Lesson Plans for

Poetry Study with Mrs. Mac

Objectives Useful Links The Lessons Publishing to the Internet A Note on Assessment The Process

Text: Poems to Remember. Edited by Dorothy Petitt. NY, Glencoe, 1984

These lesson plans are designed as the focus for poetry study founded in the above paperback text. The lessons are designed for a Middle School laptop English class. They are not intended to be inclusive or prescriptive, but to provide a workable structure for poetry study at this level. The lessons assume that students have a sound background in simple and rhymed poetry and have written such forms as haiku, cinquain, name/initial poems, limericks, and acrostic poems in earlier grades. Additionally, the lessons assume that students have a basic competence in word processing and computer skills.

Overall Objectives

To expose students to a variety of poetic forms by a variety of known poets To teach a foundation vocabulary for poem study (see Terms)

To encourage an active response to poetry in terms of imaging, sense of rhyme and rhythm, and appreciation for the decisions of the poets with regard to word choice and form

To encourage an individual and positive response to poems

To encourage students to write poetry in both traditional and free verse forms

To overcome student reluctance to reading poetry aloud and to break through the tendency to read poems in "sing-song" fashion

To prepare students for poetic forms they will encounter in future literature study, such as Shakespeare.

Useful Links for Teachers

Greg Digital Library - follow the link to What is Poetry? for a wonderful set of answers to the question, including the Far Eastern perspective.  Also explore the poetry collections available from the Content menu.  Unfortunately, frames make this page very s-l-o-w to load

Rhymezone - for poetry writers, type in a word and find a rhyme - also searches Shakespeare and Mother Goose

Shadow Poetry - Handbook and short definitions, well indexed

Poetry Pals - poetry study, good, basic lessons

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators - Literature - current links to portals and other resources

Outta Ray's Head Poetry Page - collects and categorizes good lessons for many levels, types of poetry, and approaches to teaching poetry.

A Timeline of English Poetry - from the University of Toronto

Download Acrobat Reader for Mac or PC - this will allow you to read all of the .pdf resource files if you can not open Word '97.

Digitized poetry is available from (among other sources): o Poet's Corner o The Academy of American Poets - biographies, some poem texts, some

audio recordingso Bartelby.com - select from the "Verse" menu on the right - if this loads

slowly, abort - it has commercial sponsors

 

Lessons: Although these lessons can be done in any order, the order given has proven to be effective in my classrooms. Students from all schools are encouraged to post poems and responses to the exercise submission pages.  These pages will be periodically updated, so have students also SAVE all work to local disks and/or PRINT before submission. My students were part of the Laptop Learning Initiative, so the exercises are generally computer based. I have tried, however, to create exercises which can be adapted to paper and pencil. Page numbers have been given for poems in the text. Outside poems which are not generally anthologized have been provided. Electronic poem sources have been provided where available.

Poem 1 - Form Poem 2 - Word Choice Poem 3 - Rhythm Poem 4 - Found Poem

Poem 5 - Image Poem 6 - Contrast Poem 7 - Story Poem 8 - Assessment

Publishing to the Internet

Teachers should be cautious. Students under the age of 13 may not legally complete online forms without parent or guardian consent. Additionally, names, addresses, e-mail, school names, etc. should not be attached to creative work! I urge you to create your own (illustrated) electronic creative writing journal. Macintosh users can publish to the web easily using Apple's online hosting environment (which is now no longer free). First Class and other local intranets make publishing to a controlled audience possible. John McIlvain has created a simple, proven effective lesson for student hypermedia publication: Presentation Poetry.

Kidspace Storybook - Teachers may submit for a class or individual students may submit.KidLit - hosts poetry, stories, art and reviewsPublish Your Own... Page - links (not all current) to a variety of sites for online publishingEducation World has summarized student publishing opportunities as well.KidsWrite - a webzine from CanadaCRUNCH is an online magazine from NCES (National Council for Educational Statistics) to which teachers can submit poems and creative writing.

A Note on Assessment

For schools that have a rigorous A-F grading system, grading student poems is the most difficult of exercises for a teacher. Partly for this reason, I have developed lessons which have expectations and requirements. In general, I do not grade creative work, but assess it with a rubric, feedback, and lots of encouragement. The rubric used is a simple one:

Has met deadline - / +

Writing is the student's own work - / +

Writing mechanics - / +

Meets the requirements in terms of length or form - / +

Meets the requirements in terms of specific writing elements - / +

Meets the requirements in terms of presentation - / +

Has been shared with at least 1 other person (signature) - / +

All required preparation (notes, etc.) has been completed and submitted - / +

Overall Assessment: total of points earned:  - = 1, / = 2, + = 3  

Comments:

 

 

 

Even though the lessons were taught in a laptop school, my students responded in writing to their poetry readings in an old-fashioned composition book. For creative writing, they had the option of paper or laptop. The laptop was preferred because it made editing and layout easier. All poems were read aloud (to me, to another student, preferably to both, and then again by both), revised and discussed with me before submission as "final." John McIlvain has developed a wonderful lesson that "posts" a student's poetry selection in PowerPoint, including illustrations, audio and voice recording. I recommend this extra step.

Least Tern

 

  Poet Index Poem Index Random Search   Introduction Timeline Calendar Glossary Criticism Bibliography   RPO Canadian Poetry UTEL

by Name

by Date

by Title

by First Line

by Last Line

Poet

Poem

Short poem

Keyword

Concordance

A Time-Line of Poetry in English

Old English 449-1066Middle English 1066-1485Early Modern English 1485-1800Renaissance 1485-160317th Century 1603-1667Augustans 1667-1780Present-day English 1800-presentRomantics 1780-1830Victorians 1833-1903Georgians 1903-1920Moderns 1920-1960The Beat Generation 1950-1970The Movement 1960-1980Postmoderns 1980-

Note that these divisions simplify the history of poetry and are useful only for characterizing general trends. A poet in one period may have more in common with a poet in another than with contemporaries.

Old English 449-1066

383-407

ROMAN LEGIONS LEAVE BRITAIN

449

ANGLO-SAXONS INVADE BRITAIN

537

BATTLE OF CAMLAN: ARTHUR, A ROMANO-BRITON LEADER, KILLED

596

AUGUSTINE LEAVES ROME AS MISSIONARY TO BRITAIN

658

• Caedmon (Representative Poetry Online), an uneducated herdsman, about this date discovers that he can extemporaneously utter poetry at the newly-founded monastery at

Strenæshalc (Whitby) and makes verses on creation. He is the first known poet and this the first known poem in English.

673

Birthsthe Venerable Bede (Representative Poetry Online)

700-800

• Cynewulf writes and signs four Anglo-Saxon poems: Christ II, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles, and Juliana.

700

• About this time runic extracts from The Dream of the Rood are carved on the Ruthwell Cross.

735

• The Venerable Bede's "Death Song"

871

ALFRED, KING OF ENGLAND (-899)

900-999

• Deor, a scop, writes a poem of consolation, probably in this century

937

• The battle of Brunanburh, at which King Athelstan defeated the Scots, is celebrated in a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

943

EDWY (-957)

950-1000

• Period of the making of the four great poetry manuscripts: the Junius MS, the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Beowulf MS. The Beowulf can be dated as early as 680.

957

EDGAR (-975)

975

EDWARD THE MARTYR (-978)

978

ETHELRED (-1013)

1000

• The Battle of Maldon, a poem on the fight between the English and the Danes in 991.

1013

SWEGN FORKBEARD (-1014)

1016

EDMUND IRONSIDE (-1016); CNUT (-1035)

1035

HAROLD HAREFOOT (-1040)

1040

HARTHACNUT (-1042)

1042

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (-1066)Middle English 1066-1485

1066

HAROLD GODWINSON (-1066); DEFEATED BY WILLIAM OF NORMANDY ON OCT. 14 (-1087)

1087

WILLIAM II (-1100)

1100-1200

• Layamon, late 12th cent. author of Brut, a 32,000-line poem.

1100

HENRY I (-1135)

1135

STEPHEN (-1154)

1154

HENRY II (-1189)

1155

• Wace's Anglo-Norman Roman de Brut (?)

1160-1170

• Period of Walter Map, Anglo-Latin poet

1160

• Thomas of Britain's Anglo-Norman Tristan

1172

• Wace's Anglo-Norman Roman de Rou (?)

1189

RICHARD I (-1199)

1199

JOHN (-1216)

1216

HENRY III (-1272)

1230

• first 4,000 lines of Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de la Rose, composed

1250

• The Owl and the Nightingale, an amusing verse debate probably written by Nicholas of Guildford about this time

1265

BirthsDante Alighieri.

1272

EDWARD I (-1307)

1275

• Jean de Meun extends Roman de la Rose by over 17,500 lines

before 1300

• Dame Sirith (?)

1300-1400

• Huchown.

1300

• Two romances, Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton, were composed about this time.BirthsRichard Rolle (?)

ca. 1307-1321

• Alighieri Dante's Divina Commedia.

1307

EDWARD II (-1327)

1314

ROBERT BRUCE DEFEATS EDWARD II AT BANNOCKBURN

ca. 1314-25

• Lyrics from British Library Harley 2253, including "Alysoun" and ""Lenten ys come with love to toune."

1321

DeathsDante Alighieri.

before 1325

• Cursor Mundi, a verse history of the world in about 24,000 lines.

1327

EDWARD III (-1377)

1330

• Sir Orfeo, a romance (?)BirthsJohn Gower (Representative Poetry Online) (?); William Langland (Representative Poetry Online) (?).

1343

BirthsGeoffrey Chaucer (Representative Poetry Online) (?).

1349

DeathsRichard Rolle

ca. 1350-52

• Boccaccio's Decameron

1350

BirthsAndrew of Wyntoun (Scotland) (?)

1352

• Wynnere and Wastoure

1361

BirthsHenry Scogan (?).

1362

ENGLISH REPLACES FRENCH IN PARLIAMENT AND LAW COURTS

ca. 1367-70

• A-text of Langland's Piers Plowman

1369

• Chaucer's The Book of the DuchessBirthsThomas Hoccleve (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1370

BirthsJohn Lydgate (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1376

• John Gower writes his Mirour de l'Omme, or Speculum Meditantis, about 1376-78.• John Barbour (Scotland) writes The Bruce, a verse chronicle of about 13,000 lines.

1377

RICHARD II (-1399)• B-text of Langland's Piers Plowman is written about 1377-79.

1379

• John Gower's Vox Clamantis is written about 1379-81.

1380-1400

• the works of the so-called Gawain poet, containing Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from British Library manuscript Cotton Nero A.x

1380

• John Wyclif translates the Bible (?), into English.

1384

DeathsWyclif

1385

• Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde• C-text of Langland's Piers Plowman about 1385-86

1386

Deaths"William Langland (?)

ca. 1387-1400

• Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

1390-1393

• John Gower's Confessio Amantis is published at this time in its first version.

1391

DeathsSir John Clanvowe, supposed author of The Cuckoo and the Nightingale

1394

BirthsCharles d'Orleans (Representative Poetry Online); James I of Scotland (Representative Poetry Online)

about 1395

• Pierce the Ploughmans Crede

1395

DeathsJohn Barbour

1399

HENRY IV (-1413)

before 1400

• The alliterative Morte Arthure (?)• Sir Launfal, by Thomas Chestre

1400

DeathsGeoffrey Chaucer

ca. 1406-25

• James I of Scotland, while captured in England, writes "The Kingis Quair.

1407

DeathsHenry Scogan

1408

DeathsJohn Gower

1412

• John Lydgate's Troy Book, written about 1412-20

1413

HENRY V (-1422)

1420

• John Lydgate's The Siege of Thebes, written about 1420-22

1422

HENRY VI (-1461, 1470-71; Representative Poetry Online)

1424

BirthsRobert Henryson (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1425

DeathsAndrew of Wyntoun (?)

1426

• John Lydgate's The Pilgrimage of Man, written about 1426-30

DeathsThomas Hoccleve

1431

• John Lydgate's The Fall of Princes, written about 1431-38

1437

DeathsJames I of Scotland, killed

1440

BirthsHenry the Minstrel, otherwise known as "Blind Harry" (Scotland).

