Imaginative literary form, particularly suitable for describing emotions and thoughts. Poetry is highly ‘compressed’ writing, often using figures of speech to talk about one thing in terms of another, such as metaphor and simile, that allows the reader to ‘unpack’ the poem's meaning for itself. This leads to people interpreting poems differently in different times and places, which is part of the fascination of the medium. Poetry does not have to follow the strict grammatical rules of prose (ordinary written language) – although the writer may choose to do so – and often uses richer language to appeal to the reader's senses and intellect. The use of comparative language and elevated or uncommon word choice or diction contributes to poetry's ability to make a familiar world seem strange and new again.
Traditionally poems are distinguished from prose by the arrangement of words, which often rhyme or are arranged rhythmically in a structure known as the poem's metre. A poem is written in lines, whereas prose is not. In modern times the distinction between poetry and prose is not so clear-cut. If prose displays rhythm and other features associated with poetry, it is sometimes termed ‘prose poetry’. Much of English novelist Virginia Woolf's work, for example, could be placed in this category.
The vast genre of poetry can be subdivided in a variety of ways. A large body of poetry is metrical. Another distinction can be made between lyric poems (sonnet, ode, elegy, and pastoral are examples of lyrical poetry), and narrative, or story-telling, poetry (ballad, lay, and epic are examples of narrative verse). Narrative verse is often less complex in its imagery and language than the more heightened lyric poem.
| 1955 BC | Mesopotamia | A ‘lament’ is written for the destruction of Ur, the ancient city of Sumerian civilization, in Babylon, Mesopotamia. |
| c. 750 BC | Greece | The Iliad and the Odyssey, the two great epic poems ascribed to the legendary Greek poet Homer, are composed. Though written around this date, they draw on a long tradition of oral poetry dating back to at least 1000 BC. |
| 648 BC | Greece | Archilochus of Paros, one of the earliest of the Greek lyric poets, is writing at this time. He directs some of his poems at the family who barred him from marrying their daughter, reputedly leading some members of the family to commit suicide. |
| c. 625 BC | Greece | Spartan lyric poet Alcman writes Partheneia, choral songs for maidens. Parts of two songs survive to modern times. |
| 625 BC | Greece | Sappho of Lesbos, the famed female Greek lyric poet, is active at this time. Her lyric poems are famous for their depiction of erotic love between women. |
| 498 BC–446 BC | Greece | Greek lyric poet Pindar composes odes in honour of athletes, most of them charioteers, at the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games in Greece. |
| 476 BC | Greece | Greek poets Pindar and Bacchylides write odes celebrating the chariot team of Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, winning a victory at the Olympics. Four books of Pindar's victory odes survive to modern times, but only fragments of the rest of his work. Some of the works of Bacchylides, written on papyrus, also survive to modern times. |
| c. 400 BC | India | The epic Indian poem Mahabharata and the popular collection of cosmic stories Puranas are first composed, though both gradually grow over the next thousand years. |
| 275 BC | Sicily, Egypt | Syracusan poet Theocritus, creator of the bucolic (pastoral) genre, writes in praise of the tyrant of Syracuse, Hieron II and, later, in praise of the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II. |
| c. 160 BC | Roman Empire | Roman statesman and writer Marcus Porcius Cato (‘the Elder’ or ‘the Censor’) writes his book on agriculture De agricultura/On Agriculture, which gives advice to an estate owner. |
| c. 60 BC | Rome | Latin poet Gaius (Valerius Maximianus) Catullus writes his Love Poems to Lesbia, possibly to Clodia, sister of the Roman politician Publius Clodius Pulcher. |
| 58 BC | Roman Empire | Latin poet Lucretius publishes De rerum natura/On the Nature of Things, a Latin epic based on the doctrines of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. |
| c. 39 BC | Rome | The Roman poet Virgil writes his pastoral poems, the Eclogues. |
| 23 BC | Roman Empire | Roman poet Horace publishes the first three books of his Odes. |
| 86 | Roman Empire | The Latin poet Martial begins publishing his books of epigrams: witty, satirical observations on Roman life and society. The last book will be published around AD 100. He survives in Rome by flattering his patrons and friends and vilifying their enemies. |
| c. 699 | England, Scandinavia | An epic poem in Old English describing the exploits of the dragon-slaying hero Beowulf is completed. The finest surviving achievement of Anglo-Saxon poetry, it was probably written in England though set in Scandinavia. |
| 950 | Greece | Anthologia Palatina/Greek Anthology is collected by Constantine Cephalas. It consists of poems and brief inscriptions by some 300 writers from the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD. |
