1791 in poetry

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

Events

 * William Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws contains enthusiastic descriptions of scenery that influenced writers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who called the book one of "high merit", and William Wordsworth
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge composes On Quitting School, although it won't be published until 1834, after his death.

United Kingdom

 * John Aikin, Poems
 * William Blake, published anonymously, "The French Revolution"
 * Robert Burns, "Tam o' Shanter", published in the Edinburgh Herald March 18; also published in F. Grose, ''The Antiquities of Scotland, volume 2, this year
 * William Cowper, The Iliad and the Odyssey
 * Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden, consisting of two poems about scientific matters and their implications: "The Loves of the Plants", which became popular when it was originally published separately in 1789, and "The Economy of Vegetation", which celebrates technological innovation, scientific discovery and offers scientific theories. The poems, thought to be associated with the politics of the French Revolution and sexual licentiousness, were controversial (see the parody Loves of the Triangles 1798)
 * William Gifford, published anonymously, The Baviad
 * Francis Grose, The Antiquities of Scotland, Volume 2 (Volume 1 published in 1789), including "Tam o' Shanter" by Robert Burns
 * George Huddesford, editor and author, published anonymously, Salmagundi: A miscellaneous combination of original poetry, largely written by Huddesford
 * Richard Polwhele, Poems
 * Christopher Smart, The Poems of the late Christopher Smart, edited by Francis Newbey, assisted by Smart's nephew, Christopher Hunter

United States

 * Richard Alsop, Theodore Dwight, Elihu Hubbard Smith, Lemuel Hopkins and Mason Cogswell, The Echo, Federalist verse satire ridiculing Thomas Jefferson and other anti-Federalists; published first in the American Mercury
 * Benjamin Youngs Prime, Columbia's Glory, depicting the Revolutionary War, the only work by the author to be published under his own name
 * Jenny Fenno, Occasional Compositions in Prose and Verse, United States
 * Thomas Morris, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
 * Benjamin Youngs Prime, Columbia's Glory, or British Pride Humbled

Works published in other languages

 * Basilio da Gama, Quitúbia; Brazil

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 15 – Franz Grillparzer (died 1872), Austrian dramatic poet
 * June 9 – John Howard Payne, (died 1852), American actor, playwright, author and American consul in Tunis (1842–1852); most remembered as creator of "Home! Sweet Home!"
 * September 1 – Lydia Sigourney died 1865), American
 * September 7 – Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (died 1863), Italian poet famous for his sonnets in Romanesco, the dialect of Rome
 * December 14:
 * Johan Ludvig Heiberg (died 1860), Danish
 * Charles Wolfe (died 1823), Irish poet and Anglican clergyman
 * Also:
 * Paramananda (Kashmiri poet) (died 1864), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
 * Ōtagaki Rengetsu (died 1875), Japanese Buddhist nun, poet, potter, painter, and calligrapher

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 11 – William Williams Pantycelyn (born 1717), Wales poet, prose and hymn writer
 * June 27 – Johann Heinrich Merck (born 1741), German critic, essayist, editor, writer and poet; from suicide
 * September 17 – Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (born 1750), Spanish
 * October 10 – Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (born 1739), German poet, organist, composer and journalist
 * Also:
 * John Frederick Bryant
 * John Ellis (poet)
 * Francis Grose (born 1731), Swiss antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer
 * John Wesley (born 1703), cleric and Christian theologian who was the founder of Methodism, psalmist and hymnist
 * William Woty
 * Elias Caspar Reichard (born 1714), German