen", "Israfel" and "The Doomed City"; the preface, "Letter to B", discusses Poe's critical theories, much of which was borrowed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Samuel Francis Smith, "America", five stanzas; one of the most popular patriotic hymns in the United States, written at Lowell Mason's request; composed in 30 minutes; set to the music of the British anthem "God Save the King" and first sung at an Independence Day gathering in Boston; known for its opening line "My country 'tis of thee", published by Mason in The Choir 1832
• William Joseph Snelling, Truth: A New Year's Gift for Scribblers, a verse satire on contemporary poets, calling many of them inferior, especially those portraying American Indians with stereotypes
• John Greenleaf Whittier, Legends of New-England in Prose and Verse, the author's first book; uncomfortable with the gothic style of the volume, Whittier suppressed it later
• Emma Hart Willard, The Fulfillment of a Promise, includes "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep", about the poet's trip home from Europe, which became a very popular poem set to music by Joseph P. Knight
• Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''Poem Delivered Before the Society of United Brothers''

Other

• Victor Hugo, Les Feuilles d'automne, France
• Giacomo Leopardi, Canti, Italy
• George Métivier, Rimes Guernesiaises, Guernsey

Births

• March 18 – David Mills, Canadian poet, politician, author and jurist
• June 13 – James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist whose poetry was published by a friend in 1881, two years after his death
• July 7 – Jane Elizabeth Conklin, American poet and religious writer
• September 12 – Álvares de Azevedo, Brazilian
• October 17 – Isa Craig, Scots
• November 8 – Robert Bulwer-Lytton, English novelist and poet
• December 22 – Charles Stuart Calverley, English poet, wit and literary father of what has been called "the university school of humour"
• Date not known – Charles R. Thatcher, Australian

Deaths

• January 14 - Henry Mackenzie, Scottish novelist, writer, critic and poet
• January 21 - Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and novelist
• March 8 - Laurence Hynes Halloran, 64, Irish-Australian pioneer schoolteacher and journalist; publishes poetry before being shipped to Australia as a convict
• May 11 - John Trumbull, 81, American
• June 30 - William Roscoe, English poet
• December 23 - Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, 22, Indian poet writing in English and academic of Eurasian and Portuguese descent
• Also - Ryōkan 良寛, Japanese waka poet and calligrapher, Buddhist monk, often a hermit