Poetry Through the Ages: A Timeline

Poetic justice in every age.

One of the great things about poetry is that it has such a long history–this allows us not only to see older periods of time from a personal perspective, but it also allows us to enjoy them! While all of the movements below emphasize different topics, ways of thought, and examples of the human experience, it’s comforting to find that poetry from thousands of years ago is so familiar to us today. 

Through an exploration of the bigger or more important poetry movements, you’re going to discover what poetry looked like through the ages. What were their inspirations? Who were popular writers at the time? What did their lives look like? Here is a chronological timeline of poetry through the ages. 

Ancient Greek Poetry (7th to 4th century BC)

Ancient Greek poetry is so crucial to begin with because it is the foundation for every other type of future poetry. Little about poetry is known prior to the 7th century, but we do know that writing for literary purposes, like we do today, wasn’t an established practice. Ancient Greek poetry commonly revolved around themes myths, legends, folktales, and religion, and was originally meant to be sung or recited, which is why poetry is now a rhythmic practice. 

Because this is such a prolific era of poetic history, it’s easiest to break it down into three movements: the Archaic Period, the Classical Period, and the Hellenistic Period. You’re probably more familiar with each than you think.

• Archaic (8th century to end of 6th century BC)

• The Archaic Period produced many examples of Ancient Greek literature most people are familiar with, such as Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, and Hesoid’s Theogony. Aesop and Sappho are also well-known writers from this time. 

• The Archaic Era consisted mostly of poems about myths, history, and folklore. 

• Classical (5th and 4th centuries BC)

• At this time, most of the poetry was written to be dramatized in plays and recitation both for entertainment and education of Greek citizens–it was the natural transition of lyric poetry into drama. 

• This was the era of the Greek Tragedies like Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Hippolytus, as well as the comedies of Aristophanes.  

• Hellenistic and Greco-Roman (3rd century BC onward)

• The Hellenistic Era was when there was a real boom in poetry and literature, where its expansion raced across the Mediterranean. It’s easy to see the effects the previous two eras had on this Greek generation, as well as on the Romans and other European groups. 

• Lots of poetry and prose was being written in the Hellenistic period, many of which were also historians: Callimachus, Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, Menander, Polybius and Plutarch among the most well-known. 

Provençal Literature (11th to 14th century)

Provençal poetry is named after the language it was initially written in. It was the language of Provence and its neighboring regions in France during the time. The poetry of this time was mainly written about courtly and chivalric love. 

One of the most brilliant schools of poetry to come from The Provençal Era, and the history of poetry in general, was that of the Troubadours. They wrote elaborate love poems, usually set to music, and performed often for the High Courts. Their lyric love poems are a defining example of medieval poetry. 

These are some of the popular poets from the movement: Cercamon and his pupil Marcabrun, Jaufre Rudel, Bernard de Ventadour, Bertran de Bourn, Arnaut Daniel, Arnaut de Mareuil, Peire Vidal, Guirat de Bornelh, and so many more. 

I also couldn’t talk about medieval poetry without Recognizing Dante’s Divine Comedy, which was published in 1321. Though he introduced a whole new school of thought with his work that aligns more with the ideals of the renaissance movement, he lived in the middle ages. 

• Sicilian School (1230-1266)

• I thought it appropriate to lump the Sicilian School of poetry here because it happened during the same time and took some inspiration from the Provençal poets. 

• The Sicilian School was a group of Sicilian, Tuscan, and southern Italian poets who established the vernacular as the standard language for Italian love poetry. They also created two major Italian poetic forms: the canzone and the sonnet.

• Emperor Frederick II and his son Manfred enjoyed the arts and thus attracted some of the most talented poets of the time to their court. These men took inspiration from the Troubadours and Provençal poets and language, but their impact on Europe’s poets reigned for centuries.

• Famous poets from the time: Giacomo di Lentini, Giacomino Pugliesi, and Rinaldo d’Aquino. 