| c. 995 | England, Denmark | ‘The Battle of Maldon’, an Old English poem by a now-unknown poet is written at about this time, dealing with a historically attested skirmish between Saxon forces and Danish raiders at Maldon in Essex, England, in 991. |
| c. 1095 | France | Chanson de Roland/Song of Roland is recorded. It is the earliest extant example of the chivalric epics known as chanson de geste (‘song of exploits’) which were sung and possibly composed by French trouvères (poets with a narrative style). |
| 1140 | Spain | Poema di mío Cid/Poem of the Cid is written. It is the most complete Spanish epic chanson de geste (‘songs of exploits’) and tells of the fantastic deeds of the military commander Rodrigo or Ruy Díaz de Vivar (El Cid), who died in 1099. |
| c. 1178 | France | French poet Chrétien of Troyes writes his Arthurian romances Yvain and Lancelot. |
| c. 1200 | Iceland | The Five Icelandic Sagas: The Saga of Burnt Njal/Njal's Saga; the Laxdaela/Laxdale's Saga; the Eyrbyggja, Egil's Saga/Egla; and The Saga of Grettir the Strong/Grettis Saga (legends and stories either about the deeds of the hero, or about events connected with a region) are compiled. |
| c. 1210 | Germany | Gottfried von Strassburg writes his unfinished epic poem Tristan und Isolde/Tristan and Isolde in Middle High German. |
| 1225 | Italy | St Francis of Assisi writes his ‘Il cantico di Frate Sole’/‘Canticle of Brother Sun’, a hymn of praise to God written in Italian. |
| c. 1230 | Germany | The long era of Minnesingers (German court lyric poets and singers who wrote love lyrics of a formal style and aristocratic beauty) ends. Among the most eminent names were Wolfram von Eschenbach who died in 1220, and Walter von der Vogelweide who may have died in this year. |
| c. 1237 | France | Guillaume de Lorris writes the first 4,000 lines of the Le Roman de la rose/The Romance of the Rose, an allegory of courtly love and the most famous narrative poem of the Middle Ages. |
| c. 1250 | Germany, Europe | Carmina Burana, a collection of satirical poems, lyrics, and other goliardic (ribald) verses intended to be sung, is compiled. It belongs to the convent of Benediktbeurin in Munich, Germany. |
| 1255 | Germany | German Minnesinger (lyric poet) Ulrich von Lichtenstein completes his Frauendienst/The Service of Women, a collection of 60 songs within an autobiographical framework. |
| c. 1300 | Italy | Italian poet Dante Alighieri completes his Vità nuova/New Life, including 25 sonnets, 4 canzoni, and a ballata, with linking prose telling the story of the poet's love for Beatrice (Portinari). |
| c. 1340–c. 1370 | Wales | Welsh writer Dafydd ap Gwilym writes a body of poems – mostly love lyrics and nature poems – which are the highpoint of Welsh Medieval literature. |
| c. 1351 | Italy | Italian writer Francesco Petrarch (Petrarca) begins arranging his many poems so that they form a coherent whole (he constantly revised his works). Many are love poems addressed to Laura, a woman he knew only from a distance, falling into two separate categories: Rime in vita di Laura/Poems During Laura's Life and Rime in morte di Laura/Poems After Laura's Death. |
| c. 1360 | England | English writer William Langland writes his long religious allegory The Vision of Piers Plowman. A longer version appears in the 1370s. |
| 1375 | England | The anonymous Middle English alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a chivalric romance, is written. The author may also have written The Pearl about 1370. |
| 1376 | Scotland | Scottish writer John Barbour completes The Bruce, an epic poem in 20 books on the life and deeds of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce. It is best known for its description of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. |
| 1387 | England | English writer Geoffrey Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales. Told by a party of 30 pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury, it consists of 24 tales, told in verse, that provide a vivid picture of 14th-century England. |
| 1399 | France | Italian-born French writer Christine de Pisan writes her long poem L'Epitre au dieu d'amour/Letter to the God of Love, in which she defends women against the satire directed at them in earlier Medieval romances. The work is translated into English by Thomas Hoccleve in 1402. |
| c. 1425 | France | French writer Alain Chartier writes his poem La Belle dame sans merci/The Beautiful Lady without Pity, one of the best-known medieval lyrics of courtly love. |
| c. 1456 | France | French writer François Villon writes his long poem Le Lais/The Legacy (better known by its later title Le Petit Testament/The Shorter Testament). One of the most important French literary works of the 15th century, it describes his need to leave Paris because of an ill-starred love affair (though in fact Villon fled because implicated in robbery). It is first published in 1489. |
| 1494 | Germany | The German humanist and poet Sebastian Brandt publishes Das Narrenshiff/The Ship of Fools, a verse satire on human folly. It is soon widely translated. The illustrations for the first edition are by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. |
| 1521 | England | The English poet John Skelton publishes the poem The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng. |
