1845 in poetry

Events

• January 10—Robert Browning, 32, and Elizabeth Barrett, 38, begin their correspondence when she receives a note declaring "I love you" from Browning, a little-known poet whose verses she had praised in her poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship"; on May 20 they meet for the first time. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
• April - Nathaniel Hawthorne first publishes "P.'s Correspondence", a short story and example of alternative history in which many poets and other writers and political figures who have died in real life are described as still living, and vice versa. The story, which appears in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, is later included in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse.

  Works published in English

United Kingdom">English poetry">United Kingdom

• W. E. Aytoun, writing under the pen name "Bon Gaultier", and Theodore Martin, The Book of Ballads, parodies
• Philip James Bailey, Festus
• Bernard Barton, Household Verses
• Horatius Bonar, The Bible Hymn-Book
• Robert Browning, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, including "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix", "The Lost Leader", and "The Flight of the Duchess"; reprinted in Poems 1849; see also Bells and Pomegranates 1841, 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1846
• Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, written in Stafford Gaol
• Louisa Costello, editor, The Rose Garden of Persia, translations from Persian, anthology
• Frederick William Faber, The Rosary, and Other Poems
• George Gilfillan, A Gallery of Literary Portraits, first series, including biographical sketches of William Hazlitt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas De Quincey, Walter Savage Landor, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey; second series 1850, third series 1854
• Robert Southey, Oliver Newman: A New-England tale, unfinished, also includes other poems; published posthumously
• William Wordsworth, The Poems of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate, has further revisions to poems and some published for the first time; see also Miscellaneous Poems 1820, Poetical Works 1827, Poetical Works 1857, and Poetical Works, Centenary Edition, 1870

  United States">American poetry">United States

• Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney, "Little Things", first published in a Sunday school paper, Gospel Teacher
• Thomas Holley Chivers, The Lost Pleiad, and Other Poems
• Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Poets and Poetry of England, anthology
• Henry Beck Hirst, The Coming of the Mammoth
• George Moses Horton, The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina, to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, written by himself, published through a subscription; Horton, a slave, hoped to buy his freedom with earnings from his poetry, but was unsuccessful, and was finally freed in 1865 as a result of the Civil War, Hillsborough, North Carolina: Heart
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
• *The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems
• * Editor, The Waif, anthology
• William Wilberforce Lord, Poems
• Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems, including "The Raven", a poem first published January 29 in the New York Evening Mirror
• William Gilmore Simms, Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, sonnets; Richmond
• Nathaniel Parker Willis, Poems, Sacred, Passionate, and Humorous

  Works published in other languages

• Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich, Ulrich von Hutten, Switzerland
• François-Xavier Garneau, Histoire du Canada, Volume 1, covering the history of New France from its founding until 1701, "a book which played a vital role in the emergence of a French Canadian literature, including poetry", according to The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics; Canada
• Théophile Gautier, Albertus, revised from the 1832 edition; poems in a wide variety of verse forms, often imitating other, more established Romantic poets such as Sainte-Beuve, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Victor Hugo ; includes "Albertus", written in 1831, a long narrative poem of 122 alexandrine stanzas parodying macabre and supernatural Romantic tales; France
• Heinrich Hoffmann, Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren, German
• Christien Ostrowski, translator, Œuvres poétiques de Michiewicz, translation into French from the original Polish of Adam Mickiewicz, Paris
• Sándor Petőfi, János Vitéz and Cipruslombok Etelke sírjára, Hungary
• Zacharias Topelius, Ljungblommor, Volume I, Finland, Swedish language

  Births

• February 19 – Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Thampuran, also known as Kerala Varma,, Indian, Malayalam-language poet and translator; also wrote in Malayalam, English and Sanskrit
• March 22 – John Banister Tabb, American poet, Catholic priest and professor of English
• April 24 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss
• April 30 – Alexander Anderson, Scots
• May 13 – Emily Manning, Australian
• May 14 – Louisa Sarah Bevington, English poet and anarchist
• May 17 – Jacint Verdaguer, Spanish poet writing in Catalan
• July 18 – Tristan Corbière, French
• August 10 – Abai Qunanbaiuly, Kazakh poet, composer, philosopher and cultural reformer
• October 14 – Olindo Guerrini, Italian
• October 21 – Will Carleton, American
• December 30 – Thomas Edward Spencer, Australian

  Deaths

• February 22 – Sydney Smith, English writer
• May 3 – Thomas Hood, English poet
• May 12 – János Batsányi, Hungarian poet
• May 26 – Jónas Hallgrímsson, Icelandic poet
• June 17 – Richard Harris Barham , English comic poet
• July 26 – John McPherson, Canadian poet
• November 11 – Maria Gowen Brooks, American poet
• Jahonotin Uvaysiy, Uzbek Sufi poet