Devotional Lyric | The Oxford History of Poetry in English: Volume 5. Seventeenth-Century British Poetry (2024)

FAQs

What is the oldest known poem in English poetry? ›

The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English.

Beowulf is the oldest surviving Germanic epic and the longest Old English poem; it was likely composed between 700 and 750. Other great works of Old English poetry include The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Battle of Maldon, and The Dream of the Rood.

The Elizabethan age saw the flowering of poetry (the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza, dramatic blank verse), was a golden age of drama (especially for the plays of Shakespeare), and inspired a wide variety of splendid prose (from historical chronicles, versions of the Holy Scriptures, pamphlets, and literary criticism to ...

But in 19th-century Britain, poetry was as prestigious as ever: thanks to advances in literacy and publishing, poetry had never been read by a wider audience (from schoolchildren to Queen Victoria herself) or been more profitable commercially. Books by the most popular poets routinely sold out through several editions.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest long poem in history. An ancient Babylonian poem about a mighty hero who tried to become immortal, its universal themes of love, life and death resonate as clearly today as in antiquity.

The earliest English prose work, the law code of King Aethelberht I of Kent, was written within a few years of the arrival in England (597) of St. Augustine of Canterbury. Other 7th- and 8th-century prose, similarly practical in character, includes more laws, wills, and charters.

Geoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/ CHAW-sər; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry".

The period between the 4th and 6th centuries CE is known as the Golden Age of India because of the considerable achievements that were made in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, science, religion, and philosophy, during the Gupta Empire.

The earliest known English poem is a hymn on the creation; Bede attributes this to Cædmon (fl. 658–680), who was, according to legend, an illiterate herdsman who produced extemporaneous poetry at a monastery at Whitby.

The Romantic period, or Romanticism, is regarded as one of the greatest and most illustrious movements in literary history, which is all the more amazing considering that it primarily consisted of just seven poets and lasted approximately 25 years – from William Blake's rise in the late 1790s to Lord Byron's death in ...

Who is called the last of the Great Victorians? ›

On his 80th birthday the newspapers of the world saluted Meredith as “the Dean of English Writers,” the “last Great Victorian,” the “Grand Old Man of Letters,” and the “Sage of Box Hill.” Shortly after his death, The Times Literary Supplement said that his mind was “so rich, so full, that one wonders where.

The Victorian poetry no doubt, witnessed some epoch stirring incidents. Yet it adhered, more or less, to certain accepted conventions. It had some convictions and ideals of life. While Modern poetry is seen a total break – down of old faith, idealism and convictions.

Epic poetry is the oldest form of poetry dating back to classics like Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and Beowulf. Though too long to be excerpted here, any of these works would serve as fine examples of an epic.

Caedmon (flourished 658–680) was the first Old English Christian poet, whose fragmentary hymn to the creation remains a symbol of the adaptation of the aristocratic-heroic Anglo-Saxon verse tradition to the expression of Christian themes.

"Beowulf" is the oldest surviving and also possibly the oldest known “poem” in the English language and the earliest piece of vernacular European literature. Perhaps the most common question readers have is what language "Beowulf" was written in originally.

Beowulf: The Oldest English Epic.