1820 in poetry

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

Events

 * January 16 - Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by "Northamptonshire peasant poet" John Clare is published in England by John Taylor
 * April 22 - Walter Scott is created 1st Baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom.
 * The Cambridge Apostles, an intellectual discussion group, is established at the University of Cambridge in England.
 * John Keats begins showing worse signs of tuberculosis. On the suggestion of his doctors, he leaves London for Italy with his friend Joseph Severn and moves into a house on the Spanish Steps in Rome, where his health rapidly deteriorates. He will die in 1821.
 * William Wordsworth completes 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 is not published in any form until shortly after his death in 1850, in a 14-part version. The revisions do not just add text but remove and rearrange passages as well. Many of Wordsworth's friends read the book in manuscript during his lifetime.
 * First translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into a modern language, Danish, Bjovulfs Drape, made by N. F. S. Grundtvig.

United Kingdom

 * Alexander Balfour, Contemplation
 * William Barnes, Poetical Pieces
 * Bernard Barton:
 * A Day in Autumn
 * Poems
 * William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (completed; publication commenced 1804)
 * Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), 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, France
 * Alfred de Vigny, Le Bal, France
 * Adam Mickiewicz, Ode to Youth (Oda do młodości), Poland
 * Nguyễn Du, The Tale of Kiều (斷腸新聲, Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh, "A New Cry From a Broken Heart", better known as 傳翹 Truyện Kiều), Vietnamese poet writing in chữ nôm script
 * Alexander Pushkin, Ruslan and Ludmila (Руслан и Людмила, Ruslan i Lyudmila), Russia
 * Kondraty Ryleyev, To the Favourite, Russia
 * Basílio 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:
 * January 17 – Anne Brontë (died 1849), English (Yorkshire) novelist and poet, one of the Brontë sisters
 * January 21 – Dalpatram (Kavishwar Dalpatram Dahyabhai, died 1898), Indian, Gujarati-language poet, father of poet Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi
 * February 6 – Henry Howard Brownell (died 1872), American poet and historian
 * March 17 – Jean Ingelow (died 1897), English poet and novelist
 * April 16 – Charlotte Ann Fillebrown Jerauld (died 1845), American poet and author
 * April 26 – Alice Cary (died 1871), American poet and short story writer, sister of poet Phoebe Cary
 * July 5 – William John Macquorn Rankine (died 1872), Scottish engineer, physicist, mathematician and poet
 * October 14 – John Harris (died 1884), English (Cornish) poet
 * October 28 – John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (died 1891), American clergyman and hymnist
 * November 23 (December 5 N.S.) – Afanasy Fet (died 1892), Russian lyric poet, essayist and short-story writer
 * December 12 – Carolina Coronado (died 1911), Spanish Romantic poet, member of Hermandad Lírica
 * Maqbool Shah Kralawari (died 1876), Indian, Kashmiri-language poet

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February – James Woodhouse (born 1735), English
 * February 5 – William Drennan (born 1754), Irish
 * March 20 – Eaton Stannard Barrett (born 1786), Irish satirical poet and author
 * September 16 – Nguyễn Du (born 1766), Vietnamese
 * September 21 – Joseph Rodman Drake (born 1795), American
 * November 12 – William Hayley (born 1745), English writer