1449

DeathsJohn Lydgate

about 1450

• Sir Richard Holland's The Buke of the Howlat.

1455

RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK, DEFEATS HENRY VI AT ST. ALBANS ON MAY 22, THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR OF THE ROSES

1456

BirthsWilliam Dunbar (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1460

• "Blind Harry" writes the 12,000-line poem, The Wallace (?).BirthsJohn Skelton (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Walter Kennedy (Scotland) (?)

1461

EDWARD IV (-1469, 1471-83)

1471

DeathsHenry VI (Representative Poetry Online)

1474

CAXTON PRINTS THE FIRST BOOK IN ENGLANDBirthsGavin Douglas (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Walter Kennedy (Scotland) (?)

before 1475

• The Floure and the Leaf composed (?)

1475

BirthsAlexander Barclay (?); Stephen Hawes (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1476

• William Caxton prints Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (?)BirthsHenry Parker Morley, lord

1477

BirthsThomas More

1483

EDWARD V (-1483); RICHARD III (-1485)• William Caxton prints Gower's Confessio Amantis

1484

• William Caxton prints Chaucer's Troilus and CriseydeEarly Modern English 1485-1800Renaissance 1485-1603

1485

HENRY TUDOR DEFEATS RICHARD III ON BOSWORTH FIELD; HENRY VII (-1509)

1486

BirthsSir David Lindsay (Scotland)

1491

BirthsHenry Tudor, the future Henry VIII (Representative Poetry Online)

1492

COLUMBUS DISCOVERS SAN SALVADOR ON OCT. 12Deaths"Blind Harry."

1497

JOHN CABOT DISCOVERS NEWFOUNDLANDBirthsJohn Heywood (?)

1498

• John Skelton's The Bowge of Courte composed (?)

1500

BirthsJohn Ballantyne (?)

1503

• William Dunbar's The Thrissill and the Rois composed• Henry, son of Henry VII, becomes the Prince of WalesBirthsSir Thomas Wyatt (Representative Poetry Online)Sir Thomas Wyatt

1506

DeathsRobert Henryson (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1507

• William Dunbar's The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis, The Goldyn Targe, The Lament for the Makaris, and The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen composed (?)

1508

• William Dunbar's poems are published in EdinburghDeathsWalter Kennedy (?).

1509

HENRY VIII (-1547) • Alexander Barclay's Ship of Fools• Stephen Hawes' Passetyme of Pleasure• Henry Tudor is married to Catherine of Aragon on June 11 and succeeds his father Henry VII on Aug. 21 as Henry VIIIBirthsThomas Vaux, 2nd baron Vaux of Harrowden (Representative Poetry Online)

1511

DeathsStephen Hawes (Representative Poetry Online)

1513

• Gavin Douglas translates Virgil's Aeneid (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsWilliam Dunbar (?), perhaps at Flodden Field

1514

• Dr. D. Cooper (Representative Poetry Online), active at the court of Henry VIII

1517

BirthsHenry Howard, earl of Surrey (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1519

BirthsNicholas Grimald (?)

1520

• Thomas Churchyard (?)

1521

BirthsAnne Askew (Representative Poetry Online)

1522

• John Skelton's "Why Come Ye Not to Court?" attacks Cardinal WolseyDeathsGavin Douglas (Representative Poetry Online)

1523

• John Skelton's The Garlande of Laurel written

1528

BirthsThomas Whythorne

1529

DeathsJohn Skelton (Representative Poetry Online), on June 21

1530

BirthsGeorge Puttenham (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1532

• W. Thynne edits Chaucer's works• Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

1533

HENRY VIII SECRETLY MARRIES ANNE BOLEYNBirthsElizabeth Tudor, later Elizabeth I (Representative Poetry Online)

1534

BirthsGeorge Gascoigne (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1535

DeathsSir Thomas More, executed

1536

BirthsThomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset (Representative Poetry Online)

1540

• Henry Howard, earl of Surrey (Representative Poetry Online), develops blank verse 1537-46 in his translation of the Aeneid, Books 2-6BirthsBarnabe Googe; Isabella Whitney (Representative Poetry Online)

1542

DeathsSir Thomas Wyatt (Representative Poetry Online), on Oct. 11

1543

BirthsWilliam Byrd (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Sir Edward Dyer (Representative Poetry Online)

1545

BirthsAlexander Montgomerie (Scotland) (?); George Turberville (?)

1546

• John Heywood's verse proverbsBirthsGiles Fletcher the elderDeathsAnne Askew (Representative Poetry Online)

1547

EDWARD VI (-1553)DeathsHenry Howard, earl of Surrey (Representative Poetry Online), executed by Henry VIII; Henry VIII (Representative Poetry Online)

1548

• John Bale's Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum Summarium, biographical entries on major British writersDeathsJohn Ballantyne (?)

1549

• R. Wever (Representative Poetry Online) devises Lusty Juventus about 1549-53• Sir Thomas Wyatt's Certayne Psalmes, an English translation of part of the Biblical psalms.

1550

BirthsGabriel Harvey (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1552

• Thomas Churchyard's A Mirror for ManBirthsWalter Ralegh (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Edmund Spenser (Representative Poetry Online) (?)DeathsAlexander Barclay

1553

JANE (-1553); MARY I (-1558)• Gavin Douglas' translation of Virgil's Aeneid, published posthumously• William Stevenson (Representative Poetry Online) about this year wrote Gammer Gurton's Needle• Thomas Wilson's Art of Rhetoric

1554

BirthsFulke Greville (Representative Poetry Online), 1st baron Brooke; John Lyly (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Sir Philip Sidney (Representative Poetry Online), on Nov. 30

1555

• John Heywood's Epigrams

BirthsNicholas Breton (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Richard Carew (Representative Poetry Online) of AnthonyDeathsSir David Lindsay

1556

• John Heywood's The Spider and the FlyBirthsGeorge Peele (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsHenry Parker Morley, lord; Thomas Vaux, 2nd baron Vaux of Harrowden (Representative Poetry Online)

1557

• The translation by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, of books II and IV of Virgil's Æneid is published.• Thomas Tusser's Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie• Tottel's Miscellany• William Gray of Reading (Representative Poetry Online) is active about this time.BirthsSir Arthur Gorges; Thomas Watson (?)

1558

ELIZABETH I (-1603) BirthsChidiock Tichborne (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas Lodge (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas Morley (Representative Poetry Online) (?); William Warner (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1559

• The Mirror of Magistrates, with 20 tragic tales; enlarged repeatedly until 1609BirthsGeorge Chapman (Representative Poetry Online)

1560

BirthsRobert Greene (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Anthony Munday (Representative Poetry Online)

1561

• Julius Caesar Scaliger's poetics published in FranceBirthsSir John Harington (?); Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke; Robert Southwell (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1562

BirthsHenry Constable; Samuel Daniel (Representative Poetry Online); Nicholas Grimald

1563

• Barnabe Googe's Eclogues, Epitaphs, and Sonnets• second edition of The Mirror of MagistratesBirthsJohn Dowland (Representative Poetry Online); Michael Drayton (Representative Poetry Online); Sir Robert Sidney (Philip's younger brother); Joshua Sylvester (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1564

BirthsChristopher Marlowe (Representative Poetry Online) on Feb. 6; William Shakespeare (Representative Poetry Online) on April 23

1565

• Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, books I-IV, published, completed in 1575BirthsJohn Davies (?).

1566

BirthsJohn Hoskyns (Representative Poetry Online); James I of England (James VI of Scotland).

1567

BirthsThomas Campion (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas Nashe (Representative Poetry Online)

1568

• John Skelton's poems publishedBirthsSir Henry Wotton (Representative Poetry Online)

1569

• Barnabe Barnes' sonnet sequence Parthenophil and ParthenopheBirthsSir John Davies; Emilia Lanyer (Representative Poetry Online), née Bassano

1570

BirthsSir Robert Aytoun (Scotland); Thomas Bateson (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Thomas Dekker (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Samuel Rowlands (?)

1571

BirthsMartin Peerson (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1572

• Rauf Coilyear (late 15th cent. Scot.), publishedBirthsJohn Donne (Representative Poetry Online)

1573

• George Gascoigne's A Hundreth Sundrie FlowresBirthsBen Jonson (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1574

BirthsRichard Barnfield (Representative Poetry Online); Joseph Hall (Representative Poetry Online); John Wilbye (Representative Poetry Online)

1575

• George Gascoigne's Certayne notes of instruction concerning the Making of verse or ryme in English names "Poulter's Measure," iambic couplets of 12- and 14-syllable lines; also his PoesiesBirthsJohn Marston (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1576

• Richard Edwards' compilation of Paradyse of Dainty Devises• George Gascoigne's The Steele glasBirthsThomas Weelkes (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1577

DeathsGeorge Gascoigne (Representative Poetry Online) on Nov. 15

1578

• Thomas Proctor's A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant InventionsBirthsGeorge Sandys; John Taylor the "water poet" (?)DeathsJohn Heywood

1579

• Stephen Gosson's prose The School of Abuse attacks poets and players• Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calender (Representative Poetry Online)BirthsJohn Fletcher (Representative Poetry Online)

1580

• Thomas Churchyard's translation of Ovid's Tristia, I-IIIBirthsThomas Ford (Representative Poetry Online) (?); Thomas Middleton (baptised); John Webster (Representative Poetry Online) (?)DeathsJohn Heywood (?); Isabella Whitney (Representative Poetry Online) (after)

1581

• Sir Philip Sidney completes the Old Arcadia and writes his Defence of Poetry or An Apologie for Poetrie 1579-81 (published in 1595), in response to Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse

1582

• Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil's Aeneid, I-IV• Philip Sidney writes Astrophel and Stella about this time: 108 sonnets and 11 songs

about his unrequited love for Penelope Rich• Shakespeare marries Anne HathawayBirthsRichard Corbet (Representative Poetry Online) (Corbett); Phineas Fletcher; Edward, lord Herbert of Cherbury (Representative Poetry Online)

1583

• Sir Philip Sidney completes the New Arcadia within two yearsBirthsSir John Beaumont; Orlando Gibbons (Representative Poetry Online); Aurelian Townshend (?)

1584

BirthsFrancis Beaumont (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsThomas Norton

1585

• James VI of Scotland writes Essays of a Prentice in the Art of PoesieBirthsWilliam Drummond of Hawthornden (Representative Poetry Online); Giles Fletcher the younger (Representative Poetry Online)

1586

• William Warner's Albions England• William Webbe's Discourse of English PoetryDeathsSir Philip Sidney (Representative Poetry Online) on Oct. 17, from a war wound; Chidiock Tichborne (Representative Poetry Online), executed

1587

BirthsLady Mary Sidney Wroth (?).DeathsJohn Bellenden (Scotland)

1588

• William Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets, & Songs of sadnes and pietie

BirthsGeorge Wither (Representative Poetry Online)

1589

• William Byrd's Songs of Sundrie Natures• George Puttenham's The Arte of English PoesieDeathsHumfrey Gifford (Representative Poetry Online)

1590

• Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde: Euphues golden legacie• George Peele's Polyhymnia• Thomas Watson's Italian Madrigals Englished• revised version of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia published posthumously• Edmund Spenser (Representative Poetry Online): The Faerie Queene, Books I-IIIBirthsWilliam Browne (Representative Poetry Online); Walter Porter (Representative Poetry Online) (?)

