1845 in poetry

'"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or devil!

'By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —

'Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

'It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore —

'Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."


 * 'Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 * — Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

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

Events

 * January 10&mdash;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".
 * 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 had died in real life (such as John Keats, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron) are described as still living, and vice versa. The story, which appeared in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, was later included in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse (1846).

United Kingdom

 * William Aytoun (writing under the pen name "Bon Gaultier") and Theodore Martin, The Book of Ballads, parodies
 * Bernard Barton, Household Verses
 * Horatius Bonar, The Bible Hymn-Book
 * Robert Browning, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, (Volume 7 of Bells and Pomegranates ) 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
 * 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
 * Biography, criticism, scholarship
 * 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

United States

 * Thomas Holley Chivers, The Lost Pleiad, and Other Poems
 * 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
 * William Wilberforce Lord, Poems
 * 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
 * Anthologies
 * Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Poets and Poetry of England, anthology** * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, editor, The Waif, anthology

Works published in other languages

 * François-Xavier Garneau, Histoire du Canada, Volume 1, covering the history of New France from its founding until 1701 (Volume 2 published in 1846, Volume 3 published in 1848; revised version in three volumes published in 1852 ), "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 (an expanded version of Poésies 1830, which contained 40 pieces composed when the author was 18 years old, and which went unsold during the upheaval of the July Revolution); includes "Albertus", written in 1831, a long narrative poem of 122 alexandrine stanzas parodying macabre and supernatural Romantic tales; France
 * Christien Ostrowski, translator, Œuvres poétiques de Michiewicz ("Poetic Works of Mickiewicz"), translation into French from the original Polish of Adam Mickiewicz; Paris

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March 22 – John Banister Tabb, American (died 1909), American poet, Catholic priest, and professor of English
 * April 24 – Carl Spitteler (died 1924), Swiss
 * April 30 – Alexander Anderson (died 1909), Scots
 * May 17 – Jacint Verdaguer (died 1902), Spanish poet who wrote in Catalan
 * July 18 – Tristan Corbière (died 1875), French
 * October 14 – Olindo Guerrini (died 1916), Italian
 * Also:
 * Louisa Sarah Bevington, American
 * William Carleton, American
 * Kerala Varma Valia Koyittampuran, also known as Kerala Varma, (died 1914), Indian, Malayalam-language poet and translator who had an equal facility in writing in Malayalam, English and Sanskrit
 * Thomas E. Spencer (died 1910), Australian

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 22 – Sydney Smith
 * May 3 – Thomas Hood
 * May 12 – János Batsányi (born 1763), Hungarian poet
 * Also:
 * R.H. Barham
 * Maria Gowen Brooks, year of death uncertain, (born 1794), American
 * John McPherson