# 1811 in poetry

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

## Events

* March 25 — The University of Oxford expels the first-year undergraduate Percy Bysshe Shelley after he and Thomas Jefferson Hogg refuse to answer questions about The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet they published anonymously. Earlier this year, Shelley, as "A Gentleman of the University of Oxford", published in London Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, containing a 172-line anti-monarchical and anti-war poem dedicated to Harriet Westbrook, a work subsequently lost until 2006.
* November 21 — German poet Heinrich von Kleist shoots his terminally-ill lover Henriette Vogel and then himself, on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee near Potsdam.

### Lord Byron

* July 14–17 — Lord Byron arrives in London after an absence from England of a little more than two years on his Continental tour.
* October 16 — Byron receives a challenge from the poet Thomas Moore who had been offended by parts of English Bards.
* November 4 — Byron meets Thomas Campbell and Moore at the home of Samuel Rogers, where the company discusses literary topics.

## Works published
### United Kingdom

* Robert Bloomfield, The Banks of Wye
* Richard Cumberland, Retrospection
* Charles Lamb, Prince Dorus; or, Flattery Put Out of Countenance, published anonymously; for children
* Mary Russell Mitford, Christina, the Maid of the South Seas
* William Peebles, Burnomania: the celebrity of Robert Burns considered in a Discourse addressed to all real Christians of every Denomination
* Anna Maria Porter, Ballad Romances, and Other Poems
* Sir Walter Scott, The Vision of Don Roderick
* Mary Tighe, Psyche, with Other Poems
* John Wolcot, Carlton House Fete; or, The Disappointed Bard

### United States

* Hugh Henry Brackenridge, An Epistle to Walter Scott, Pittsburgh: Franklin Head Printing-office
* William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis
* John Cole, editor, The Minstrel: A Collection of Celebrated Songs Set to Music
* Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, The Poems and Prose Writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, two volumes, Philadelphia: Printed for the Proprietor
* Susanna Haswell Rowson, editor, A Present For Young Ladies; Containing Poems, Dialogues, Addresses, &c. &c. &c, As Recited by the Pupils of Mrs. Rowson's Academy, at the Annual Exhibitions, (Boston: Published by John West & Co.
* Samuel Woodworth, 1785-1842 [1811], Beasts at Law, or Zoologian Jurisprudence; A Poem, Satirical, Allegorical, and Moral, In Three Cantos, Translated from the Arabic of Sampfilius Philoerin, Z. Y. X. W. &c. &c. Whose Fables Have Made So Much Noise in the East, and Whose Fame Has Eclipsed That of Aesop. With Notes and Annotations New York: J. Harmer & Co.

### Other

* Bernhard Severin Ingemann, Digte ("Poems"), Denmark

## Births

Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
* February 1 – Arthur Hallam (died 1833), English poet, best known as the subject of In Memoriam A.H.H. a long poem by his best friend, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
* October 19 – Andreas Munch (died 1884), Norwegian poet
* date not known – Andreas Laskaratos Ανδρέας Λασκαράτος (died 1901), Greek satirical poet and writer

## Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
* January 8 – Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (born 1733), German writer, publisher, critic, author of satirical novels, regional historian, and a key figure of the Enlightenment in Berlin
* March 12 – Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev (born 1764), Galician Hebrew philologist, lexicographer, Biblical scholar and poet
* April 7 – Dositej Obradović (born 1742), Serbian author, philosopher, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia
* August 28 – John Leyden (born 1775), Scottish indologist and poet
* September 14 – James Grahame (born 1765), Scottish poet, lawyer and clergyman
* September 30 – Thomas Percy (born 1729), English bishop of Dromore, ballad collector and poet
* November 13 – Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (born 1773), American poet and editor; son of Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence