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

• June – English poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey first meet, in Oxford while Coleridge is en route for a tour of Wales. In August, they meet again in Bristol^[1] (where they also meet local poet Robert Lovell and his sisters-in-law, who they will marry; he also introduces them to the publisher Joseph Cottle). Also beginning this month^[1] (following Robespierre's execution in July) they collaborate on the "historic drama" The Fall of Robespierre, published in October and Southey's first published poetry; he also writes the radical play Wat Tyler this summer.
• July 25 – French poet André Chénier is executed at age 31 in Paris two days before the fall of Robespierre. A free spirit who spoke his mind, had pronounced sympathies with the aristocracy but adhered to no particular group, Chenier had attacked the Jacobins in the Journal de Paris, then became quiet and lived outside Paris during the Reign of Terror. He had been arrested and held in the Prison Saint-Lazare before his execution.^[2]
• Robert Treat Paine founds the Federal Orrery, a semiweekly Federalist journal in Boston, Massachusetts. It features contributions from Joseph Dennie and Sarah Wentworth Morton, and includes poetry, satire and criticism.^[3]

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

• September 9 – John Hamilton Reynolds (died 1852), English poet, satirist, critic and playwright
• October 22 – Carlos Wilcox (died 1827), American poet
• November 3 – William Cullen Bryant (died 1878), American romantic poet, journalist and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post
• Approximate date – Maria Gowen Brooks (died c. 1845), American poet^[7]

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

• January 8 – Justus Möser (born 1720), German jurist and social theorist
• March 26 – Eleonore von Grothaus (born 1734), German poet
• April 5 – Susanna Blamire (born 1747), English poet and writer of Scottish (Lallans) songs
• June 8 – Gottfried August Bürger (born 1748), German poet
• July 25 – André Chénier (born 1762), French poet, executed
• November 22 – Alison Cockburn, née Rutherford (born 1713), Scottish writer and literary hostess

• Poetry