1821 in poetry

Here lies one whose name was writ in water. — words chiselled onto the tombstone of John Keats, at his request

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

Events

 * The Saturday Evening Post founded in Philadelphia
 * Lord Byron writes Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari and Cain
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab: a philosophical poem (1813) is distributed by an unauthorized publisher in London leading to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Vice.
 * English aristocrat George Howard, at this time studying at the University of Oxford, obtains both the chancellor's and the Newdigate prizes there for a Latin poem, Paestum, and an English one.
 * At about this date Sunthorn Phu is imprisoned and begins his epic poem Phra Aphai Mani.

United Kingdom

 * Edwin Atherstone, The Last Days of Herculaneum
 * Joanna Baillie, Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters
 * John Banim, The Celt's Paradise
 * Thomas Lovell Beddoes, The Improvisatore, in Three Fyttes, with Other Poems
 * Lord Byron:
 * Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice; The Prophecy of Dante, Marino Faliero performed April 25
 * Don Juan, cantos 3–5, published anonymously, see also Don Juan 1819, 1823, 1824
 * Sardanapalus; The Two Foscari; Cain, verse drama
 * The Vision of Judgment (spelling is correct)
 * Heaven and Earth
 * The Prophecy of Dante
 * John Clare, The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems
 * William Gifford, The Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus, in Latin and English
 * Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Dartmoor
 * William Hone, The Political Showman — At Home!, illustrated by George Cruikshank; those lampooned include Wellington, Lord Liverpool, George IV, Lord Castlereagh and John Stoddart, editor of The Times
 * Leigh Hunt, The Months
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon ("L.E.L."), The Fate of Adelaide, and Other Poems
 * Robert Millhouse, Vicissitude, a poem in four books and other pieces
 * Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies, the first authorized edition of the author's lyrics; 10 editions by 1832
 * Hannah More, Bible Rhymes
 * John Henry Newman and John William Bowden, St. Bartholomew's Eve, published anonymously
 * John William Polidori (probable suicide August 24), The Fall of the Angels, published anonymously
 * Bryan Waller Procter, writing under the pen name "Barry Cornwall", Mirandola: A tragedy, verse drama
 * J. H. Reynolds, The Garden of Florence
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley:
 * Epipsychidion, published anonymously
 * Adonais: An elegy on the death of John Keats
 * A Defence of Poetry
 * Horatio Smith, Amarynthus, the Nympholept, published anonymously
 * Robert Southey, A Vision of Judgement, in which Southey criticizes Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, labeling them members of what Southey calls the "Satanic School" of poetry; Byron later decides he likes the name, and responds with his own work, A Vision of Judgment (with slightly different spelling in the title)

United States

 * Paul Allen, Noah, about the Bible story, but also discusses slavery and America's place in God's providence; revised by John Neal
 * William Cullen Bryant, Poems, eight poems, including "The Ages", a poem in Spenserian stanzas on the history of mankind and expressing a positive outlook on the future, delivered at the Harvard commencement; also the last significant revision of "Thanatopsis"; the book, issued by Richard Henry Dana, Edward Channing and Willard Phillips, is a critical success which promotes Bryant's reputation, but it does not sell well
 * James Gates Percival, Poems, including the first part of "Prometheus"

Works published in other languages

 * Alexander Pushkin denies it but is widely thought to be the author this April of The Gabrieliad (Гавриилиада, Gavriiliada), Russian, a sexually explicit, blasphemous work
 * Heinrich Heine, Gedichte, German, his first published collection
 * Wilhelm Müller, German
 * Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten ("Poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn-player"), begins publication
 * Lieder der Griechen ("Songs of the Greeks"), begins publication

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * February 4 - Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (died 1873), American sonneteer
 * March 10 - Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (died 1898), Scottish Gaelic
 * March 17 - Adelia Cleopatra Graves (died 1895), American poet, educator, author
 * March 19 - Richard Francis Burton (died 1890), English geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, Egyptologist and diplomat
 * March 24 - Jeanette Threlfall (died 1880), English hymnwriter and author of religious poems
 * March 25 - Isabella Banks, née Varley (died 1897), English
 * April 9 - Charles Baudelaire (died 1867), French
 * May 29 - Frederick Locker-Lampson (died 1895), English
 * July 8 - Maria White Lowell (died 1853), American poet and abolitionist
 * September 24 - Cyprian Norwid (died 1883), Polish
 * October 15 - Alfred Meissner (died 1885), Austrian
 * November 28 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (died 1877), Russian
 * December 1 - Jane C. Bonar (died 1884), Scottish hymnwriter

Deaths
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * January 7 – Anne Hunter (born 1742), Scots poet and songwriter who wrote the lyrics to many of Haydn’s songs
 * January 14 – Jens Zetlitz (born 1761), Norwegian poet and pastor
 * February 23 – John Keats (born 1795), English, in Rome from tuberculosis, buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. His last request is followed, and so he is buried under a tombstone without his name appearing on it but instead the words "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
 * March 17 – Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes (born 1757), French
 * April 15 – Johann Christoph Schwab (born 1743), German
 * May 11 – George Howe (born 1769), the first Australian editor, poet and early printer
 * July 11 – Lucy Terry (born circa 1730 in Africa), first known African American poet, author of "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746", a ballad first printed in 1855
 * Undated – Sukey Vickery (born 1799), American novelist and poet (a woman)