Renaissance Movement (1485-1660)

The Renaissance Movement is so popular and well-known because it’s so prolific; it spans over hundreds of years, produced Shakespeare, and is modern enough that we have vast records of it today. The Renaissance took over multiple European countries, but because we just finished talking about the Sicilians, I’ll introduce the Italian poetry renaissance first. 

It is argued that the Renaissance really started in 14th-century Italy with the work of Petrarch (you may recognize his name considering he developed petrarchan sonnets) and Boccaccio. Their work differed from the rest of the poetry from the middle ages because it represented new and modern ideas of human life, ethics, and politics, like the idea of humanism, and also introduced the revival of classic antiquity that would come to rise in the rest of the movement.

Italian Renaissance Common Poetry Elements: 

• Lyric poetry, particularly in Petrarchan sonnet form

• Humorous and satirical verse, as well as burlesque poems about indecent or trivial matters

• Didactic poetry

• The imitation of Latin comedies, medieval-style poetry, and ancient poetry

Important Poets: 

• Petrarch

• Boccaccio

• Gaspara Stampa

• Michaelangelo

• Ludovico Ariosto

• Gian Giorgio Trissino

• Torquato Tasso

Elizabethan & Shakespearean Era (1558-1603)

Within the same period, but a little bit later, the Renaissance also made its way to England. Poetry flourished in 1570s England, beginning with Spenser and Sidney. The combination of slowly-rising literary confidence, Elizabethan printing, and publicly available lyric poetry caused business to boom. This was the time where the English language was going through some serious foundational development. 

The Elizabethan Era is considered to be the height of the English Renaissance, represented both through poetry and plays. The artists at this time drew inspiration from the Italian Renaissance and continued writing genres like love sonnets, pastorals, and allegorical epics. 

Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare were defining voices at this time. Between comedies, tragedies, sonnets, musicality, verbal sophistication, and romantic enthusiasm, it was a passionate time for poetry.

Metaphysical Poets (17th century)

The Metaphysical poets were those from 17th-century England who wrote poetry that was less concerned with expressing emotions, and more concerned with analyzing them. They were displays of intellectual complexity and concentration, and had a propensity for philosophy and stringing together abstract concepts that had no basis in reality. Essentially, reading their poetry took lots of work. 

Common Metaphysical Poetry Aspects: 

• Bold literary devices like obliquity, irony, and paradox

• Direct language for dramatic effect

• Rhythms that sound like living speech

• Shocking lines

Important Poets: 

• John Donne

• Henry Vaughan

• Andrew Marvel

• John Cleveland

• Abraham Cowley

Neoclassical (1660-1798)

With the Renaissance Era’s new intellectual studies and modern ideals making way into the even more highly intellectual Metaphysical Era, it only makes sense that the next era of poetry would be a return to its roots, right? Coming full-circle, neoclassical poetry is the revival of ancient times like Greece and Rome. It was much more rational than the poetry of the previous two ages, and returned to Classical Poetry rules. 

Neoclassical Poetry Aspects: 

• Rationalism and objectivity

• Scholarly allusions

• Realism and didacticism

• Classical rules and poetic diction

• Lack of passionate lyricism

• Heroic couplets

Important Poets: 

• Alexander Pope

• John Dryden

• Nicholas Boileau-Desperaux

• Thomas Gray

• Daniel Defoe

• John Flaxman

• Andre Chenier

• Tobias Smollett

• Henry Fuseli

Romantic Poets (1798-1850)

Romanticism was perhaps the largest artistic movement of the late 1700s, as its influence reached every corner–there were German, English, French, and American romantic poets. It’s also the era of poetry most people are familiar with, as it’s the reason for all the brooding, tortured artist and melancholy visionary stereotypes. 

The romantic poets were essentially just big naysayers to the stanch ideals of the neoclassical poets. There were large interests in folklore and nationalistic pride at this time that set thought leaders apart from their neoclassical ancestors. Freedom, individualism, the supernatural, an appreciation for the natural world, and passion (in every sense of the word) was what inspired the romantic poets. 