1591

• Sir John Harrington's translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso• Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella• Edmund Spenser's Daphnaida and ComplaintsBirthsRobert Herrick (Representative Poetry Online)

1592

• Samuel Daniel's "Delia (Representative Poetry Online). Contayning certayne sonnets: with the complaint of Rosamond• Joshua Sylvester's translation of The Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas, completed in 1608BirthsHenry King (Representative Poetry Online); Francis Quarles (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsThomas Watson

1593

• Henry Constable's sonnet sequence Diana• Michael Drayton (Representative Poetry Online): Idea• Thomas Morley's Canzonets

• The Phoenix Nest, compiled by R. S.• Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis• Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia republished with the three books of the old versionBirthsGeorge Herbert (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsChristopher Marlowe (Representative Poetry Online) on May 30, murdered

1594

• George Chapman's The Shadow of Night• Michael Drayton's Ideas Mirrour• R. Carew's translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata• Thomas Morley's Canzonets and Madrigalls• Shakespeare's The Rape of LucreceDeathsBarnabe Googe

1595

• George Chapman's Ovid's Banquet of Sense• Samuel Daniel's Civil Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York, completed in 8 books in 1609.• Michael Drayton's Endimion and Phoebe• Thomas Morley's Balletts and Canzonets• Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie and sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella posthumously published• Edmund Spenser's sonnet sequence "Amoretti," and his wedding poem "Epithalamion," both about Elizabeth BoyleBirthsThomas CarewDeathsRobert Southwell, executed (and canonized in 1970)

1596

• Sir John Davies' Orchestra or a Poeme of Dauncing• Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Books IV-VI, Fowre Hymnes, and ProthalamionBirthsJames Shirley (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsGeorge Peele (Representative Poetry Online); George Whythorne

1597

• Francis Bacon's Essays, first edition• John Dowland (Representative Poetry Online): The First Booke of Songes• Joseph Hall's Virgidemiarum• Francis Mere's Palladis Tamia, including a critical survey of English writers, such as ShakespeareDeathsGeorge Turberville (?)

1598

• Richard Barnfield's The encomium of lady Pecunia; or the praise of money• George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad, I-II, VII-XI• Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, posthumously publishedDeathsAlexander Montgomerie

1599

• Samuel Daniel's Musophilus• Sir John Davies, in Hymnes of Astraea, writes 26 acrostic poems dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.• Shakespeare's The Passionate PilgrimDeathsEdmund Spenser (Representative Poetry Online), on Jan. 16

1600

• Englands Helicon, an anthology of poems• Thomas Morley (Representative Poetry Online): Madrigals• Thomas Nashe (Representative Poetry Online): Summers Last Will and Testament (play)• John Dowland (Representative Poetry Online): Second Booke of Songs• Christopher Marlowe's translation of Lucan's Pharsalia posthumously published• Thomas Weelkes' CantoBirthsCharles I (Representative Poetry Online); John Ogilby (Scots.)

1601

• Robert Chester's Loues martyr: or, Rosalins complaint• John Donne secretly weds Ann More, niece of his employer, Sir Thomas Egerton• Thomas Morley's First Booke of Ayres• Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle published in Chester's Loves MartyrDeathsThomas Nashe

1602

• Thomas Campion's Observations in the Art of English Poesie• A Poetical Rhapsody, compiled by Francis and Walter Davison• Robert Southwell's St. Peter's Complaint, with Other PoemsBirthsEdward Benlowes; Owen Felltham (?); William StrodeDeathsThomas Morley17th Century 1603-1667

1603

JAMES I (-1625)• Samuel Daniel's Defence of Rhyme, a reply to Thomas Campion's Observations• John Dowland's Third and Last Booke of Songs• James VI of Scotland is crowned James I of EnglandBirthsShackerly MarmionDeathsElizabeth I

1604

• Thomas Bateson's Cantus. The first set of English MadrigalesDeathsThomas Churchyard

1605

• Bartas: his Devine weekes and works, translated by Joshua SylvesterBirthsWilliam Habington; Thomas Randolph

1606

• Michael Drayton's Poems Lyric and Pastoral, including "The Ballad of Agincourt"BirthsSir William D'Avenant, on March 3; Edmund WallerDeathsJohn Lyly

1607

JAMESTOWN FOUNDED IN VIRGINIA• Thomas Ford's Musicke of sundrie kindes

DeathsSir Edward Dyer

1608

BirthsJohn Milton on Dec. 9DeathsThomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset

1609

• Shakespeares sonnets (including "A Lover's Complaint") published by Thomas Thorpe• John Wilbye's The Second Set of MadrigalesBirthsSir John SucklingDeathsWilliam Warner

1610

GALILEO SHOWS EARTH'S ROTATION AROUND THE SUN• Giles Fletcher's Christs Victory and Triumph• Ben Jonson receives a royal pension, making him unofficially the first British Poet LaureateBirthsLucius Cary Falkland

1611

• Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum• John Donne's An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary• King James' version of the BibleDeathsGiles Fletcher the elder

1612

• second edition of Francis Bacon's Essays• John Donne's The Second Anniversary: The Progress of the Soul• John Dowland's A Pilgrimes Solace• Michael Drayton's The Poly-Olbion, Part I (1612-13)• Orlando Gibbon's First Set of Madrigals and MottetsBirthsAnn Bradstreet; James Graham, 5th earl and first marquis of Montrose (Scotland)

DeathsSir John Harington

1613

• William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, completed in 1616• Richard Carew of Anthony's "The Excellency of the English Tongue"• Joshua Sylvester's Lachrymae Lachrymarum• George Wither's Abuses Stript and WhiptBirthsSamuel Butler; John Cleveland; Richard Crashaw (?)DeathsHenry Constable

1615

BirthsSir John Denham

1616

• George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey• William Drummond's Poems• Ben Jonson's Works, including "On My First Son"BirthsJoseph BeaumontDeathsFrancis Beaumont; William Shakespeare

1618

BirthsAbraham Cowley; Richard LovelaceDeathsJohn Davies; Sir Walter Ralegh, executed; Joshua Sylvester

1619

• Michael Drayton's last edition of Idea, including "Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part"DeathsSamuel Daniel

1620

MAYFLOWER LANDS ON DEC. 22

• Martin Peerson's Private Musick• Francis Quarles' A Feast for WormsBirthsAlexander BromeDeathsThomas Campion; Richard Carew of Anthony

1621

• George Sandys' verse translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1621-26)BirthsAndrew MarvellDeathsMary Herbert, countess of Pembroke, of smallpox

1622

• Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion, II• George Wither's Fidelia and Fair-virtueBirthsHenry Vaughan; Thomas Vaughan

1623

• William Drummond's Flowers of Sion• Shakespeare's fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell publish the first folio of his worksBirthsMargaret Newcastle, duchess of NewcastleDeathsWilliam Byrd; Giles Fletcher the younger; Thomas Weelkes

1625

CHARLES I (-1649)• third edition of Francis Bacon's EssaysDeathsJohn Fletcher; Orlando Gibbons; Sir Arthur Gorges; James I of England; Thomas Lodge

1626

DeathsFrancis Bacon; Nicholas Breton; Sir John Davies; John Dowland

1627

• Michael Drayton's "The battaile of AgincourtDeathsRichard Barnfield; Sir John Beaumont

1628

• George Wither's Britain's Remembrancer, about the 1625 London plagueBirthsJohn Bunyan DeathsFulke Greville, baron Brooke

1629

• John Milton composes On the Morning of Christ's Nativity at Christmas

1630

• Michael Drayton's The muses EliziumBirthsCharles CottonDeathsThomas Bateson; Samuel Rowlands (?)

1631

BirthsJohn Dryden; Katherine Philips; John PhillipsDeathsJohn Donne (Representative Poetry Online); Michael Drayton; Gabriel Harvey

1632

• Walter Porter's Madrigales and ayres• Francis Quarles' Divine FanciesDeathsThomas Dekker; John Webster (?)

1633

• Certaine Learned and Elegant Works by Fulke Greville, lord Brooke, including Caelica• John Donne's Poems posthumously published• Phineas Fletcher's The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man• George Herbert's The TempleBirthsWentworth Dillon (?)

DeathsGeorge Herbert; Anthony Munday

1634

• John Milton's "Comus performedDeathsGeorge Chapman; John Marston

1635

• Francis Quarles' Emblemes• George Wither's Emblems, Ancient and ModerneBirthsSir George Etherege (?); Thomas SpratDeathsRichard Corbet (Corbett); Thomas Randolph

1637

• John Milton's Lycidas in memory of Edward KingBirthsThomas Flatman; Thomas TraherneDeathsBen Jonson

1638

• Sir William D'Avenant made unofficial British Poet Laureate• Francis Quarles' Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man• Thomas Randolph's Poems with the Muses looking-glasse• Sir John Suckling's AglauraBirthsCharles Sackville, earl of Dorset; Sir Charles Sedley (?)DeathsSir Robert Aytoun (?); John Hoskyns; Shakerly Marmion; John Wilbye

1639

BirthsSir Charles Sedley (?)DeathsSir Henry Wotton

1640

• Thomas Carew's Poems• Ben Jonson's Timber, criticism on poets and poetry; and his translation of Horace's Ars PoeticaBirthsAphra Behn (?)DeathsThomas Carew; John Ford (?)

1642

• first version of Sir John Denham's Cooper's HillBirthsThomas Shadwell (?)DeathsSir John Suckling; Edward Taylor (US) (?)

1643

DeathsLucius Cary Falkland; Aurelian Townshend (?)

1644

DeathsFrancis Quarles; George Sandys

1645

• John Milton's Poems, including "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso"• Edmund Waller's PoemsDeathsWilliam Browne; Emilia Lanyer; William Strode

1646

• Richard Crashaw's Delights of the Muses and Steps to the Temple• Sir John Sucking's Fragmenta Aurea• Henry Vaughan's Poems

1647

• John Cleveland's The Character of a London Diurnal• Richard Corbet's Certain Elegant Poems• Abraham Cowley's The MistresseBirthsJohn Wilmot, earl of Rochester

1648

• Robert Herrick's HesperidesDeathsEdward, lord Herbert of Cherbury

1649

NO KING; GOVERNMENT BY COUNCIL (-1653)• Richard Lovelace's LucastaBirthsElkanah SettleDeathsCharles I; Richard Crashaw; William Drummond of Hawthornden

1650

• Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans• Anne Bradstreet's The Tenth MuseDeathsPhineas Fletcher; James Graham, marquis of Montrose, executed; Martin Peerson

1651

• Sir William D'Avenant's "Preface to Gondibert" DeathsLady Mary Sidney Wroth (?)

1652

• Edward Benlowe's Theophilia, or Love's Sacrifice• Richard Crashaw's Carmen Deo NostroBirthsNahum Tate

1653

OLIVER CROMWELL, LORD PROTECTOR (-1658)• John Cleveland's Poems• Margaret Newcastle's Poems and FanciesBirthsThomas D'Urfey; John Oldham;DeathsJohn Taylor the "water poet"

1654

BirthsSir Richard BlackmoreDeathsWilliam Habington

1655

• John Cotgrave's The English Treasury of Literature and Language and Wits Interpreter: The English Parnassus

1656

• Abraham Cowley's Poems• Richard Crashaw's Carmen Del NostroBirthsLady Mary ChudleighDeathsJoseph Hall

1657

• Henry King's Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes and SonnetsBirthsJohn DennisDeathsRichard Lovelace

1658

RICHARD CROMWELL, LORD PROTECTOR (-1659)BirthsCharles Mordaunt, earl of PeterboroughDeathsJohn Cleveland

1659

• Richard Lovelace's Last RemainsBirthsHenry PurcellDeathsWalter Porter

1660

CHARLES II (-1685)• John Dryden's Astraea Redux, celebrating the restoration of the monarchy

BirthsDaniel Defoe; Anne Killigrew (?)

1661

BirthsAnne Finch, countess of Winchilsea

1662

• Samuel Butler's Hudibras, Book IBirthsWilliam King; John Smith

1663

• Samuel Butler's Hudibras, Book II• Abraham Cowley's Verses upon Several Occasions

1664

NEWTON FORMULATES THE LAW OF GRAVITY BirthsMatthew PriorDeathsKatherine Philips, of smallpox

1665

• Edward Herbert, lord Herbert of Cherbury's Occasional Verses

1666

DeathsJames Shirley299; Thomas VaughanAugustans 1667-1780

1667

• Katherine Philips' Poems• John Dryden's Annus Mirabilis• John Milton's Paradise Lost, published in ten booksBirthsAlicia D'Anvers, née Clarke; John Pomfret; John Reynolds; John Richardson (?); Jonathan Swift; Edward Ward

DeathsAbraham Cowley>; George Wither

1668

• John Dryden's essay Of Dramatick Poesie• John Dryden made British Poet Laureate• Thomas Sprat's "An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley"DeathsSir William D'Avenant; Owen Felltham

1669

DeathsSir John Denham; Henry King

1670

BirthsWilliam Congreve; Sarah Fyge; Bernard Mandeville

1671

• John Milton's "Paradise Regained and "Samson AgonistesBirthsColley Cibber; Sarah Dixon (?)

