1820 in poetry

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

Events

 * Formation of the Apostles, a Cambridge University intellectual society
 * John Keats begins showing worse signs of tuberculosis. On the suggestion of his doctors, he left London for Italy with his friend Joseph Severn. Keats moved into a house on the Spanish Steps, in Rome, where his health rapidly deteriorated. He would die in 1821.
 * Sir Walter Scott made a baronet
 * William Wordsworth completed another major revision of The Prelude. This revision was begun in 1819. His first version, in two parts, was done in 1798 and 1799. A second major revision, bringing the work to 13 parts, occurred in 1805 and 1806. The book was not published in any form until shortly after his death in 1850, in a 14-part version. The revisions didn't just add text but removed and rearranged passages as well. Many of Wordsworth's friends read the book in manuscript during his lifetime.

United Kingdom

 * Alexander Balfour, Contemplation
 * William Barnes, Poetical Pieces
 * Bernard Barton:
 * A Day in Autumn
 * Poems
 * Elizabeth Barrett, The Battle of Marathon
 * Edward Lytton Bulwer (later "Bulwer-Lytton"), Ismael: An Oriental Tale, with Other Poems
 * Robert Burns, The Songs of Robert Burns
 * Thomas Chalmers, Commercial Discourses
 * John Clare, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery
 * Introduction of the limerick in The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women
 * William Combe, The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of Consolation, published anonymously, see also The Tour of Doctor Syntax (1812), The Third Tour (1821)
 * Bryan Waller Proctor, writing under the pen name "Barry Cornwall":
 * Marcian Colonna, verse drama
 * A Sicilian Story, with Diego de Montilla, and Other Poems
 * George Croly, The Angel of the World; Sebastian; with Other Poems
 * Ebenezer Elliott, Peter Faultless to his Brother Simon, and Other Poems
 * Felicia Dorothea Hemans, The Sceptic
 * John Abraham Heraud:
 * The Legend of St. Loy, with Other Poems
 * Tottenham
 * William Hone:
 * The Man in the Moon, published anonymously, illustrated by George Cruikshank, ironically dedicated to George Canning
 * The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, published in August, about the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline; illustrated by George Cruikshank
 * Leigh Hunt, Amyntas, translated from Torquato Tasso, dedicated to John Keats
 * John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, and Other Poems including "To Autumn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to Psyche" and "Hyperion"
 * Henry Hart Milman, The Fall of Jerusalem
 * Thomas Love Peacock, The Four Ages of Poetry, which sparked Shelley to write his Defence of Poetry
 * Sir Walter Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, in 12 volumes, first collected edition
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley:
 * Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant, published anonymously; a burlesque on the trial of Queen Caroline
 * Prometheus Unbound: A lyrical drama, includes "The Sensitive Plant", "A Vision of the Sea", "Ode to Heaven", "Ode to the West Wind", "To a Cloud", "To a Skylark", "Ode to Liberty"
 * Sydney Smith, "Who Reads an American Book", a notorious review of Adam Seybert's Annals of the United States, published by the well-known critic in the Edinburgh Review; Smith wrote: "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?"; widely noticed in the United States, the review prompts many responses; criticism
 * William Wordsworth:
 * The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth
 * The River Duddon

United States

 * Maria Gowen Brooks, published anonymously "By a lover of the Fine Arts", Judith, Esther, and Other Poems, Boston: Cummings and Hilliard; the author's first book of poetry; praised by Robert Southey
 * William Crafts, Sullivan's Island and Other Poems
 * James Wallis Eastburn and (anonymously, as "his friend") Robert Charles Sands, Yamoyden, A Tale of the Wars of King Philip: in Six Cantos, New York: said to be "Published By James Eastburn"; very popular poem which treats Indian chief Metacomet ("King Philip") as wise and courageous, a pioneering treatment of the Romantic image of the American Indian; when Eastburn died before completing the poem, Sands finished it and had it published
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Battle of Lovell's Pond", his first poem to appear in print, published on November 17 in the Portland, Maine, Gazette
 * Robert Charles Sands, see Eastburn, above
 * John Trumbull, The Poetical Works of John Trumbull ... Containing M'Fingal, a Modern Epic Poem, Revised and Corrected, with copious explanatory notes; The Progress of Dulness; and a Collection of Poems on Various Subjects, Written Before and During the Revolutionary War, two volumes, Hartford: Lincoln & Stone
 * Lorenzo Charqueño, The Raven, which was so intense that it caused a man to take his own life in anguish and terror of the monstrosity that is The Raven.

Works published in other languages

 * Alphonse de Lamartine, Méditations poétiques
 * Aleksandr Pushkin, Ruslan and Ludmila
 * Basilio da Gama, A declamação trágica ("A Tragic Declamation"), Brazilian poet who immigrated and published in Portugal, published posthumously (died 1795)

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * Anne Brontë
 * Henry Howard Brownell, American
 * Alice Patty Lee Cary, American
 * Kavishwar Dalpatram Dahyabhai, popularly known as just "Dalpatram" (died 1898), Indian, Gujarati-language poet; the father of poet Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi
 * John Harris (Cornwall)
 * John Henry Hopkins, Jr., American
 * Jean Ingelow
 * Maqbool Shah Kralawari (died 1876), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet
 * William J. Macquorn Rankine, Scots

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * Joseph Rodman Drake (born 1795), American
 * William Hayley
 * James Woodhouse