| 1549 | France | French poet Joachim Du Bellay publishes La Défense et illustration de la langue française/The Defence and Illustration of the French Language, the first statement of the theory of the poetic group known as La Pléiade. His intention is to revitalize French literature by basing it on the works of classical Greece and Rome. The same year he publishes the first sonnet sequence in French, L'Olive/The Olive, which illustrates the theory. |
| 1560 | France | French poet Pierre de Ronsard publishes Les Discours/Discourses, poems about the French wars of religion. |
| 1572 | Portugal | The Portuguese poet Luís Vaz de Camões publishes Os lusíadas/The Lusiads, a national epic based on the voyages of Vasco da Gama. |
| 1578 | France | The French poet Pierre de Ronsard publishes his poetry collection Sonnets pour Hélène/Sonnets for Hélène. |
| 1579 | England | The English poet Edmund Spenser publishes The Shepheards Calender, twelve eclogues. |
| 1581 | Italy | The Italian poet Torquato Tasso publishes Gerusalemme liberata/Jerusalem Liberated, an epic poem set during the First Crusade. |
| 1590 | England | The English poet Edmund Spenser publishes the first three books of his vast poetic work The Faerie Queene. The final volumes appear in 1596. |
| 1591 | England | Astrophel and Stella, a sonnet sequence by the English poet Philip Sidney, is published posthumously. It was probably written in the early 1580s. |
| 1593 | England | The English dramatist William Shakespeare publishes the poem ‘Venus and Adonis’. |
| 1595 | England | An Apologie for Poetrie (often entitled The Defence of Poetry) by the English poet Philip Sidney is published posthumously. |
| 1595 | England | The English poet Edmund Spenser publishes Amoretti, a sonnet sequence, ‘Epithalamion’, an ode on marriage, and ‘Colin Clout's Come Home Again’, an autobiographical poem. |
| c. 1595 | England | The English poet John Donne writes many of his best-known poems over the next five or six years, including ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star’, ‘The Canonization’, ‘Thous Hast Made Me’, and ‘Death Be Not Proud’. |
| 1598 | England | The poem Hero and Leander by the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe is published posthumously (having been completed after Marlowe's death by George Chapman). |
| 1609 | England | The Sonnets of English dramatist William Shakespeare are published. Most were written before 1600. |
| 1612 | England | The English poet John Donne writes On the Progress of the Soul, an elegy. |
| 1633 | England | The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, a collection of poems by the English metaphysical poet George Herbert, is published posthumously. |
| 1638 | England | The English poet John Milton publishes his elegy Lycidas. |
| 1645 | England | The English poet John Milton publishes his Poems. It contains several major works including L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (both written in the early 1630s). |
| 1645 | England | The English poet Edmund Waller publishes his Poems. Many of these poems – such as the famous ‘Go, Lovely Rose!’ – have been in circulation for many years. |
| 1649 | England | The English poet Richard Lovelace publishes his poetry collection Lucasta. One of the poems contains the well-known lines ‘Stone walls do not a prison make/Nor iron bars a cage’. |
| 1712 | England | The English poet Alexander Pope publishes his mock-epic comic poem The Rape of the Lock. An expanded version appears in 1714. |
| 1733 | England | The English poet Alexander Pope publishes the first part of his long poem Essay on Man anonymously. The second part appears in 1734 under his own name. |
| 1749 | England | The English writer Samuel Johnson publishes his long poem The Vanity of Human Wishes. |
| 1762 | Scotland | The Scottish poet and translator James Macpherson publishes Fingal: An Ancient Poem. Macpherson claims that this is based on a long-lost epic by the Gaelic poet Ossian, ‘the Homer of the North’. The work arouses great interest throughout Europe and becomes an important element in early Romanticism. It is later discovered that much of the text had been written by Macpherson himself. |
| 1783 | England | The English poet Thomas Crabbe publishes The Village, a long poem in couplets that gives a realistic view of the harshness of rural life in East Anglia, England. |
| 1786 | Scotland | The Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, his first collection. |
| 1790 | Scotland | The Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam O'Shanter, a narrative poem based on a folk legend. |
| 1793 | England | The English writer and artist William Blake publishes his Marriage of Heaven and Hell. His major prose work with his own engravings, it is a satire on conventional religion and morality. |
| 1794 | England | The English poet and artist William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Songs of Innocence had appeared in 1789. |
| 1798 | England | The English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads. A collaboration that marks the true beginning of English Romantic poetry, it includes Coleridge's ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. |