Romantic Poetry Aspects: 

• Appreciation for nature

• Passionate emotions

• Celebration of creativity and individualism 

• The supernatural 

• Themes of self/autobiography 

• Personification and vivid sensory descriptions

• Solitude and melancholy 

Important Poets: 

• Edgar Allen Poe

• Walt Whitman

• John Keats

• Lord Byron

• Wordsworth

• Percy Bysshe Shelley

• Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

American Transcendentalists (1836-1860)

Transcendentalist poetry is part of the Romantic movement, but its ideals differ slightly and it produced new poets. Overall, the two ideas are the same, but one key difference is each’s view of religion. Romanticism is largely concerned with the human experience, particularly from a human-centric point of view, while Transcendentalism is more concerned with divinity and how God works through us. That being said, Transcendentalism did not support religious traditions or dogmas, but it did emphasize the role of God in our personal growth from beyond a human perspective, and that people are inherently good.

Transcendentalist Poetry Aspects: 

• A larger emphasis on nature

• Figurative language like similes and metaphors 

• Individualism 

• Spiritual exploration

Important Poets: 

• Henry David Thoreau 

• Ralph Waldo Emerson 

• Louisa May Alcott

Realism/Naturalism (1870-1910)

The Realism Movement was a reaction to romanticism. At this point, most had a Darwinian view of nature and evolution, and the transcendentalist idea that humans had some control over their own fate entirely changed. Realism was concerned less with emotions or moral qualities and instead stressed the physiological nature that humans have no control over. It was a pessimistic view that suggested that we are simply helpless products of genes and environment. 

Realism/Naturalism Poetry Aspects: 

• Focus on setting

• Scientific objectivism 

• Detachment, pessimism, determinism 

• Survival of the fittest and characters who are controlled by their environment

• Plot twists

• Language of the actual world

Important Poets: 

• Theodore Dresier

• Emily Dickinson

• Stephen Crane

• William Dean Howells

• Henry James 

• Jack London

Modernist (1910-1945)

The Modernist movement is such a prolific one because it represents yet another fundamental shift in creativity across the globe. The modernist movement was a continued rejection of romanticism ideology combined with the addition of technological advancement. Following the industrial revolution, artists everywhere were inspired to reinvent their art forms. All sorts of movements were born in the midst of the Modernist movement: acmeism, dada, free verse, objectivism, futurism, imagism, surrealism, and postmodernism. 

Modernist Poetry Aspects: 

• Inventive language

• Allusion 

• Layering of voices

• Lack of poetic tradition

• Irony, comparisons, and satire

• Individualism 

• Disillusionment and alienation

Important Poets

• Virginia Woolf

• T.S. Eliot

• Ezra Pound

• William Carlos Williams

• Wallace Stevens 

• Marianna Moore

• E.E. Cummings

• Hart Crane

• Gertrude Stein

The Beat Movement (1948-1963)

The Beat Movement was an American poetry movement mainly in the 50s in California and New York. While “beat” originally meant weary, it later also meant beat as in a musical sense, as it was common for the poets of the Beat Movement to put their work to jazz music. The Beat poets borrowed their style of dress, manners, and vocabulary from jazz artists in order to represent their distaste for conventional society. 

The goal of their poetry was to represent a sense of heightened awareness, like one would get from drugs, sex, jazz, or Zen Buddhism. They rationalized their withdrawn and protestful nature by the misery and purposelessness of modern society. 

Beat Movement Poetry Aspects: 

• Surrealism 

• Free verse

• Spirituality 

• Influenced by jazz cadence

• Spontaneity

• Free thinking

• Obscenities and sex references

Important Poets

• Jack Kerouac

• Lawrence Ferlinghetti

• Allen Ginsberg

• William Blake

• Michael McClure

• Diane Di Prima