Category Great Poets

               The Bronte sisters grew up in the wild, windswept moors of Yorkshire, and produced some of the greatest works in the English language. Emily Bronte was born on July 30th, 1818, in Yorkshire. The three Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte lost their mother while they were children.

               All the three children were literary geniuses. Among them, Emily Bronte wrote ‘Wuthering Heights’, a classic novel of English literature. The three sisters had pen names, too. Emily took the pen name of Ellis Bell. Charlotte was Currer Bell, and Anne wrote as Acton Bell.

               Emily wrote poems and prose about an imaginary place called Gondal. ‘No Coward Soul is Mine’, is Emily Bronte’s best known poem. The three sisters produced an anthology of their poetry in 1846 titled ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell’. Of the three sisters, only Emily was a poetess of genius. Emily Bronte died on December 19th, 1848.

               Walt Whitman was a great man of letters. ‘Leaves of Grass’, is his evergreen contribution to English literature. Whitman had to self-publish this volume of poetry. He entrusted it to a local print shop, which worked on it in between commercial projects. Whitman did not put his name to the book, and printed about 800 copies. His plan was to make an American epic available to the common man. He reworked, revised, and added to the collection till his death in 1892. ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ was a patriotic poem penned to inspire the Northern States during the American Civil War and the poem, ‘Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night’, had a new awareness of suffering.

               Whitman experimented with his poetry. He wrote poetry that resembled prose. His poetry is noted for the use of strange images such as rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris.

               Walt Whitman was a key figure in the history of American poetry. Walt Whitman is regarded as the father of free verse. 

               Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who believed that art should create beauty from ugliness. Unlike most poets, Baudelaire turned to urban life for inspiration.

               Charles Baudelaire was born on April 9th, 1821, in Paris. Baudelaire brought out his first work in 1845. ‘Les Fleurs du mal’, a collection of his poetry, was published in 1857. The book was banned in France. The ban was in force until 1949. The book made him infamous. However, great writers such as Gustave Flaubert and Victor Hugo expressed their admiration for these poems. Baudelaire added thirty-five new poems to ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’, in 1861. His widely appreciated translations of Edgar Allan Poe appeared in 1854 and 1855. Baudelaire referred to Poe as a ‘twin soul’.

               He published prose poems too. After his death, these prose poems were compiled and published as ‘Petits Poemes en prose’. He was the first poet to write poems that were not in verse form. Baudelaire died on August 31st, 1867. 

               Matthew Arnold made multiple contributions to English literature. He was a poet, essayist and critic. Matthew Arnold was born in Laleham, on December 24th, 1822. He began his literary career by writing poetry.

               ‘Empedocles on Etna’, and ‘Poems’, gained him fame as a poet. Psychological isolation is a recurring theme in his poems. ‘In Dover Beach’, one of his famous poems, Arnold blames this isolation on the loss of religious faith. His poetry is meditative and rhetorical.

               Arnold’s poetry often wrestles with problems of psychological Isolation. In ‘To Marguerite: Continued’, for example, Arnold revises Donne’s assertion that “No man is an island”, suggesting that we “mortals” are indeed “in the sea of life enisled”. ‘Preface to the Poems’, which was published in 1853, was his first work as a literary critic. Another major work of literary criticism is ‘Essays in Criticism’, which has not lost its importance even today.

               Arnold was made Professor of Poetry at Oxford. He was the first to lecture in English, instead of Latin.

               Matthew Arnold passed on April 15th, 1888.

            Pindar the poet is known for his odes of victory. He is regarded as the greatest among the classical Greek poets.

            All our knowledge about Pindar comes from five ancient texts. One of these is a papyrus from Egypt, unearthed in 1961. This papyrus dates back to about AD 200, and has a brief biography of Pindar inscribed on it.

            Pindar was born in 522 BC, and hailed from as aristocratic family in Thebes. The ruling family in Thessaly asked him to write his first ode to victory for a fee. Pindar’s first Pythian ode is a tribute to the triumphs of the Greeks over invaders. This ode was written in 470 BC.

            ‘The Epinicia’, were Pindar’s masterpieces. The earliest surviving epinicion dates from 498 BC. Pindar died in 438 BC.

            In October 70 BC, Publius Vergilius Maro, popularly known as Virgil was born near Mantua in Northern Italy. This child went on to become one of the greatest Roman poets of all time.

            Virgil wrote ‘The Eclogues’, ‘The Georgics’, and ‘The Aeneid’ – three great Latin poems. ‘The Eclogues’, otherwise known as Bucolics, was believed to be published between 39 BC and 30 BC. Another work of Virgil titled ‘The Georgics’ was dedicated to Gaius Maecenas, who later became Virgil’s patron.

            ‘The Aeneid’ was Virgil’s final work. This epic poem focuses on Aeneas, the Trojan hero. His voyage to Italy and the battles he fought there form the subject of the poem. ‘The Aeneid’, created a lasting influence on Western literature.

            Dante made Virgil a character in his magnum opus ‘Divine Comedy’, where Virgil guides Dante through hell and purgatory. Virgil is also believed to be the author of ‘Appendix Vergiliana’, a collection of minor poems.

            Homer lived around 700 BC in Greece. It is believed that he was  blind. When Homer was born, the Greeks had just recently learned how to use the alphabet from the Phoenicians. Homer used the alphabet to write down two long epic poems called ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’.

            ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’, contain incomparable tales of the Trojan War, brave Achilles, Ulysses and Penelope, the Sirens, the Cyclops, the beautiful Helen of Troy, and the angry gods. They are perhaps the most influential works in the history of Western literature. These two poems have captured the hearts of generations throughout the world.

            ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’, are undoubtedly two of the greatest epics ever written.