| 1800 | Germany | The German writer Novalis (pseudonym of Friedrich Leopold, Baron von Hardenberg) publishes the prose lyrics ‘Hymnen an die Nacht’/‘Hymns to the Night’. |
| 1807 | England | The English poet William Wordsworth publishes Ode: Intimations of Immortality, and Poems, in Two Volumes. |
| 1816 | England | The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge publishes his poetry collection Christabel and Other Poems. Its best-known poem is the fragment ‘Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream’, written in 1797. |
| 1817 | England | The English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, publishes his dramatic poem Manfred. |
| 1818 | England | The English poet John Keats publishes Endymion: A Poetic Romance. |
| 1819 | England | The English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, publishes the first part of his ‘epic satire’ Don Juan, one of his most important works. Other parts appear in 1821, 1823, and 1824. He also publishes his narrative poem Mazeppa. |
| 1820 | England | The English poet John Keats publishes the first version of his epic poem Hyperion. A second version appears posthumously in 1856. He also publishes the poems The Eve of Saint Agnes and Ode to a Nightingale. |
| 1820 | England | The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes the poems Prometheus Unbound and Ode to the West Wind. |
| 1824 | Italy | The Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi publishes his poetry collection Canzoni e versi/Songs and Verses. |
| 1827 | Germany | The German poet Heinrich Heine publishes his poetry collection Buch der Lieder/Book of Songs. |
| 1830 | England | The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes Poems Chiefly Lyrical. Among its best-known poems is ‘Mariana’. |
| 1832 | England | The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes Poems. Among its best-known poems are ‘The Lotus-Eaters’ and ‘The Lady of Shalott’. |
| 1842 | England | The English writer Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes Poems, which contains revised versions of ‘The Lotus-Eaters’ and ‘The Lady of Shalott’, and new works such as ‘Morte d'Arthur’, ‘Locksley Hall’, and ‘Ulysses’. |
| 1845 | USA | The US writer Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems. |
| 1850 | England | The English writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning publishes her poetry collection Poems, which contains the sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portuguese. |
| 1850 | England | The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes In Memoriam, a long elegy on the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, anonymously. |
| 1853 | England | The English writer Matthew Arnold publishes Poems: A New Edition. It contains ‘The Scholar Gipsy’ and ‘Sohrab and Rustum’. |
| 9 December 1854 | England, Russia | The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes his poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, a poetic description of the disastrous attack on October 25 1854 by the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, during the Crimean War. |
| 1855 | England | The English poet Robert Browning publishes his collection of poetry Men and Women. |
| 1855 | USA | The US writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes his long narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha, one of his best-known works. |
| 1855 | England | The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes Maud and Other Poems. |
| 1857 | France | The French writer Charles Baudelaire publishes his poetry collection Les Fleurs du mal/Flowers of Evil, one of the major works of 19th-century European poetry. It is banned for obscenity and the author, publishers, and printers fined. An enlarged edition appears in 1861. |
| 1859 | England, Persia | The English writer Edward Fitzgerald publishes The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Naishapur anonymously. A translation of the poetry of the 12th-century Persian poet and astronomer Omar Khayyam, it becomes very popular. |
| 1862 | England | The English writer Christina Georgina Rossetti publishes her poetry collection Goblin Market and Other Poems. |
| 1873 | France | The French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud publishes his prose poems Une Saison en enfer/A Season in Hell. |
| 1886 | France | The collection of prose poems Les Illuminations/Illuminations, by the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, is published by his friend and fellow poet Paul Verlaine. Rimbaud was thought to be dead, but was in fact living in Africa. The poems were written between 1872 and 1874 when he was aged 17–19. |
| 1890 | USA | Poems, a selection of the poems of the US writer Emily Dickinson, who died in 1886, is published posthumously. Although she wrote over 1,000 poems, only six were published in her lifetime, all without her permission. |
| 1896 | England | The English writer A E Housman publishes his poetry collection A Shropshire Lad. |
| 1914 | | The Irish writer W B Yeats publishes his poetry collection Responsibilities. |
| 1916 | | The US writer Carl Sandburg publishes his poetry collection Chicago Poems. |