1672

• Sir George Etherege's PoemsBirthsJoseph Addison (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsAnne Bradstreet

1673

• John Milton's Poems on Several Occasions, revised edn.BirthsJohn Oldmixon (?); Ambrose PhilipsDeathsMargaret Newcastle, duchess of Newcastle

1674

• John Milton's "Paradise Lost (2nd edn.), published in 12 books• Thomas Rymer's translation of René Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of PoesieBirthsAmbrose Philips; Nicholas Rowe; Isaac WattsDeathsEdward Benlowes; Robert Herrick; John Milton; Thomas Traherne

1675

• John Wilmot, earl of Rochester's A Satire against MankindBirthsWilliam Somervile

1676

BirthsJohn PhilipsDeathsJohn Ogilby

1678

• Samuel Butler's "Hudibras, Book III• Anne Bradstreet's Poems• Henry Vaughan's Thalia RedivivaBirthsJohn Winstanley (?)DeathsAndrew Marvell, of medical treatment; Mary Monck (?)

1679

• John Oldham's Satire against VirtueBirthsThomas Parnell (Ireland)

1680

• Samuel Butler's Hudibras, Part III• Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of Roscommon, publishes a translation of Horace's Ars Poetica• John Wilmot, earl of Rochester's Poems on several OccasionsDeathsSamuel Butler; John Wilmot, earl of Rochester

1681

• John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel• Andrew Marvell's Miscellaneous Poems, posthumously published, including "To his Coy Mistress"

1682

• John Dryden's Religio Laici, Macflecknoe, and "Absalom and Achitophel, II; all but 200 lines are by Nahum TateBirthsRichardson Pack

1683

BirthsEdward YoungDeathsJohn Oldham, of smallpox

1684

• Wentworth Dillon's Essay on Translated Verse• John Oldham's Poems and Translations

1685

JAMES II (-1688)• Aphra Behn's Miscellany, being a collection of poems by several hands• Edmund Waller's Divine Poems• John Dryden's SylvaeBirthsGeorge Berkeley; William Diaper; John Gay; William Harrison; Aaron Hill; Thomas TickellDeathsWentworth Dillon; Anne Killigrew, from smallpox

1686

• Anne Killigrew's Poems, to which John Dryden contributed an ode in memory of Anne KilligrewBirthsAllan Ramsay (Scotland)

1687

• John Dryden's Song for St. Cecilia's Day and "The Hind and the Panther• Matthew Prior's and Charles Montagu's Story of the Country-Mouse and the City-Mouse, a burlesque of Dryden's HindBirthsHenry Carey (?)DeathsCharles Cotton

1688

• John Dryden's Britannia Rediviva• Thomas Shadwell made British Poet LaureateBirthsLaurence Eusden; Alexander Pope; Thomas Warton (?); Leonard WelstedDeathsJohn Bunyan; Thomas Flatman

1689

WILLIAM III (-1702) AND MARY II (-1694)• Charles Cotton's Poems on Several Occasions• Andrew Marvell's Poems on Affairs of State published posthumouslyBirthsLady Mary Wortley Montagu, née PierrepontDeathsAphra Behn

1690

• Sir William Temple's essay "Of Poetry"BirthsAndrew Brice; Mary Barber (?); Mary Collier (?); Samuel Croxall (?)

1691

• Alicia D'Anvers' Academia, or The Humours of the University of Oxford• Henry Purcell's Dido and AeneasDeathsSir George Etherege; Samuel Wesley

1692

• Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen• Nahum Tate made British Poet LaureateBirthsJohn Byrom; Elizabeth Tollet

DeathsThomas Shadwell

1693

BirthsHildebrand Jacob

1694

BirthsJames Bramston (?); Philip Dormer Stanhope, earl of Chesterfield

1695

• Henry Purcell's The Indian QueenDeathsHenry Purcell; Henry Vaughan

1696

BirthsMatthew Green; William Oldys

1697

• Aphra Behn's Poetical Remains• John Dryden's Alexander's Feast, or, the Power of MusiqueBirthsEdward Chicken; Thomas Edwards; Richard Savage (?); Hetty Wright

1698

• Aphra Behn's Poetical RemainsBirthsHenry BakerDeathsEdward Littleton (?)

1699

• Thomas Traherne's A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of GodBirthsRobert Blair; John Ellis; Leonard Howard (?); Christopher Pitt; Alexander Ross (Scotland)

DeathsJoseph Beaumont

1700

• John Dryden's Fables Ancient and Modern and The Secular MasqueBirthsJohn Dyer (Wales); James Thomson (Scotland)DeathsJohn Dryden

1701

• Daniel Defoe's A True-born Englishman• John Dennis' The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry• John Philips' The Splendid ShillingDeathsSir Charles Sedley

1702

ANNE (-1714)• Sir Charles Sedley's Miscellaneous Works, published posthumouslyBirthsPhilip Doddridge; Robert Nugent, earl Nugent; Kenrick PrescotDeathsJohn Pomfret

1703

• Lady Mary Chudleigh's Poems upon Several Occasions• Sarah Fyge's Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsHenry Brooke (?); Robert Dodsley; John Wesley

1704

• John Dennis' The Grounds of Criticism in PoetryBirthsMoses Browne; William Hamilton (Scotland); Soame Jenyns

1705

• Joseph Addison's The Campaign, on the victory at Blenheim• John Philips' Blenheim

BirthsIsaac Hawkins Browne; Stephen Duck; David Mallet (?)

1706

• Isaac Watts' Horae LyricaeDeathsCharles Sackville, 6th earl of Dorset

1707

• Matthew Prior's Poems on Several Occasions• Isaac Watts' Hymns and Spiritual SongsBirthsCharles Wesley

1708

• John Philips' CiderBirthsJohn Collier; Sir Charles Hanbury Williams

1709

• First copyright law in England.• Alexander Pope's Pastorals• Matthew Prior's Poems on Several Occasions• Jonathan Swift's "Description of a City Shower" and "Description of the Morning"BirthsJohn Armstrong; John Bancks; Martha Brewster, née Wadsworth; John Dalton; Sneyd Davies; William Dunkin (?); Samuel JohnsonDeathsJohn Philips

1710

BirthsGeorge Alexander Stevens; Paul WhiteheadDeathsJean Adams (Scotland); Lady Mary Chudleigh

1711

• Alexander Pope's Essay on CriticismBirthsJohn Gambold; Jupiter Hammon (US); Henry Taylor

1712

• Sir Richard Blackmore's Creation: a philosophical poem• Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock published in Lintot's Miscellanies, and enlarged in 1714BirthsEmanuel Collins (?); Richard Glover; Josiah RelphDeathsWilliam King

1713

• Joseph Addison's Cato• Anne Finch, countess of Winchelsea's Miscellany Poems• Alexander Pope's Windsor ForestBirthsAlison Cockburn (Scotland), née Rutherford (?); Thomas Gilbert (?); George SmithDeathsWilliam Harrison; Thomas Sprat

1714

GEORGE I (-1727)• John Gay's The Shepherd's Week and The Fan• the Scriblerus Club met January-July, a group including John Gay, Thomas Parnell, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan SwiftBirthsWilliam ShenstoneDeathsPaul Whitehead

1715

• Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's Iliad , Book I, followed by Books II in 1716, III in 1717, IV in 1718, and V-VI in 1720.• Nicholas Rowe mad British Poet Laureate• Isaac Watts' Divine Songs for the Use of Children, including "How doth the little busy Bee"BirthsJohn Brown; Richard Jago; Richard Graves; William WhiteheadDeathsMary Monck; Nahum Tate

1716

• John Gay's Trivia or the Art of Walking the Streets of London and Court Poems• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "Court EcloguesBirthsThomas Gray

1717

• Alexander Pope's Collected Works, including "Eloisa to AbelardBirthsHorace Walpole, earl of OxfordDeathsWilliam Diaper; David Garrick; John Smith

1718

• Laurence Euston made British Poet LaureateDeathsThomas Parnell; Nicholas Rowe

1719

• Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy• Isaac Watts' Psalms of DavidBirthsJames Cawthorn; James Eyre Weeks (?)DeathsJoseph Addison (Representative Poetry Online)

1720

• John Gay's Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsFrancis Fawkes; Gilbert WhiteDeathsAnne Finch, countess of Winchilsea

1721

• Thomas Parnell's Night-Piece on Death• Jonathan Swift's Letter of Advice to a Young PoetBirthsMark Akenside (Representative Poetry Online); William Collins (Representative Poetry Online); James Grainger; Matthew Prior (Representative Poetry Online); Tobias Smollett; William Wilkie (Scotland)

1722

• Thomas Parnell's Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsJames Dance; Mary Leapor; Christopher Smart; Joseph Warton

1723

DeathsThomas D'Urfey; Sarah Fyge

1724

BirthsChristopher Anstey; Frances Brooke; Evan Lloyd; William MasonDeathsElkanah Settle

1725

• Orpheus Caledonius: or a Collection of the Best Scotch Songs, compiled by William Thomson• Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's Odyssey, Books I-III (with William Broome and Elijah Fenton), books IV-V to follow in 1726• Edward Young's Love of Fame, the Universal Passion (1725-28)BirthsJohn NewtonDeathsAlicia D'Anvers

1726

• Henry Carey's "Namby Pamby, including fragments of many still-popular nursery rhymes, such as "London Bridge is broken down"• Thomson's "Winter

1727

GEORGE II (-1760)• John Gay's Fables, I, to be followed by II in 1738, but completed only in 1750.• Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry, a parody of Longinus's treatise on the sublime• Thomson's "SummerBirthsThomas Cole (?)DeathsJohn Reynolds

1728

• John Gay's Beggar's Opera• Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad, Books I-III, followed by Book IV (the New Dunciad) in 1742, and completed in 1743• James Thomson's SpringBirthsLady Dorothea Du Bois (Ireland); Thomas Warton the youngerDeathsRichardson Pack

1729

• Alexander Pope's The Dunciad VariorumBirthsJohn Cunningham; George Keate; Thomas PercyDeathsSir Richard Blackmore; William Congreve; Edward Taylor

1730

• Colley Cibber made British Poet Laureate• Stephen Duck's Poems• Aaron Hill's The Progress of Wit• James Thomson's The Seasons, including AutumnBirthsOliver Goldsmith (?); John ScottDeathsLaurence Eusden

1731

• Alexander Pope's Of Taste and four Moral Essays (1731-35)BirthsSamuel Bishop; Charles Churchill; William Cowper; Erasmus Darwin; John Freeth (?); Francis Grose (ca); William WotyDeathsDaniel Defoe; Edward Ward

1732

• John Gay's libretto for Handel's Acis and GalateaBirthsJohn Carr; William Falconer; Thomas MorrisDeathsJohn Gay

1733

• Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man, completed 1734, and Imitations of Horace, Book I, followed by Book II in 1734BirthsIsaac Bickerstaffe; Robert LloydDeathsBernard Mandeville

1734

• Mary Barber's Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsJohn Maclaurin, lord DreghornDeathsEdward Littleton

1735

• Alexander Pope's Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot• William Somervile's The Chace• James Thomson's Liberty, parts I-III ("Italy," "Greece," and "Rome"), followed in 1736 by parts IV-V ("Britain" and "The Prospect")BirthsJames Beattie; John Langhorne; William Julius Mickle; James WoodhouseDeathsCharles Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough

1736

BirthsCharles Jenner; James Macpherson (Scotland)

1737

• Alexander Pope's "Imitations of Horace• William Shenstone's Poems upon Various Occasions, including "The Schoolmistress"• Jonathan Swift's Poems on Several Occasions• John Wesley's Psalms and PoemsBirthsJoseph MatherDeathsMatthew Green

