1845 in poetry

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

Events

January 10—Robert Browning, 32, and Elizabeth Barrett, 38, begin their correspondence when she receives a note declaring "I love you" from Browning, a little-known poet whose verses she had praised in her poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship"; on May 20 they meet for the first time. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
April - Nathaniel Hawthorne first publishes "P.'s Correspondence", a short story and example of alternative history in which many poets and other writers and political figures who have died in real life are described as still living, and vice versa. The story, which appears in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, is later included in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse.

W. E. Aytoun, writing under the pen name "Bon Gaultier", and Theodore Martin, The Book of Ballads, parodies
Philip James Bailey, Festus
Bernard Barton, Household Verses
Horatius Bonar, The Bible Hymn-Book
Robert Browning, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, including "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix", "The Lost Leader", and "The Flight of the Duchess"; reprinted in Poems 1849; see also Bells and Pomegranates 1841, 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1846
Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, written in Stafford Gaol
Louisa Costello, editor, The Rose Garden of Persia, translations from Persian, anthology
Frederick William Faber, The Rosary, and Other Poems
George Gilfillan, A Gallery of Literary Portraits, first series, including biographical sketches of William Hazlitt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas De Quincey, Walter Savage Landor, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey; second series 1850, third series 1854
Robert Southey, Oliver Newman: A New-England tale, unfinished, also includes other poems; published posthumously
William Wordsworth, The Poems of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate, has further revisions to poems and some published for the first time; see also Miscellaneous Poems 1820, Poetical Works 1827, Poetical Works 1857, and Poetical Works, Centenary Edition, 1870

Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney, "Little Things", first published in a Sunday school paper, Gospel Teacher
Thomas Holley Chivers, The Lost Pleiad, and Other Poems
Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Poets and Poetry of England, anthology
Henry Beck Hirst, The Coming of the Mammoth
George Moses Horton, The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina, to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, written by himself, published through a subscription; Horton, a slave, hoped to buy his freedom with earnings from his poetry, but was unsuccessful, and was finally freed in 1865 as a result of the Civil War, Hillsborough, North Carolina: Heart
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
*The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems
* Editor, The Waif, anthology
William Wilberforce Lord, Poems
James Russell Lowell, "The Present Crisis"
Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems, including "The Raven", a poem first published January 29 in the New York Evening Mirror
William Gilmore Simms, Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, sonnets; Richmond
Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''Poems, Sacred, Passionate, and Humorous''

Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich, Ulrich von Hutten, Switzerland
François-Xavier Garneau, Histoire du Canada, Volume 1, covering the history of New France from its founding until 1701, "a book which played a vital role in the emergence of a French Canadian literature, including poetry", according to The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics; Canada
Théophile Gautier, Albertus, revised from the 1832 edition; poems in a wide variety of verse forms, often imitating other, more established Romantic poets such as Sainte-Beuve, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Victor Hugo ; includes "Albertus", written in 1831, a long narrative poem of 122 alexandrine stanzas parodying macabre and supernatural Romantic tales; France
Heinrich Hoffmann, Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren, German
Christien Ostrowski, translator, Œuvres poétiques de Michiewicz, translation into French from the original Polish of Adam Mickiewicz, Paris
Sándor Petőfi, János Vitéz and Cipruslombok Etelke sírjára, Hungary
Zacharias Topelius, Ljungblommor, Volume I, Finland, Swedish language

Death years link to the corresponding " in poetry" article:

February 19 – Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran, also known as Kerala Varma,, Indian, Malayalam-language poet and translator; also wrote in Malayalam, English and Sanskrit
March 22 – John Banister Tabb, American poet, Catholic priest and professor of English
April 24 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss
April 30 – Alexander Anderson, Scots
May 13 – Emily Manning, Australian
May 14 – Louisa Sarah Bevington, English poet and anarchist
May 17 – Jacint Verdaguer, Spanish poet writing in Catalan
July 18 – Tristan Corbière, French
July 26 – Martina Swafford, American poet.
August 10 – Abai Qunanbaiuly, Kazakh poet, composer, philosopher and cultural reformer
October 14 – Olindo Guerrini, Italian
October 21 – Will Carleton, American
December 30 – Thomas Edward Spencer, Australian

Birth years link to the corresponding " in poetry" article: