1877 in poetry

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

The Annus mirabilis of poetastery
In the annals of poetasting, 1877 stands out as a historic year.

The most startling incident in my life was the time I discovered myself to be a poet, which was in the year 1877. So wrote William Topaz McGonagall (1825 –1902) a Scottish weaver, "actor", and "poet" who would become comically renowned as one of the worst poets in the English language.

Also this year Poetaster Julia A. Moore, following up on the renown of her first book of verse, The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public of 1876, decided to appear before her public. She gave a reading and singing performance, with orchestral accompaniment, at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, opera house.

Moore managed to interpret the jeering as criticism of the orchestra.

United Kingdom

 * William Allingham, Songs, Ballads, and Stories
 * William Johnson Cory, published anonymously, Ionica II (see also Ionica 1858)
 * Austin Dobson, Proverbs in Porcelain
 * John Abraham Heraud, Uxmal; Macee de Leodepart
 * Edward Lear, Laughable Lyrics
 * George Moore, Flowers of Passion, published this year, although book states "1878"
 * William Morris, The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs
 * Coventry Patmore, published anonymously, The Unknown Eros, and Other Odes, odes 1–31; a second, expanded edition was published under Patmore's name in 1878

United States

 * Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Flower and Thorn
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poetical Works
 * Sidney Lanier, Poems
 * James Russell Lowell, Three Memorial Poems
 * Edmund Clarence Stedman, Hawthorne and Other Poems

Works published in other languages

 * Holger Drachmann:
 * Sange ved Havet ("Songs by the Sea"), Denmark
 * Derovre fra grænsen ("Over the Frontier there"), prose work, with interludes in verse, a series of impressions made on the poet by a visit to the scenes of the war with Germany; Denmark
 * Victor Hugo, France:
 * L'Art d'être grand-père
 * La Légende des siècles, second series (first series 1859, third series 1883)

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * March 16 – Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi (નાનાલાલ દલપતરામ કવિ), full name: Nanalal Dapatram Kavi, (died 1946), Indian, Gujarati-language author and poet; son of Kavishwar Dalpatram (1820-1898)
 * November 9 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal (aka "Allama Iqbal" [Urdu], and "Iqbal-e-Lahori" [Persian]; died 1938) Indian Muslim poet, philosopher and politician, who wrote in Persian and Urdu, praised as Muffakir-e-Pakistan ("The Thinker of Pakistan"), Shair-i-Mashriq ("The Poet of the East"), and Hakeem-ul-Ummat ("The Sage of Ummah"); his birthday is annually commemorated in Pakistan as "Iqbal Day", a national holiday
 * Also:
 * Sarah Cleghorn
 * Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz, also known as O. V. de L. Milosz (died 1939), Lithuanian diplomat who later became a French citizen, also a fiction writer, playwright, poet and essayist, a cousin of Czeslaw Milosz, on whom he exerted a great influence
 * Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer ഉള്ളൂര്‍ എസ്. പരമേശ്വരയ്യര്‍ (died 1949), Indian, Malayalam-language poet, scholar and government official who published a five-volume history of Malayalam literature

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * August 30 – Toru Dutt, 21 (born 1856), Indian poet, novelist and translator who wrote in English, of pulmonary tuberculosis