1738

• Samuel Johnson's London• Jonathan Swift's The Beasts' ConfessionBirthsMary Darwall; John Wolcot

1739

• Jonathan Swift's Verses on the Death of Dr Swift• John and Charles Wesley's Hymns and Sacred PoemsBirthsEdward Thompson (?)DeathsHildebrand Jacob

1740

• John Dyer's The Ruins of Rome• James Thomson's Alfred, including "Ode in Honour of Great Britain," that is, "Rule Britannia"BirthsSamuel Henley; Thomas Moss (?); Augustus Montagu TopladyDeathsThomas Tickell

1741

• About this time Thomas Seaton established the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge University for religious poetry• William Whitehead's The Danger of Writing VerseBirthsWilliam Combe

1742

• William Collins' Persian Eclogues• Edward Young's "The Complaint, or Night Thoughts (1742-45)BirthsMary Alcock (?); Anne Hunter (Scotland); Thomas Penrose; Anna SewardDeathsJohn Oldmixon; William Somervile

1743

• Robert Blair's The Grave• Alexander Pope's The New Dunciad

BirthsAnna Laetitia Barbauld; Mrs. Hannah CowleyDeathsJames Bramston; Henry Carey (?); Andrew Michael Ramsay; Josiah Relph; Richard Savage

1744

• Mark Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, revised 1757• Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, with "Baa, baa, black sheep"• Joseph Warton's The Enthusiast• John and Charles Wesley's A Collection of Psalms and HymnsDeathsAlexander Pope

1745

• Mark Akenside's "Odes on Several Subjects• John Armstrong's The Art of Preserving HealthBirthsWilliam Crowe; Charles Dibdin; William Hayley; Thomas Holcroft; Hannah More; Charles Morris; Henry James PyeDeathsSarah Dixon; Jonathan Richardson; Jonathan Swift; Thomas Warton the elder

1746

• William Collins' Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects (dated 1747)• John Warton's Odes on Various SubjectsBirthsMichael BruceDeathsRobert Blair; Edward Chicken; Mary Leapor, from measles

1747

• Thomas Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College• Thomas Warton Jr's The Pleasures of MelancholyBirthsJohn Aikin; Susanna Blamire; John O'KeeffeDeathsThomas Gilbert; Leonard Welsted

1748

• Robert Dodsley's A Collection of Poems, 1848-58• Mary Leapor's Poems upon Several Occasions (1748-51), posthumously published• James Thomson's The Castle of IndolenceBirthsHenry Alline (Canada); Major Henry Livingston, Jr. (USA)DeathsChristopher Pitt; James Thomson; Isaac Watts

1749

• Samuel Johnson's Vanity of Human WishesBirthsJames Graeme; Samuel Jackson Pratt; Charlotte SmithDeathsAmbrose Philips

1750

• James Thomson's posthumous Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsLady Anne Barnard (Scotland); Sophia Burrell; Robert Fergusson (Scotland); Lady Anne Lindsay; John Taylor; John Trumbull (US)DeathsAaron Hill; John Winstanley; Hetty Wright

1751

• Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Church-YardBirthsHenrietta Battier (?); Richard Brinsley SheridanDeathsJohn Bancks; Philip Doddridge

1752

• Christopher Smart's Poems on Several OccasionsBirthsThomas Chatterton; Philip Morin Freneau (US); Edmund Gardner (?); Joseph Ritson; Ann Yearsley, née Cromartie

1753

• John and Charles Wesley's Hymns and Spiritual SongsBirthsJohn Frederick Bryant; George Ellis; William Roscoe; Phillis Wheatley (US) about this time

DeathsGeorge Berkeley

1754

• Thomas Gray's The Progress of PoesyBirthsJohn Codrington Bampfylde; Joel Barlow (US); George Crabbe; Thomas MauriceDeathsElizabeth Tollet

1755

BirthsGeorge Dyer; George Galloway (?); Robert Merry; Andrew Macdonald (?)

1756

• John Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of PopeBirthsEdward Rushton; Jane Cave (by this year)DeathsStephen Duck, by suicide

1757

• Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful• John Dyer's The Fleece• Odes by Mr. Gray, including "The Progress of Poesy"• William Whitehead made British Poet Laureate after Thomas Gray refuses itBirthsWilliam Blake; William SothebyDeathsMary Barber; Colley Cibber; Thomas Edwards

1758

• Mark Akenside's "Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England• Christopher Smart writes "Jubilate Agno (about 1758-63), only published in 1939BirthsSir George Dallas; Joseph Fawcett (?); William Parsons (?); Mary RobinsonDeathsJohn Dyer; Allan Ramsay

1759

ENGLISH UNDER WOLFE WIN QUEBEC• Edward Young's Conjectures on Original Composition (criticism)BirthsRobert BurnsDeathsMartha Brewster (after this year); William Collins; Sir Charles Hanbury Williams

1760

GEORGE II (-1820) • James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands• The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-book, with "Little Boy Blue"BirthsRichard PolwheleDeathsIsaac Hawkins Browne

1761

• Charles Churchill's The Rosciad and The ApologyBirthsAnabella Plumptre; John WilliamsDeathsJames Cawthorn; William Oldys

1762

• Charles Churchill's "The Ghost, Books I-III, followed by Book IV in 1763• William Falconer's The Shipwreck, revised in 1764 and 1769• James Macpherson's Fingal, an Ancient Epic PoemBirthsJoanna Baillie; James Bisset (?); William Lisle Bowles; Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges; George Colman the younger; James Hurdis; Thomas RussellDeathsMary Collier (?); Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, of breast cancer

1763

• Hugh Blair's A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian• James Macpherson's Temora• Christopher Smart's "Song to DavidBirthsJohn Hurdis; Samuel RogersDeathsJohn Byrom; John Dalton; William Shenstone

1764

BirthsElizabeth Cobbold; John ThelwallDeathsCharles Churchill; Robert Dodsley; Robert Lloyd

1765

• Oliver Goldsmith's The Traveller• Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare's Plays• James Macpherson's Works of Ossian• Mother Goose's Melody, including "Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top" and "Ding, dong, bell"• Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, in 3 volumes• Christopher Smart's translation of The Psalms of DavidBirthsManoah Bodman (US); William TaylorDeathsJean Adams; William Dunkin; David Mallet; Edward Young

1766

• Isaac D'Israeli's The Literary CharacterBirthsLaurence Hynes HalleranDeathsRobert Andrews (?); John Brown; James Grainger; Catherine Jemmat

1767

• John and Charles Wesley's Hymns for the Use of FamiliesBirthsJohn Quincy Adams (US)DeathsMichael Bruce; Leonard Howard

1768

• Thomas Gray's Poems, including "The Fatal Sisters" and "The Descent of Odin"• Lady Mary Montagu's Poetical WorksBirthsWilliam ShepherdDeathsThomas Mozeen

1769

DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIABirthsAnn Batten Cristall; John Hookham Frere; Amelia OpieDeathsWilliam Falconer, by drowning; Sneyd Davies

1770

• Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted VillageBirthsGeorge Canning (Representative Poetry Online); Joseph Cottle; James Hogg; James Plumptre; William Wordsworth (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsMark Akenside (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas Chatterton (Representative Poetry Online), suicide by arsenic poisoning

1771

• James Beattie's "The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius, Book I, followed in 1774 by Book II The English Garden, in 4 volumes 1771-81

BirthsThomas John Dibdin; James Montgomery (Scotland); Sir Walter Scott; Sydney Smith; Dorothy WordsworthDeathsSamuel Bowden; John Gambold; Thomas Gray; Christopher Smart; Tobias Smollett

1772

• William Jones' Poems from Asiatic Languages• John Trumbull's The Progress of DulnessBirthsSamuel Taylor ColeridgeDeathsJames Graeme; William Wilkie

1773

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Poems• Phillis Wheatley's Poems, the first book of poetry by an Afro-American slave, including "On Being Brought from Africa to America"BirthsReginald HeberDeathsAndrew Brice; John Cunningham; Philip Dormer Stanhope, earl of Chesterfield

1774

• History of English Poetry by Thomas Warton, the younger, in 3 vols., 1774-1781• Oliver Goldsmith's "Retaliation; a poemBirthsRobert SoutheyDeathsHenry Baker; James Dance; Lady Dorothea Du Bois; Robert Fergusson; Oliver Goldsmith; Charles Jenner

1775

BirthsCharles Lamb; Walter Savage Landor; Matthew Gregory Lewis; John Leyden; Joseph Blanco White

1776

AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (JULY 4)BirthsLady Morgan, née Sydney Owenson; Charles Newton (?)DeathsEvan Lloyd; George Smith

1777

• Thomas Chatterton's Poems, supposed to have been Written at Bristol by Thomas Rowley, edited by Thomas TyrwhittBirthsThomas Campbell (Scotland)DeathsFrancis Fawkes; Horace Walpole, earl of Oxford

1778

BirthsSir Humphrey Davy; William Hazlitt; John Kirke Paulding (US)DeathsAugustus Montagu Toplady

1779

• Samuel Johnson's The Works of the English Poets (1779-81), 52 critical biographiesBirthsWashington Allston (US); Francis Scott Key (US); Clement Moore (US); Thomas Moore

DeathsJohn Armstrong; David Garrick; John Langhorne; Thomas Penrose; Kenrick PrescotRomantics 1780-1830

1780

• George Crabbe's The CandidateBirthsGeorge Croly; Anna Maria Porter

1781

• George Crabbe's The LibraryBirthsEbenezer ElliottDeathsRichard Jago

1782

• William Cowper's PoemsBirthsAnn Taylor

1783

PEACE OF VERSAILLES: ENGLAND RECOGNIZES USA• William Blake's Poetical Sketches• Jane Cave's Poems on Various Subjects• George Crabbe's "The Village• Orlando Furioso, translated by John HooleBirthsReginald Heber; Washington Irving (US); Jane TaylorDeathsHenry Brooke; John Scott

1784

BirthsLeigh HuntDeathsHenry Alline; Bernard Barton; Samuel Johnson; Alexander Ross; George Alexander Stevens; Phillis Wheatley

1785

• William Cowper's The Task in 6 Books• Thomas Warton made British Poet LaureateBirthsLady Caroline Lamb; Thomas Love Peacock; John Pierpont (US); Samuel Woodworth (US)DeathsRichard Glover; Henry Taylor; William Whitehead

1786

• Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect• Philp Morin Freneau's PoemsBirthsBarron Field (Australia); Brian Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall; Brit.)DeathsJohn Collier; Jupiter Hammon (?); Edward ThompsonFloruitAnne Hecht (Can.)