| 1917 | | The Irish writer W B Yeats publishes his poetry collection The Wild Swans at Coole, which includes ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Death’. |
| 1918 | | The Poems of the English Victorian writer Gerard Manley Hopkins are published posthumously. |
| 1919 | | The US-born English writer T S Eliot publishes his poetry collection Poems, which includes ‘Gerontion’. |
| 1920 | | The Collected Poems of the English poet Wilfred Owen (killed in World War I) are published posthumously, edited by Siegfried Sassoon. |
| 1921 | | The Irish writer W B Yeats publishes his poetry collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer, which includes ‘Easter 1916’ and ‘The Second Coming’. |
| 1922 | | US-born English writer T S Eliot publishes his long poem The Waste Land in The Criterion. |
| 1923 | | The German writer Rainer Maria Rilke publishes his Duineser Elegien/Duino Elegies, and his poetry cycle Die Sonette an Orpheus/Sonnets to Orpheus. |
| 1924 | | The French writer St-John Perse publishes his epic poem Anabase/Anabasis. |
| 1925 | | The US writer E E Cummings publishes his poetry collections XLI Poems and &. |
| 1925 | | The Italian writer Eugenio Montale publishes his poetry collection Ossi di seppia/Cuttlefish Bones. |
| 1926 | | The US writer E E Cummings publishes his poetry collection is 5. |
| 1928 | | The Irish writer W B Yeats publishes his poetry collection The Tower, which includes ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ and ‘Among School Children’. |
| 1928 | | The Spanish writer Federico García Lorca publishes his poetry collection Romancero gitano/Gypsy Ballads. |
| 1929 | | The Spanish writer Federico García Lorca writes his poems Poeta en Nueva York/Poet in New York, which are published posthumously in 1940. |
| 1932 | | The Russian writer Boris Pasternak publishes his poetry collection Vtoroe rozhdenie/Second Birth. |
| 1936 | England, USA | The English-born US writer W H Auden publishes his poetry collection Look, Stranger! and writes the verse commentary for the General Post Office documentary film Night Mail, directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright. |
| 1936 | Wales | The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas publishes his collection Twenty-five Poems. |
| 1937 | USA | The US writer Wallace Stevens publishes his poetry collection The Man with the Blue Guitar. |
| 1941 | England, USA | The English-born US writer W H Auden publishes his poetry collection The Double Man (published in Britain as New Year Letter). |
| 1942 | USA | The US writer Wallace Stevens publishes two collections of poetry: Notes towards a Supreme Fiction and Parts of a World. |
| 1946 | Wales | The Welsh writer Dylan Thomas publishes his poetry collection Deaths and Entrances. |
| 1947 | England, USA | The English-born poet W H Auden (who took US citizenship in 1946) publishes his long poem The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue. It wins a Pulitzer prize in 1948. |
| 1948 | USA | The US writer Ezra Pound publishes his poems The Pisan Cantos, sections of the Cantos Pound has been working on since 1915. |
| 1950 | Chile, South America | The Chilean writer Pablo Neruda publishes his Canto General/General Song, a series of poems that give an epic account of the history of South America. |
| 1956 | USA | The US writer Allen Ginsberg publishes Howl and Other Poems, which becomes a classic of ‘Beat’ literature. |
| 1956 | Russia | The Russian writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko publishes his long poem Stantsiya Zima/Zima Junction. |
| 1957 | England | The English poet Ted Hughes publishes his poetry collection The Hawk in the Rain. |
| 1959 | USA | The US writer Robert Lowell publishes his poetry collection Life Studies, which includes ‘Skunk Hour’. |
| 1960 | USA | The US writer Sylvia Plath publishes her poetry collection The Colossus. |
| 1961 | Russia | The Russian writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko publishes his long poem Babi Yar. |
| 1963 | USA | The US writer Allen Ginsberg publishes his poetry collection Reality Sandwiches. |
| 1964 | England | The English writer Philip Larkin publishes his poetry collection The Whitsun Weddings. |
| 1964 | USA | The US writer Robert Lowell publishes his poetry collection For the Union Dead. |
| 1964 | Germany | The Romanian-born German poet Paul Celan publishes his poetry collection Die Niemandsrose/The No-One's Rose. |
| 1965 | USA | The poetry collection Ariel, by the US writer Sylvia Plath, is published posthumously. |
| 1966 | USA | The US writer Thomas Pynchon publishes his short novel The Crying of Lot 49. |
| 1970 | England | The English poet Ted Hughes publishes his poetry collection Crow. |
| 1972 | Ireland | The Irish poet Seamus Heaney publishes his poetry collection Wintering Out. |
| 1976 | USA | The US writer James Merrill publishes his poetry collection Divine Comedies, which wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1977. |
| 1 January 1998 | UK | The Times newspaper, of London, England, begins serializing a group of previously unpublished poems by British poet Ted Hughes about his late wife, US poet Sylvia Plath. |
| 19 May 1999 | UK | English poet Andrew Motion succeeds Ted Hughes as UK poet laureate. |
