1797 in poetry
# 1797 in poetry

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

## Events

* June 5 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, living at Nether Stowey in the Quantock Hills, renews his friendship with William Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, who take a house nearby.
* August – The British Home Office sends an agent to Nether Stowey to investigate Coleridge and Wordsworth who are suspected of being French spies.
* October – Coleridge composes Kubla Khan in an opium-induced dream and writes down only a fragment of it on waking.
* November – Wordsworth suggests to Coleridge the theme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner on a walk in the Quantocks.
* William Blake illustrates Edward Young's Night-Thoughts.

## Works published

### United Kingdom

* Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poems ... Second Edition
* William Drennan, The Wake of William Orr
* George Dyer, The Poet's Fate
* Alexander Pope, The Works of Alexander Pope, edited by Joseph Warton, posthumous
* Charlotte Smith, Elegaic Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 2, sequel to Elegaic Sonnets 1784
* Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins and Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, Tributes of Affection by a Lady and her Brother
* Mary Wollstonecraft, "On Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature", Monthly Magazine (April 1797), criticism

### United States

* Sarah Wentworth Morton, publishing under the name "Philenia", Beacon Hill: A Local Poem, Historic and Descriptive, on the American Revolution; conventional verse in neoclassical form
* Robert Treat Paine Jr. "The Ruling Passion", the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa poem for this year

## Works wrongly dated this year

* Robert Southey, Poems, actually published in 1796, although the title page states "1797"

## Births

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

* January 10 – Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (died 1848), German
* March 27 – Alfred de Vigny (died 1863), French poet, playwright and novelist
* August 30 – Mary Shelley, née Godwin (died 1851), English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer and poet
* October 13 – William Motherwell (died 1835), Scottish
* December 13 – Heinrich Heine (died 1856), German
* December 27 – Mirza Ghalib (died 1869), Indian classical Urdu and Persian poet
* Also:
   * James Wallis Eastburn (died 1819), American
   * George Moses Horton (died 1883), African-American

## Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

* March 18 – Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (born 1746), German poet and dramatist
* April 7 – William Mason (born 1724), English poet, editor and gardener
* June 28 – George Keate (born 1729), English poet and writer
* Also:
   * Joseph Friedrich Engelschall (born 1739), German poet
   * Wang Zhenyi (born 1768), Chinese Qing dynasty female poet and astronomer
   * Yuan Mei (born 1716), Chinese Qing dynasty poet, scholar, artist and gastronome
   * Molla Panah Vagif (born 1717), Azerbaijani poet