1787

BirthsRichard Henry Dana (US); Margaret Davidson (US); Mary Russell MitfordDeathsMoses Browne; Soame Jenyns

1788

• Peter Pindar's Poetical WorksBirthsR. H. Barham; George Gordon, Lord Byron; Sarah Josepha Hale (US)DeathsWilliam Mickle; Robert Nugent, lord Nugent; Thomas Russell; Charles Wesley

1789

GEORGE WASHINGTON BECOMES PRESIDENT OF USA• William Blake's Songs of Innocence and "The Book of Thel• Erasmus Darwin's The Loves of the Plants, republished in 1791 as The Botanic Garden, part IIBirthsCharlotte Elliott; William Knox (Scotland); Thomas Pringle (South Africa); Richard Henry Wilde (US)DeathsFrances Brooke; Frances Greville

1790

• William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell• Henry James Pye made British Poet Laureate• Literary Fund Society established by David Williams (by 1818 the Royal Literary Fund) to aid indigent authorsBirthsFitz-Greene Halleck (US)DeathsAndrew Macdonald; Thomas Warton the younger

1791

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Eighteen Hundred and Eleven• William Blake's "The French Revolution• Robert Burns' "Tam o'Shanter• Erasmus Darwin's The Botanic Garden, part I ("The Economy of Vegetation")• Mother Goose's Melodies (originally published about 1781)BirthsJohn Howard Payne (US); Lydia Howard Sigourney (US); Charles Wolfe (Ireland)DeathsJohn Frederick Bryant; John Ellis; Francis Grose; John Wesley; William Woty

1792

• William Blake's Song of Liberty• Samuel Rogers' The Pleasures of MemoryBirthsJohn Frederick William Herschel; Percy Bysshe Shelley

1793

• William Blake's Visions of the Daughters of Albion and America, A Prophecy• Robert Burns' Poems• William Wordsworth's An Evening Walk and Descriptive SketchesBirthsJohn Clare; Felicia Dorothea Hemans; Henry Francis Lyte; John Neal (US); Standish O'Grady (Canada) about this yearDeathsGilbert White

1794

• William Blake's Songs of Experience, Europe, A Prophecy, and "The Book of UrizenBirthsMaria Gowen Brooks (?); William Cullen Bryant (US); Carlos Wilcox (US)

DeathsSusanna Blamire; Alison Cockburn

1795

• William Blake's The Book of Los, The Book of Ahania, The Song of Los, and The Songs of Innocence and Experience• Philip Morin Freneau's Poems• Walter Savage Landor's Poems• Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, edited by Joseph RitsonBirthsThomas Carlyle; George Darley; Joseph Rodman Drake (US); John Keats; James Gates Percival; Janet Thomson (Scotland)DeathsSamuel Bishop

1796

• Joel Barlow's The Hasty Pudding• S. T. Coleridge's Poems on Various SubjectsBirthsJohn Gardiner Calkins Brainard (US); Hartley Coleridge; Eliza Dunlop (Australia); John Hamilton ReynoldsDeathsRobert Burns, from rheumatic heart disease; Thomas Cole; John Maclaurin, lord Dreghorn; James Macpherson

1797

• William Blake illustrates Edward Young's Night Thoughts• S. T. Coleridge composes "Kubla Khan" in an opium-induced dream and writes down only a fragment of it on waking.• Robert Southey's PoemsBirthsThomas Haynes Bayley; George Moses Horton (US), about this time; William Motherwell (Scotland)DeathsJohn Codrington Bampfylde; George Keate; William Mason

1798

• G. Canning and J. H. Frere parody Erasmus Darwin's The Loves of the Plants in their "The Loves of the Triangles"• first edition of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (with Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner), revised in 1800 and 1802

BirthsMacdonald Clarke (US); Samuel Henry Dickson (US); David Macbeth Moir (Scotland)DeathsMary Alcock; Edmund Gardner; Robert Merry

1799

• T. Campbell's "The Pleasures of HopeBirthsA. Bronson Alcott (US); Thomas Hood; Mary HowittPresent-day English 1800-present

1800

• the life and works of Robert Burns publishedBirthsCaroline Clive; Thomas Babington MacaulayDeathsWilliam Cowper; Mary Robinson; Joseph Warton

1801

THOMAS JEFFERSON, PRESIDENT OF USA• Thomas Moore's Poems by Thomas Little• Robert Southey's Thalaba the DestroyerBirthsWilliam Barnes; Thomas Cole (US); John Henry NewmanDeathsJames Hurdis

1802

• Ancient English Metrical Romances, edited by Joseph Ritson• S. T. Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode"• Walter Savage Landor's Poetry by the Author of Gebir• Amelia Opie's Poems• Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-03), an anthology of balladsBirthsLydia Maria Child (US); Sara Coleridge (daughter of S.T.C.); Letitia Elizabeth Landon ("L.E.L."); George Pope Morris (US); Edward Coote Pinkney (US); Winthrop Mackworth Praed; Isaac WilliamsDeathsErasmus Darwin

1803

BirthsThomas Lovell Beddoes; Ralph Waldo Emerson (US); Robert Stephen Hawker; James Clarence Mangan (Ireland); Susanna Moodie (Canada); Sarah Helen Whitman (US)DeathsJames Beattie; Joseph Ritson

1804

• William Blake's "Jerusalem, completed in 1820, and his "Milton, completed in 1808• Ann and Jane Taylor's Original Poems for Infant Minds• William Wordsworth's "Daffodils"BirthsNathaniel Hawthorne (US); Joseph Howe (Canada); Francis Sylvester Mahony, aka Father Prout; Charles WhiteheadDeathsJoseph Fawcett; Richard Graves; Joseph Mather

1805

• H. F. Cary's translation of Dante's Inferno• The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog• Sir Roger Newdigate founds the Newdigate Prize for English Poetry at Oxford• Sir Walter Scott's "The Lay of the Last Minstrel• Robert Southey's Madoc• William Wordsworth finishes a first version of "The Prelude: or, Growth of a Poet's Mind in 13 BooksBirthsSarah Fuller Flower, née Adams (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsChristopher Anstey; Sophia Burrell

1806

• Lord Byron's Fugitive Pieces• William Roscoe's The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, a children's classic• Walter Savage Landor's Simonidea• Thomas Moore's Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems• Sir Walter Scott's Ballads and Lyrical Pieces• Jane and Ann Taylor's Rhymes for the Nursery, including "Twinkle, twinkle, little star"BirthsElizabeth Barrett, later Browning; William Gilmore Simms (US); Nathaniel Parker Willis (US)DeathsThomas Morris (?); Charlotte Smith; Ann Yearsley

1807

• Joel Barlow's The Columbiad• Lord Byron's Hours of Idleness and Poems on Various Occasions• George Crabbe's Poems and "The Parish Register"• Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies• William Wordsworth's Poems in Two Volumes, including "Intimations of Immortality"BirthsHenry Louis Vivian Derozio (India); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; John Greenleaf Whittier (US)DeathsJohn Carr; John Newton

1808

• Sir Walter Scott's "Marmion, A Tale of Flodden FieldBirthsLucretia Maria Davidson; Evan MacColl (Canada)DeathsIsaac Bickerstaffe (?); John Freeth; Thomas Moss

1809

• Lord Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers; Byron spent the next two years abroad, notably in Greece• T. Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming• Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Friend 1809-10• Charles and Mary Lamb's Poetry for ChildrenBirthsJohn Barr (New Zealand); David Bates (US); Thomas Holley Chivers (US); Edward Fitzgerald; Kasiprasad Ghose (India); Oliver Wendell Holmes (US); Fanny Kemble (US); Abraham Lincoln (US); Monckton Milnes; Edgar Allan Poe (US); Alfred TennysonDeathsMrs. Hannah Cowley; Thomas Holcroft; Anna Seward

1810

• William Blake's engravings for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales• Gammer Gurton's Garland or the Nursery Parnassus, including "Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep"• George Crabbe's The Borough in 24 epistles, including one on "Peter Grimes, a poem based on Aldeburgh• Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake• Percy Bysshe Shelley's Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire and ZastrozziBirthsMargaret Fuller (US); William Miller (Scotland); Edmund Hamilton Sears (US); Martin Farquhar Tupper

1811

• Sir Walter Scott's The Vision of Don Roderick• Oxford University expells Percy Bysshe ShelleyBirthsArthur Hallam; William Makepeace ThackerayDeathsJohn Leyden; Thomas Percy

1812

• Lord Byron's Childe Harold, Parts I-II, and The Curse of Minerva• H. F. Cary's translation of Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso• Robert Southey's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Omniana (prose)BirthsRobert Browning; Charles Dickens; Edward LearDeathsJoel Barlow

1813

• Lord Byron's The Bride of Abydos and The Giaour• Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Remorse• Sir Walter Scott's "Rokeby and The Bride of Triermain• Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Queen Mab• Robert Southey made British Poet LaureateBirthsWilliam Edmondstone Aytoun (Scotland); Charles Timothy Brooks (US); Christopher Pearse Cranch (US); Epes Sargent (US); Jones Very (US)DeathsHenrietta Battier; Jane Cave; Henry James Pye

1814

• Lord Byron's The Corsair, "Lara, and Ode to Napoleon• Augusta Gordon bore her half-brother Lord Byron's daughter• Francis Scott Key on Sept. 14 writes "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the British attack on Baltimore, Maryland• Robert Southey's Roderick, the Last of the Goths• William Wordsworth's The ExcursionBirthsSarah Tittle Bolton, née Barrett; James Joseph Sylvester; Aubrey Thomas De VereDeathsCharles Dibdin; Samuel Jackson Pratt; Edward Rushton

1815

• Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies, including "The Destruction of Sennacherib"• marriage of Lord Byron to Annabella Milbanke• Philip Morin Freneau's Poems• Leigh Hunt was jailed (1815-17) for criticizing the Prince Regent in The Examiner• Sir Walter Scott's The Lord of the Isles• William Wordsworth's PoemsBirthsDaniel Decatur Emmett (US)DeathsGeorge Ellis; Samuel Henley

1816

• Lord Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon and other Poems, "Childe Harold, Part III, and The Siege of Corinth; he leaves England permanently for Geneva• Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel and Other Poems, including "Kubla Khan"• Leigh Hunt publishes an essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats in The Examiner, and The Story of Rimini• John Keats is certified as an apothecary and publishes "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"• Percy Bysshe Shelley marries Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin• Percy Bysshe Shelley's Alastor and Other Poems• Robert Southey's A Poet's Pilgrimage to WaterlooBirthsPhilip James Bailey; Charlotte Brontë; Shirley Brooks (Representative Poetry Online); Frances Brown (Browne); Josiah D. Canning (US); Philip Pendleton Cooke (US); Charles Heavysege (Canada)DeathsRichard Brinsley Sheridan

1817

• Lord Byron's "Manfred and The Lament of Tasso• S. T. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, Vol. I• John Keats' Poems• John Gibson Lockhart in the October Blackwood's Magazine vilifies the "Cockney School of Poetry," said to include Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, John Keats and others• Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh• Sir Walter Scott's Harold the Dauntless• Percy Bysshe Shelley's Laon and CythnaBirthsCornelius Mathews (US); Henry David Thoreau (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John McPherson (Canada)DeathsAnn Batten Cristall (this year or after)

1818

• Lord Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Book IV, and Beppo• John Wilson Croker's anonymous review attacks John Keats' Endymion in the Quarterly Review• William Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets• Leigh Hunt's Foliage• John Keats' "Endymion published; he falls in love with Fanny Brawne (1800-65) and writes his great odes this year and the next• Thomas Love Peacock's Rhododaphne• Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Revolt of Islam, originally Laon and Cythna (1817); he leaves England.BirthsCecil Frances Alexander, née Humphreys; Emily Brontë; William Ellery Channing (US); Eliza Cook; Alexander McLachlan (Canada); John Mason NealeDeathsMatthew Gregory Lewis; John Williams

1819

• Lord Byron's Mazeppa and "Don Juan, I and II• John Keats falls sick and his writing ceases after "To Autumn" in September• Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci and Rosalind and Helen; he writes "Ode to the West Wind" on October 1819 in a wood by the Arno River near Florence• William Wordsworth's Peter Bell and The WaggonerBirthsA. H. Clough; Thomas Dunn English (US); Mary Ann Evans (pseud. "George Eliot"); Josiah Gilbert Holland (US); Julia Ward Howe (US); Charles Kingsley; James Russell Lowell (US); Herman Melville (US); William Wetmore Story (US); Walt Whitman (US)DeathsJohn Wolcot

1820

GEORGE III (-1830)• Elizabeth Barrett's The Battle of Marathon• John Clare's Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery• Introduction of the limerick in The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women• John Keats' Lamia, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, and Other Poems• Thomas Love Peacock's The Four Ages of Poetry, which sparked Shelley to write his Defence of Poetry• Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound and Other Poems, and his essay on a philosophical view of reform (published in 1920)• William Wordsworth's The River Duddon and Vaudracour and Julia• formation of the Apostles, a Cambridge intellectual societyBirthsAnne Brontë; Henry Howard Brownell (US); Alice Patty Lee Cary (US); John Harris

(Cornwall); John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (US); Jean Ingelow; William J. Macquorn Rankine (Scotland)DeathsJoseph Rodman Drake; William Hayley; James Woodhouse

1821

• William Cullen Bryant's Poems• John Clare's The Village Minstrel• John Hamilton Reynolds' The Garden of Florence• Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Epipsychidion and Adonais (on John Keats) and writes his Defence of Poetry• Robert Southey's A Vision of JudgementBirthsCharles Baudelaire (France); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Isabella Banks, née Varley; Frederick Locker Lampson; Maria White Lowell (US); Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (US)DeathsAnne Hunter; John Keats (Feb., in Rome), of tuberculosis

