1879 in poetry

	… 1869; 1870; 1871; 1872; 1873; 1874; 1875; ; 1876; 1877; 1878; 1879; 1880; 1881; 1882; ; 1883; 1884; 1885; 1886; 1887; 1888; 1889 …;
	In literature 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882
	Art; Archaeology; Architecture; Literature; Music; Philosophy; Science; +...

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

Events

October 10 – American poet Ethel Lynn Beers' collected works "All Quiet Along The Potomac" and Other Poems (including her most well-known work "All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight") are published; the following day she dies aged 52 at Orange, New Jersey.
Critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton takes the alcoholic poet Algernon Charles Swinburne into his permanent care at Watts' Putney home.

Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia; or, The Great Renunciation (see also The Light of the World 1891)^[1]
Louisa Sarah Bevington, Key-Notes^[1]
Robert Bridges, Poems (see also Poems 1873, 1880)^[1]
Robert Browning, Dramatic Idyls,^[1] including "Ivàn Ivànovitch" (see also dramatic Idyls 1880^[1])
Edmund Gosse, New Poems^[1]
Kate Greenaway, Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children^[1]
Emily Pfeiffer, Quarterman's Grace, and Other Poems^[1]
Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Lover's Tale^[1]

Marcellus Emants, "Lilith", Netherlands
Louis-Honoré Fréchette, Fleurs boréales, winner of the Prix Montyon of the French Academy; French language; Quebec, Canada^[3]
José Hernández, Martin Fierro, the second part of an epic Spanish-language Argentine poem in which the hero defends his way of life against encroaching socialization and civilization; an example of the Gaucho poetry literary movement in Argentina (see also first part 1872)^[4]
Victor Hugo, L'Art d'être grand-père, France^[5]
Stéphane Mallarmé, Les Dieux antiques, France

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

February 13 – Sarojini Naidu (died 1949) also known by the sobriquet Bharatiya Kokila ("The Nightingale of India"), poet (in English) and elected official who was president of the Indian National Congress and the first woman governor of Uttar Pradesh
March 14 – Harold Monro (died 1932), English poet, proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London
March 26 – Joseph Campbell (died 1987), Irish
March 28 – Terence MacSwiney (died on hunger strike 1920), Irish playwright, poet and politician
April 3 – Takashi Nagatsuka 長塚節 (died 1915), Japanese poet and novelist
April 14 – James Branch Cabell (died 1958), American writer
May 10 – James Alexander Allan (died 1967), Australian poet and local historian
June 21 – Leslie Holdsworth Allen (died 1964), Australian
September 13 – James Larkin Pearson (died 1981), American poet, newspaper publisher; North Carolina Poet Laureate, 1953–1981
October 2 – Wallace Stevens (died 1955), American
October 13 – Patrick Joseph Hartigan (died 1952), Australian
November 10 – Vachel Lindsay (died 1931), American
December 18 – Paul Klee (died 1940), Swiss painter and poet of German nationality

Grave of Sarah Josepha Hale in Philadelphia

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

February 2 – Richard Henry Dana Sr. (born 1787), American poet, critic and lawyer
April 30 – Sarah Josepha Hale (born 1788), American writer and poet, author of the popular nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and successful promoter of Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday
August 21 – Frances Browne (born 1816), Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet
September 20 – Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon (born 1829), Canadian novelist and poet
October 11 – Ethel Lynn Beers (born 1827), American poet
November 5 – James Clerk Maxwell (born 1831), Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist
date not known
- Chō Kōran (born 1804), female Japanese poet and nanga artist
- Aristotelis Valaoritis (born 1824), Greek poet

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860634-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ludwig, Richard M.; Nault, Clifford A. Jr. (1986). "Preface". Annals of American Literature: 1602–1983. New York: Oxford University Press. p. vi. If the title page is one year later than the copyright date, we used the latter since publishers frequently postdate books published near the end of the calendar year.
^ Story, Noah (1967). "Poetry in French". The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature. Oxford University Press. pp. 651–654.
^ Henderson, Helene; Pederson, Jay P., eds. (2000). Twentieth-Century Literary Movements Dictionary. Detroit: Omnigraphics Inc.
^ Rees, William (1992). The Penguin Book of French Poetry: 1820-1950. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-042385-3.