1759 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Events

 * Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch becomes professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Jena.
 * September 12 &mdash; Just before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, in the Seven Years' War, British General James Wolfe is said to have recited Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) to his officers, adding, "Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec tomorrow".

Great Britain

 * Sameul Butler, The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose, posthumous
 * Edward Capell, editor, Prolusions; or, Select Pieces of Antient Poetry, published anonymously this year, although the book states 1760
 * John Gilbert Cooper, translator, Ver-Vert; or, The Nunnery Parrot, published anonymously, translated from the French of Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset's mock epic Ver-Vert 1733
 * Mary Latter, The Miscellaneous Works
 * William Mason, Caractacus
 * Augustus Montague Toplady, Poems on Sacred Subjects, published aononymously (the author's 18th birthday was this year)

Other

 * Francis Williams, "Ode to Governor Haldane", the first known published poem by a Jamaican black
 * Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (criticism)

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 25 – Robert Burns, also known as "Rabbie Burns", "Scotland's favourite son", "the Ploughman Poet", "the Bard of Ayrshire" and, in Scotland, simply "The Bard" (died 1796), Scottish poet and a lyricist, called the national poet of Scotland
 * November 10 – Friedrich Schiller (died 1805), German poet and dramatist
 * Also:
 * Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, (died 1846), American

Deaths
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * June 12 – William Collins (born 1721), 37, English poet
 * August 24 – Ewald Christian von Kleist (born 1715), German poet
 * Sir Charles Hanbury Williams (born 1708), English diplomat and satiric poet