1822

• Lord Byron's Werner and his review of Robert Southey's "The Vision of Judgement" in The Liberal• Percy Bysshe Shelley's "HellasBirthsMatthew Arnold; Thomas Buchanan Read (US); Charles Sangster (Canada); James Monroe Whitfield (US)DeathsJohn Aikin; Percy Bysshe Shelley, in August, by drowning

1823

• Lord Byron's "Don Juan, VI-XIV, and Vision of Judgement• "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" (attributed Major Henry Livingston, Jr.)• John H. Payne's "Home Sweet Home" written, the theme song of Sir Henry Rowley Bishop's opera ClariBirthsGeorge Henry Boker (US); William Johnson Cory; Margaret Miller Davidson (US); James Mathewes Legaré; Coventry Patmore; William Brighty Rands; Anna Letitia Waring;DeathsWilliam Combe; Charles Wolfe

1824

• Lord Byron's Don Juan, XV-XVI, and The Deformed Transformed,• Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Triumph of Life"BirthsWilliam Allingham (Ireland); Sabine Baring-Gould; Phoebe Cary (US); Sydney Thompson Dobell; Charles Godfrey Leland (US); George MacDonald (Scotland); George Boyer Vashon (US)DeathsLord Byron, by fever in Greece; Elizabeth Cobbold; Thomas Maurice

1825

BirthsPeter John Allan (Canada); John Askham; Henrietta Anne Huxley; Thomas Henry Huxley; Adelaide Anne Procter; Bayard Taylor (US); Frances Ellen Watkins (US)DeathsLady Anne Barnard; Anna Laetitia Barbauld; Mary Darwall; Lucretia Maria Davidson; William Knox (Scotland); Lady Anne Lindsay

1826

• Elizabeth Barrett (Browning)'s An Essay on Mind and Other PoemsBirthsDinah Maria Mulock Craik; Stephen Foster (US); Robert Lowry (US)DeathsReginald Heber; John Taylor

1827

• John Clare's The Shepherd's Calendar• Edgar Allan Poe's Tamerlane and Other PoemsBirthsRose Terry Cooke (US); Francis Miles Finch (US); James McIntyre, poet of the mammoth cheese (Canada); John Hollin Ridge (US); John Townsend Trowbridge (US); Septimus Winner (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsWilliam Blake; George Canning; Carlos Wilcox

1828

• Felicia Hemans' Records of Women, with Other Poems• John Gibson Lockhart's Life of Robert BurnsBirthsGeorge Meredith; Arthur Joseph Munby; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Henry Timrod (US)DeathsJohn Gardiner Calkins Brainard; Lady Caroline Lamb; Edward Coote Pinkney

1829

• Thomas Hood's The Dream of Eugene Aram• Edgar Allan Poe's Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Poems• Samuel Kettell's Specimens of American PoetryBirthsRosanna Eleanor (Mullins) Leprohon (Canada); Elizabeth Siddall;DeathsWilliam Crowe; Sir Humphry Davy

1830

WILLIAM IV (-1837)• Ebenezer Elliott's Corn Law Rhymes• Sarah Josepha Hale's Poems for our Children, including "Mary's Lamb"• Alfred Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, including "The Kraken"BirthsCharlotte Alington Barnard; Thomas Edward Brown; Emily Dickinson (US); Paul Hamilton Hayne (US); Helen Hunt Jackson (US); William McGonagall (ca; Scotland); Christina Rossetti; Alexander Smith (?); James M. Whitfield (US)DeathsWilliam Hazlitt

1831

• Walter Savage Landor's Gebir, Count Julian• Edgar Allan Poe's PoemsBirthsCharles Stuart Calverley; Isa Craig (Scotland); Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton; James Clerk Maxwell; David Mills (Canada)DeathsHenry Louis Vivian Derozio (India); Laurence Hynes Halloran; William Roscoe

1832

• Alfred Tennyson's Poems (dated 1833), including "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Lotos-Eaters"BirthsElizabeth Akers Allen (US); Sir Edwin Arnold; Benjamin Paul Blood (US); Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson); Joseph Skipsey; Henry Clay Work (US)DeathsJames Bisset; George Crabbe; Philip Morin Freneau; James Plumptre; Anna Maria Porter; Sir Walter ScottVictorians 1833-1903

1833

• Robert Browning's Pauline• Hartley Coleridge's Poems, Songs and Sonnets• J. S. Mill's "Thoughts on Poetry and its Variants"BirthsRichard Watson Dixon; Adam Lindsay Gordon (Australia); Edmund Clarence Stedman (US)DeathsSir George Dallas; Arthur Hallam, in whose memory Alfred lord Tennyson will write In Memoriam; Hannah More; John O'Keeffe; William Sotheby

1834

• Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies• Thomas Pringle's African SketchesBirthsGeorge Arnold (US); William Morris; Roden Berkely Wriothesley Noel; James Thomson (Scotland)DeathsSamuel Taylor Coleridge; Charles Lamb; Thomas Pringle; Thomas Thelwall

1835

• Robert Browning's Paracelsus• John Clare's The Rural Muse• William Wordsworth's Yarrow Revisited and Other PoemsBirthsAlfred Austin; Isodore Gordon Ascher (Canada); Augusta Cooper Bristol (US); Phillips Brooks (US); Samuel Langhorne Clemens, i.e., Mark Twain (US); Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (India); Adah Isaacs Menken (US); John James Platt (US); Celia Thaxter (US); James Byrne Leicester Warren, baron de TableyDeathsFelicia Dorothea Hemans; James Hogg; William Motherwell

1836

• Lyra Apostolica, religious poems by several authors, including John NewmanBirthsThomas Bailey Aldrich (US); W. S. Gilbert; Bret Harte (US); Sarah Morgan Piatt (US); Annie Louisa Walker (Canada)DeathsGeorge Colman the younger; William Taylor

1837

VICTORIA I (-1901)• Richard H. Barham's Ingoldsby Legends• The Civil List Act provides for pensions for needy authors in England.

• John Clare is institutionalized as insane.• Eliza Cook's "The Old Arm Chair"• George Moses Horton's Hope of Liberty -- Poems by a Slave (2nd edn.; first published as early as 1829)• Thomas Love Peacock's The Paper Money LyricsBirthsWilliam Dean Howells (US); Joaquin Miller (US); Algernon Charles Swinburne; Julia Augusta Webster; Forceythe Willson (US)DeathsSir Samuel Egerton Brydges

1838

• Elizabeth Barrett's The Seraphim• Leigh Hunt publishes "Abou Ben Adhem"• William Wordsworth's SonnetsBirthsHenry Adams (US); Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael (US); John Hay (US); William Reed Huntington (US); Charles Mair (Canada); Abram Joseph Ryan (US); Margaret E. SangsterDeathsMargaret Miller Davidson; Letitia Elizabeth Landon, likely by suicide; Charles Morris; Annabella Plumptre; Richard Polwhele

1839

BirthsWalter Pater; James Ryder Randall (US); John Todhunter;DeathsThomas Haynes Bayley; Winthrop Mackworth Praed

1840

• Robert Browning's Sordello• Percy Bysshe Shelley's Defence of Poetry, posthumously publishedBirthsWilfred Scawen Blunt; Henry Austin Dobson; Thomas Hardy; William Cosmo Monkhouse; John Addington Symonds; Constance Fenimore Woolson (US)

1841

• Robert Browning's Pippa Passes• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ballads and other Poems, including "The Wreck of the Hesperus"

BirthsMathilde Blind; Robert Williams Buchanan; Charles Edward Carryl (US); Joaquin Miller (US); Edward Rowland Sill (US)DeathsThomas John Dibdin; George Dyer; Standish O'Grady; Joseph Blanco White

1842

• Robert Browning's Dramatic Lyrics, including "My Last Duchess" and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Poems on Slavery• Thomas Babington Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, including "Horatius"• Alfred Tennyson's Poems, including "Locksley Hall," "Morte d'Arthur," and "Ulysses"• William Wordsworth's Poems Chiefly of Early and Late YearsBirthsAmbrose Bierce (US); Ina Donna Coolbrith (US); William John Courthorpe; Sidney Lanier (US); John Arthur Phillips (Canada); Henry Duff TraillDeathsThomas Arnold; Macdonald Clarke; Samuel Woodworth

1843

• Thomas Hood's "The Song of the Shirt" (Punch)• William Wordsworth is made British Poet LaureateBirthsCharles Montagu Doughty; Violet Fane aka Mary Montgomerie LambDeathsWashington Allston; Francis Scott Key; Robert Southey

1844

• Isabella Banks' Ivy Leaves, including "Neglected Wife"• William Barnes' Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect• Elizabeth Barrett's PoemsBirthsRobert Bridges; George Washington Cable (US); Ada Cambridge, later Cross; Richard Watson Gilder (US); Gerard Manley Hopkins; Andrew Lang (Scotland); Caroline Lindsay; Ernest Myers; John Boyle O'Reilly (US); Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy; Arabella Eugenia Smith (US), about this time Paul Verlaine (France); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsThomas Campbell; Margaret Davidson

1845

• Robert Browning's Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, including "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"• George Moses Horton's Poetical Works• Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven and Other Poems, including "The Raven"BirthsLouisa Sarah Bevington (US); William Carleton (US); John Banister Tabb (US)DeathsR. H. Barham; Maria Gowen Brooks; Thomas Hood; John McPherson; Sydney Smith

1846

• Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning are married in Sept. and elope to Italy, where they settle in Casa Guidi in Florence• Robert Browning's Bells and Pomegranates• Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë's Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, edited by Charlotte Brontë• Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense, revised in 1861 and 1863BirthsAlexander MacGregor Rose (Scotland-Canada); George Thomas Lanigan (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsGeorge Darley; Barron Field (Australia); John Hookham Frere

1847

• Ralph Waldo Emerson's Poems• Walter Savage Landor's The Hellenics• Henry Wadworth Longfellow's The Belfy of Bruges and other Poems• "Henry Francis Lyte composes "Abide with Me"• Alfred lord Tennyson's The Princess, including "Tears, idle Tears," which he adds to up to 1850BirthsAlice Meynell, née ThompsonDeathsHenry Francis Lyte; William Shepherd; Richard Henry Wilde

1848

• James Russell Lowell's A Fable for Critics• pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in London, lasting until about 1880, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Elizabeth Siddal, and othersBirthsRomesh Chunder Dutt (India);

DeathsJohn Quincy Adams; Emily Brontë; Thomas Cole; Sarah Fuller Flower, née Adams (Representative Poetry Online)

1849

• Matthew Arnold's The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's EvangelineBirthsEdmund Gosse; William Ernest Henley; Sarah Orne Jewett (US); Emma Lazarus (US); James Whitcomb Riley (US)DeathsBernard Barton; Thomas Lovell Beddoes; Anne Brontë; Hartley Coleridge; Ebenezer Elliott; Edgar Allan Poe; James Clarence Mangan, of malnutrition

1850

• Thomas Lowell Beddoes' Death's Jest-book, published posthumously• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems with "Sonnets from the Portuguese," including How do I love thee? Let me count the ways• Robert Browning's Christmas Eve and Easter Day• Stephen Foster's "De Camptown Races"• Leigh Hunt's Autobiography• D. G. Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel, published in The Gem• Alfred Tennyson publishes In Memoriam and is made British Poet Laureate.• William Wordsworth's The Prelude, published posthumously in 14 Books.BirthsIsabella Valency Crawford (Canada); Eugene Field (US); William Larminie (US); Robert Louis Stevenson; Rose Hartwick Thorpe (US); Albery A. Whitmann (US); Ella Wheeler Wilcox (US)DeathsManoah Bodman; William Lisle Bowles; Philip Pendleton Cooke; Margaret Fuller; William Wordsworth

1851

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows• Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home"• George Meredith's Poems, including "Love in the Valley"BirthsJames Lister Cuthbertson (Australia); Arthur Clement Hilton; Albery Allson Whitman (US)DeathsJoanna Baillie; David Macbeth Moir

