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Overview of the events of 1798 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1798.
1st London edition of
Wordsworth and
Coleridge's
Lyrical Ballads
Wordsworth in 1798
Coleridge in the 1790s
- February –
Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes the
conversation poem "
Frost at Midnight", commonly seen as the best of the series.
- April – Coleridge writes the
conversation poems "
Fears in Solitude" ("Written ... During the Alarm of an Invasion", soon published in a pamphlet) and "
The Nightingale".
-
April 16 – Coleridge's "
The Recantation: An Ode" appears in
The Morning Post, describing his disillusionment with the
French Revolution.
-
April 30 –
Richard Cumberland's comedy
The Eccentric Lover is first performed at the
Covent Garden Theatre in London.
-
September 18 –
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by
William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is first published anonymously in
Bristol by
Joseph Cottle (who also remains anonymous), marking the beginning of English literary
Romanticism.
[1] Most of the poems are by Wordsworth, including
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, 13 July 1798, but also opening with the first publication of Coleridge's
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, whose first London publication is on
October 4.
-
October 11 –
Elizabeth Inchbald's
Lovers' Vows (adapted from
Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe – the child of love) is first performed at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
-
October 12 – The rebuilt
Weimarer Hoftheater are inaugurated with the first performance of the first part of
Friedrich Schiller's dramatic trilogy
Wallenstein: Das Lager (The Camp), directed by
Goethe.
- unknown dates