1815 in poetry

Events

• February 2 — Leigh Hunt released from prison after being jailed for criticizing the Prince Regent in The Examiner.
• May — North American Review founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
• September — Lord Byron writes Samuel Taylor Coleridge of his admiration of Christabel, which he has heard recited by Walter Scott; Coleridge sends Byron a copy of the poem, and after reading it Byron realizes he has unconsciously borrowed from it in Siege of Corinth; he offers to omit the lines; yet on publication the lines remain and Byron offers an explanatory note.
• Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude which lacks a title when he passes it along to his friend, Thomas Love Peacock. Peacock suggests the name "Alastor" from Roman mythology.
• First complete publication of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, in a Latin translation by Icelandic-Danish scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin.

  Works published

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• Lord Byron, Hebrew Melodies, including "She Walks in Beauty", "The Destruction of Sennacherib" published in April with musical settings; though expensive at a cost of one guinea, over 10,000 copies sell; by summer, an edition of Byron's poems without the musical settings is published.
• Louisa Costello, The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, and Other Poems
• William Cowper, Poems, by William Cowper, edited by John Johnson
• James Hogg, The Pilgrims of the Sun
• Leigh Hunt, The Descent of Liberty: A masque
• Ann Radcliffe, Poems
• Walter Scott:
• * "The Lord of the Isles"
• * The Field of Waterloo
• Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, United States
• Robert Southey, The Minor Poems of Robert Southey, a reprinting of Poems 1796 and Metrical Tales 1805
• William Wordsworth:
• * Poems, including a revised version of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and Lyrical Ballads ; a third volume published in 1820
• * The White Doe of Rylstone; or, The Fate of the Nortons

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of a Captain, and Teague O'Regan, his Servant, United States
• William Cullen Bryant, "To a Waterfowl", a widely popular and much anthologized poem in which the narrator's doubt and uncertainty is relieved by seeing a bird flying alone across the sky, inspiring belief in the guidance of God; later published in The North American Review in March 1818; Matthew Arnold called it "the best short poem in the language"
• Philip Freneau, A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, two volumes of previously unpublished verses reflecting strong patriotism; released during the War of 1812
• Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, the author's first published book

  Germany">German poetry">Germany

• Theodor Körner, Poetischer Nachlass

  Births

• March 29 - Hagiwara Hiromichi 萩原広道, Japanese late-Edo period scholar of literature, philology and nativist studies ; also author, translator and poet; known for his commentary and literary analysis of The Tale of Genji
• October 29 - Dan Emmett, American songwriter
• December 30 - Betty Paoli, born Barbara "Babette" Elisabeth Glück, Austrian poet
• Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, Tamil scholar and poet

  Deaths

• January 21 - Matthias Claudius, German poet
• April 10 - George Ellis English antiquarian and poet
• June - Elizabeth Hands, English poet
• December 29 - Samuel Henley, English clergyman, schoolteacher, college principal, antiquarian, writer and poet