Poets across cultures have given us verses that capture love, loss, hope, and the human spirit. Among the many celebrated names, here are some of the most famous poets whose works continue to inspire readers worldwide:
- Homer – Ancient Greek poet, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
- William Shakespeare – English playwright and poet, master of sonnets and timeless dramas.
- John Keats – Romantic poet known for his odes and vivid imagery.
- Edgar Allan Poe – American writer of gothic poetry and tales, famous for The Raven.
- Maya Angelou – Influential American poet and activist, author of And Still I Rise.
"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."
Poetry is a literary genre that goes as old as some of the most ancient texts archaeologists ever found. The Epic Of Gilgamesh was written in Sumerians more than 7000 years ago. It is to this day, the oldest piece of literature ever found.
Some of the earliest poetry writers can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece, almost 3000 years ago. Since then poetry has flourished, evolved and developed in many different styles, all over the world, from Japanese short haikus to major romantic British poets Percy Bysshe Shelley or William Wordsworth and American poetry figures such as Charles Bukowski, Shel Silverstein or Ralph Waldo Emerson. Below is a list of five of the most famous poets of all time whose work influenced their poet peers forever.
Here are some of the best poets of all time, and some of their greatest poems:
Classic Poetry: Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey
“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”
Homer, The Iliad
Even the two major poetry works that are commonly attributed to Homer is a subject of controversy. Some academics think that both texts were written by the same man, a poetry genius while other considers that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the work and re-writing of many contributors which eventually were all labelled as belonging to the Homeric tradition.
Nonetheless, those two poems are seen today as a timeless classic, taught in most western schools curriculums, still inspiring writers, artists, and even movie directors, to this day. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War and tells the tale of the siege of the city of Troy.
Mixing historical facts, legendary stories and Greek mythology, this ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter (verse of six feet, each foot being one long and two short syllables). The Odyssey focuses on Odysseus (most commonly known as Ulysses) and his ten-year journey back to his kingdom of Ithaca.
Famous Poems From Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey
From The Iliad:
- "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles" - The opening line of The Iliad is one of its most famous. It sets the tone for the epic poem and introduces the hero whose wrath drives much of the action.
- "Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" - This is another translation of the same opening line, but with a slightly different phrasing.
- "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe" - These lines are not from The Iliad, but from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. However, they are often compared to the opening lines of The Iliad for their similar epic scope and ambition.
From The Odyssey:
- "Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide" - This is the opening line of The Odyssey. Like the opening of The Iliad, it invokes the muse to help the poet tell the story of the hero's journey.
- "Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending" - This is another translation of the opening line of The Odyssey. Like the first translation, it calls on the muse to help the poet tell the story of the hero's journey.
- "I am Laertes' son, Odysseus" - This is the opening line of Book 9 of The Odyssey, in which Odysseus recounts his adventures to the Phaeacians. It is a simple and straightforward introduction that contrasts with the epic scope of the poem as a whole.
Willian Shakespeare And Poetry: Greatest Poet Of All Time
"Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend, Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse, The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer why dost thou use So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone, Thou of thy self thy sweet self-dost deceive, Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave? Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, Which used lives th' executor to be."
Willian Shakespeare, The Fair Youth, Sonnet 5
Maybe the most famous author of all English literature, Shakespeare was a poet, playwright and actor. He is still regarded today as the world's most eminent dramatist. While he is mainly known by the public for his numerous theatre play, among which Romeo And Juliet, the most famous romantic tragedy of all times, has been adapted countless times, both for the theatre, Broadway or Hollywood.
Shakespeare's plays are still performed today all around the world, and at any given time of the year, it is not surprising to find more than one of his plays being acted on the stage of London's theatres. What the public might not know as much are Shakespeare's sonnets and narrative poems. Published in 1609, towards the end of his life, Shakespeare's 154 sonnets were probably never meant to be published and the order they have been printed in most likely did not reflect their actual chronology nor the author's wishes.
Famous Poems From Shakespeare
Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") - This sonnet is perhaps the most famous of all Shakespeare's works. It compares a person's beauty to that of a summer's day, but concludes that the person is more lovely and more eternal.
Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds") - This sonnet is often quoted at weddings for its description of love as a constant, unchanging force that withstands all obstacles.
Sonnet 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun") - This sonnet is a playful subversion of traditional love poetry, which often idealizes the object of affection. Shakespeare's speaker instead describes his mistress in less-than-flattering terms, but concludes that he loves her regardless.
"All the world's a stage" (from As You Like It) - This famous line comes from the character Jaques' speech in Act II, Scene VII. It is often quoted to describe the idea that life is a performance or a show.
John Keats And Romantic Poetry
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease"
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale, lines 5 to 10
Born in 1795, Keats was part of the second wave of Romantic poets, the artistic movement born in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. His career was short lived as he died at the age of 25 years old from tuberculosis.
Even though critics did not receive his poems very well during his lifetime, his fame came after his death, and he eventually became one of the most beloved of all English poets. His style was characterized by sensual imagery typical of the Romantic movement. Some of his works became so popular that it ranked amongst the most analysed piece of English literature. Of the most famous piece of poetry he wrote, "Ode to a Nightingale" is probably the most well-known.
Edgar Allan Poe, the Gothic Poet: Best Poet Ever
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door — Only this, and nothing more."
Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
Maybe one of the most famous American poets along with Robert Frost, Walt Whiteman, Langston Hughes, or Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1849. Edgar Allan Poe was one of the first American writers to try to live solely from his writings. He only succeeded to do so in his late 20's after joining the Southern Literary Messenger (which he was fired for drunkenness, but eventually re-hired). Poe had a tumultuous life, abandoned by his father when he was one year old, his mother died a year later. He was adopted by the Allan family with whom he had a rocky relationship.
Maybe because of his tragic background or because the genre please his public tastes, his work often approached themes such as death, the reanimation of the dead and mourning. Most of his work is considered to be part of the dark romanticism genre, in opposition to transcendentalism, which Poe openly abhorred. During his career, Poe was one of the first American authors to become popular in Europe, especially in France where his work was translated by another famous poet, Charles Baudelaire.
He notably inspired the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, who said:"Each of Poe's detective stories is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?". Not many copies of Poe's first book survived and one of them reached a price of $662,500 in 2009 during an auction in New York. It is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a work of American literature.
Maya Angelou, The Heart Of Modern America
"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Maya Angelou has had an extraordinary life. Born in 1928, in the Southern state of Missouri, she recounted her troubled childhood in her autobiography and international best-seller, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. Her book, the first of a seven-volume series, described how she overcame racism and trauma through love and determination. Her first poetry work dates from her childhood, during which she used literature as a healing tool.
Her first published work only occurred after she performed various jobs, such as a cast member for the Porgy and Bess European tour and calypso music performer during the 1950's. Her first volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, published in 1971, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. During Bill Clinton Presidential inauguration, she recited "On the Pulse of Morning" and became the first African American woman to read a poem at a presidential inauguration.
She won a Grammy Award the following year for "Best Spoken Words". She mentioned in her autobiographies that she was greatly affected by the work of William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe or Douglas Johnson during her childhood. She in turn had a huge impact on African American literature and her poetry influenced modern hip-hop musicians such as Kanye West, Tupac Shakur or Nicki Minaj.
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