1855 in poetry

Events

• June 12 – Gaisford Prize founded
• September 27 – Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London; Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so
• Belarusian writer Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich publishes «Гапон» (Hapon) in the Russian Empire, the first poem written wholly in modern Belarusian.

Works published

[[Canadian poetry|Canada]]

• Charles Heavysege:
  • The Revolt of Tartarus, a poem in six parts (Montreal)
  • Sonnets (Montreal: H. & G.M. Rose)

[[English poetry|United Kingdom]]

• William Allingham, The Music-Master, illustrated by Arthur Hughes, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais
• Matthew Arnold, Poems, Second Series (see also Poems 1853) including Balder Dead
• Philip James Bailey, The Mystic, and Other Poems (see also Festus 1839)
• William Cox Bennett:
  • Anti-Maud, "by a poet of the people"; parody of Alfred Lord Tennyson's Maud (see below)
  • War Songs
• Robert Browning, Men and Women, including Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writing under the pen name "Owen Meredith", Clytemnestra; The Earl's Return; The Artist, and Other Poems
• Thomas Campbell, The Pleasures of Hope, with Other Poems (first published 1799), illustrated by Birket Foster, George Housman Thomas and Harrison Weir
• Sydney Dobell, writing under the pen name "S. Yendeys", and Alexander Smith, Sonnets on the War
• Leigh Hunt, Stories in Verse, a collection of his narrative poems, original and translated
• George MacDonald, Within and Without, the author's first published book
• Louisa Shore, War Lyrics
• Alfred Tennyson, Maud and other poems, including The Charge of the Light Brigade (first published in a periodical in 1854), Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 1852 (see also William Cox Bennett's Anti-Maud parody, above)
• Catherine Winkworth, Lyra Germanica, first series, a popular translation of Versuch eines allgemeinen evangelischen Gesang- und Gebetbuchs by Christian Karl Josias, Freiherr von Busen (second series published in 1858)

[[American poetry|United States]]

• Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Bells: A Collection of Chimes
• Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne, Poetical Works, posthumously published
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha, a very popular poem, often satirized from within days of its publication through the 20th century
• Bayard Taylor:
  • Poems of the Orient
  • Poems of Home and Travel
• Lucy Terry, first known African American poet, "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746", a ballad, posthumously published
• Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, the first edition, self-published July 4; Whitman would make many revisions in succeeding editions

Other

• Ricardo Palma, Poesías ("Poems"); Peru
• Christian Winther, Hjortens Flugt ("The Flight of the Hart"); Denmark

Births

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

• May 1 – Marie Corelli (Mary Mackay) (died 1924), English novelist
• May 21 – Emile Verhaeren (died 1916), Belgian French
• August 3 – Henry Cuyler Bunner (died 1896), American
• September 12 – William Sharp (died 1905), Scottish poet writing as "Fiona Macleod"
• December 15 – Maurice Bouchor (died 1929), French
• December 28 – Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (died 1931), Uruguayan
• Date not known:
  • Devendranath Sen (died 1920), Indian, Bengali-language poet
  • Govardhanram N. Tripathi (died 1907), Indian, Gujarati-language novelist and poet
  • Alexander Young, Scottish

Deaths

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

• January 3 – János Majláth (born 1786), Hungarian
• January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford (born 1787), English writer
• January 25 – Dorothy Wordsworth (born 1771), English diarist and companion to her poet brother William
• January 26 – Gérard de Nerval (born 1808), French
• March 31 – Charlotte Brontë (born 1816), English novelist and poet
• April 6 – Robert Davidson (born 1778), Scottish peasant poet
• June 29 – Delphine de Girardin (born 1804), French writer
• July 6 – Andrew Crosse (born 1784), English 'gentleman scientist' and poet
• November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz (born 1798), Polish Romantic, dies in Istanbul while organizing Polish and Jewish volunteers to fight against Russia in the Crimean War
• December 3 – Robert Montgomery (born 1807), English
• December 18 – Samuel Rogers (born 1763), English
• Date not known
  • Mahmud Gami (born 1765), Indian, Kashmiri
  • Sunthorn Phu (born 1786), Thai

Notes

References

1. "Tennyson Reading 'Maud'". [[Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
2. Bentley, D. M. R. "Poetry in English".
3. (2004). "The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature". Oxford University Press.
4. (1986). "Annals of American Literature 1602-1983". Oxford University Press.
5. (1996). "Women Writers in the United States: A Timeline of Literary, Cultural, and Social History". Oxford University Press.
6. (1993). "The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics". MJF Books/Fine Communications.
7. Das, Sisir Kumar. (1995). "A Chronology of Literary Events 1911-1956". [[Sahitya Akademi]].
8. Mohan, Sarala Jag. (1996). "Handbook of Twentieth-century Literatures of India". Greenwood Publishing Group.