1852

• Matthew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems• Edmund Hamilton Sears' "It Came upon a Midnight Clear"BirthsFrancis Coutts (Representative Poetry Online); Emma Maria Caillard; Edwin Markham (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Henry Van Dyke (US)DeathsSara Coleridge; Thomas Moore; John Howard Payne; Thomas Moore; John Hamilton Reynolds

1853

• Matthew Arnold's Poems, including "Sobrab and Rustum" and "The Scholar-Gipsy"• Martha Browne's [Mattie Griffith's] PoemsBirthsErnest Fenollosa (US)DeathsJoseph Cottle; Maria White Lowell; Amelia Opie

1854

• Julia Ward Howe's Passion Flowers• Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House, Part I (Part II in 1856, Part III in 1860; and Part IV in 1863)• Alfred Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," published in The Examiner on Dec. 9BirthsJames A. Bland (US); George Frederick Cameron (Canada); William Henry Drummond (Canada); Oscar WildeDeathsJames Montgomery (Scotland)

1855

• Matthew Arnold's Poems, Second Series• Robert Browning's Men and Women, including "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"• Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"• Caroline Hayward (Canada) active about this time• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Hiawatha• Alfred lord Tennyson's Maud and Other Poems• Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, regularly amplified (2nd edn., 1856; final author's edition, 1891-92)BirthsHenry Cuyler Bunner (US); Woodrow Wilson (US); Alexander Young (Scotland); Thomas Thornely (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsCharlotte Brontë; Mary Russell Mitford; Samuel Rogers; Dorothy Wordsworth

1856

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh (post-dated 1857), a verse novel in 11,000 lines about a woman writer• Sydney Dobell's England in Time of War• Coventry Patmore's The EspousalsBirthsToru Dutt (India); Alfred Denis Godley; Lizette Woodworth Reese (US)DeathsJames Gates Percival

1857

• Frederick Locker Lampson's London Lyrics (12 re-editions to 1893)BirthsJane Barlow (Ireland); Hubert N. W. Church (Australia); John Davidson (Scotland); Benjamin Franklin King (US)

1858

• William Barnes' Hwomely Rhymes: A second collection of poems of rural life in the Dorset Dialect• William Johnson Cory's Ionica• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Courtship of Miles Standish• William Morris' The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems• Adelaide Anne Procter's Legends and Lyrics (1858-61), including "A Lost Chord"BirthsWilliam Wilfred Campbell ? (Canada); Edith Nesbit; Dollie Radford; Sir William WatsonDeathsThomas Holley Chivers

1859

CHARLES DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF SPECIES • Daniel Decatur Emmett's "Dixie's Land"• Edmund Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, revised up to 1879• Alfred lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, including "Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine," and "Guinevere"BirthsKatharine Lee Bates (US); William Herbert Carruth (US); Perceval Gibbon (South Africa); A. E. Housman; Ernest Rhys; James Kenneth Stephen; Francis ThompsonDeathsLeigh Hunt; Washington Irving; James Mathews Legaré; Thomas Babington Macaulay; Lady Morgan, née Sydney Owenson

1860

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF USA• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems before Congress• Coventry Patmore's Faithful for EverBirthsHelena Jane Coleman (Canada); Hamlin Garland (US); Harriet Monroe (US); Charles G. D. Roberts (Canada); Clinton Scollard (US); Harry Dacre (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsRichard Croly; James Kirke Paulding

1861

CONFEDERATE STATES TAKE FORT SUMTER ON APRIL 12: AMERICAN CIVIL WAR• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Last Poems, posthumously published• Julia Ward Howe composes "Battle Hymn of the Republic"• Francis Turner Palgrave's The Golden Treasury, a poetic anthology revised in 1897 and since then by others• Annie Louisa Walker's Leaves from the BackwoodsBirthsBliss Carman (Canada); Mary Elizabeth Coleridge; Walter Alexander Raleigh; Louise Imogen Guiney (US); Maurice Henry Hewlett; Katharine Hinkson, aka Katharine Tynan (Ireland); Pauline Johnson, aka Tekahionwake (Canada); Archibald Lampman (Canada); Amy Levy; Frederick George Scott (Canada) Rabindranath Tagore (India);DeathsElizabeth Barrett Browning; A. H. Clough

1862

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's posthumous Last Poems, edited by Robert Browning• Charles Calverley's Verses and Translations• A. H. Clough's Last Poems, posthumously published• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn, including "Paul Revere's Ride"• George Meredith's Modern Love and Poems of the Roadside• Coventry Patmore's Victories of Love• Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems• in February Dante Gabriel Rossetti places a sheaf of poems (a few years later retrieved) in the coffin of his wife Elizabeth SiddalBirthsJohn Kendrick Bangs (US); Arthur Christopher Benson; Jean Blewett (Canada); John Jay Chapman (US); Edith Emma Cooper (half of "Michael Field"); Sir Henry John Newbolt (Representative Poetry Online); George Santayana (US); Duncan Campbell Scott (Canada); Edith Wharton (US); Jack Judge (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsElizabeth Siddall, of opium overdose; Henry David Thoreau, of tuberculosis; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1863

BirthsC. P. Cavafy (Egypt); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) George Essex Evans (Australia); Robert Fuller Murray; Stuart Merrill (US); George Santayana; Ernest Lawrence Thayer (US)DeathsGamaliel Bradford (US); Clement Moore; William Makepeace Thackeray

1864

• Robert Browning's Dramatis Personae, including "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Caliban upon Setebos"• Robert Lowry's "Beautiful River"• William Brighty Rands' Lilliput Levee, for children• Alfred lord Tennyson's Enoch ArdenBirthsMiguel de Unamuno (Spain); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Mary Gilmore (Australia); Richard Hovey (US); A. B. ("Banjo") Paterson (Australia)DeathsJohn Clare; Stephen Foster; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Walter Savage Landor; George Pope Morris; Adelaide Anne Procter

1865

LINCOLN ASSASSINATED; CIVIL WAR ENDS; SLAVERY ABOLISHED DEC. 18• Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism, 1st series, including "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time"• Robert Williams Buchanan's "The Session of the Poets," an attack on Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in Spectator• George Moses Horton's Naked Genius• John Newman's The Dream of Gerontius• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon• Walt Whitman's "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln• Henry Clay Work's "Marching through Georgia"BirthsArthur A. D. Bayldon (Australia); Madison Cawein (US); Adela Florence Nicolson Cory (pseud. "Lawrence Hope"); Thomas William Hodgson Crosland; Rudyard Kipling (UK); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); William Butler Yeats (Representative Poetry Online); DeathsGeorge Arnold; William Edmondstone Aytoun; Abraham Lincoln (US); Lydia Howard Sigourney; Isaac Williams

1866

• Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael's Poems• Christina Rossetti's The Prince's Progress

• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, 1st series, including "Dolores"• John Greenleaf Whittier's Snow-BoundBirthsBarcroft Blake (Australia); Katharine Harris Bradley (half of "Michael Field"); Gelett Burgess (US); Edmund Vance Cooke (US)DeathsRichard Le Gallienne; Francis Sylvester Mahony; Thomas Love Peacock

1867

DOMINION OF CANADA ESTABLISHED ON JULY 1• Matthew Arnold's New Poems, including "Dover Beach"• Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark• Ralph Waldo Emerson's May-Day• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Song of Italy• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's translation of Dante's Divine ComedyBirthsErnest Christopher Dowson; Lionel Pigot Johnson; Henry Lawson (Australia); George William Russell ("Æ"; Ireland); David McKee Wright (New Zealand)DeathsCharles Baudelaire (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Fitz-Greene Halleck; John Hollin Ridge; Alexander Smith; Henry Timrod; Nathaniel Parker Willis; Forceythe Willson

1868

• Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book, in 12 Books and over 21,000 lines (1868-69)• Frederick James Furnivall founds the Chaucer Society• William Morris' The Earthly Paradise, I, completed in 1870BirthsEdgar Lee Masters (?) (US)DeathsAdah Isaacs Monken

1869

• W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads• Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems• Alfred lord Tennyson's The Holy Grail and Other Poems, with "The Coming of Arthur," "The Holy Grail," "Pelleas and Ettarre," and "The Passing of Arthur"BirthsLaurence Binyon (Representative Poetry Online); Olivia Bush, née Ward, later Banks (US); Arthur Sheerly Cripps (Rhodesia); Stephen Leacock; Charlotte Mary Mew; William Vaughn Moody (US); Edwin Arlington Robinson (US); Clara Ann Thompson (Representative Poetry Online)

DeathsCharlotte Alington Barnard

1870

• Adam Lindsay Gordon's Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes• Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems, including "Jenny" and a fragment of "The House of Life"• mathematician James Joseph Sylvester publishes his The Laws of VerseBirthsHilaire Belloc (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Christopher John Brennan (Australia); Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas; Eva Selena Gore-Booth (Ireland); Thomas Sturge Moore; Lena Guilbert Ford (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsDavid Bates; Charles Dickens; Adam Lindsay Gordon; William Gilmore Simms; James M. Whitfield

1871

• Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, including "Jabberwocky"• Edward Lear's Nonsense Songs, including "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat"• Thomas Maitland (i.e., Robert Williams Buchanan) attacks Dante Gabriel Rossetti in "The Fleshly School of Poetry" in Contemporary Review (Oct.); and Rossetti replies in "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in Athenaeum (Dec.)• Joaquin Miller's Songs of the Sierras• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Songs before Sunrise• Alfred lord Tennyson's "The Last Tournament"• Walt Whitman's Passage to IndiaBirthsStephen Crane (US); William Henry Davies; Ralph Edwin Hodgson; James Weldon Johnson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Francis Joseph Sherman (Canada); John Millington Synge (Ireland) Paul Valéry (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsAlice and Phoebe Cary; Charlotte Elliott; John Frederick William Herschel; Thomas Buchanan Read; James Monroe Whitfield

1872

• Edward Lear's More Nonsense, Rhymes• William Morris' Love is Enough• Christina Rossetti's Sing-Song, a Nursery Rhyme Book• Alfred lord Tennyson's "Gareth and Lynette"BirthsPaul Laurence Dunbar (US); Dr. John McCrae (Canada); John Shaw Nielson (Australia); Leonora Speyer (US); Jesse Edgar Middleton (Representative Poetry Online)

DeathsHenry Howard Brownell; Samuel Henry Dickson; Helena Mabel Forrest (Australia); William J. Macquorn Rankine (Scotland)

1873

• William Morris's Love is EnoughBirthsGilbert E. Brooke (Singapore); George Herbert Clarke (Canada); Walter De la Mare; George Cabot Lodge (US); Alexander L. Posey (US)DeathsCaroline Clive; Kasiprasad Ghose (India); Janet Hamilton; Joseph Howe; Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

1874

• J. Thomson's "The City of Dreadful Night," published in National Reformer, and later in 1880BirthsMaurice Baring; Mary Ursula Bethell (New Zealand); Gordon Bottomley; A. H. Reginald Buller; Gilbert Keith Chesterton (Representative Poetry Online); Robert Frost (US); Stanley de Vere Alexander Julius; Amy Lowell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lucy Maud Montgomery (Canada); Josephine Peabody (US); Robert William Service (Canada); Gertrude Stein (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Trumbull Stickney (US)DeathsShirley Brooks (Representative Poetry Online); Sydney Thompson Dobell; Brian Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall)

1875

• Robert Browning's Aristophane's Apology• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Masque of PandoraBirthsEdmund Clerihew Bentley; Anna Branch (US); Alice Dunbar-Nelson (US; wife of Paul L. Dunbar) Rainer Maria Rilke (Prague); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRobert Stephen Hawker; Charles Kingsley

1876

• Robert Browning's Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper• Brewster Higley's "Home on the Range"• William Morris' The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, and the Fall of the NiblungsBirthsSarah Cleghorn (US)

DeathsCharles Heavysege; John Neal; Edmund Hamilton Sears

1877

• Coventry Patmore's The Unknown Eros and Other Odes• Edward Lear's Laughable LyricsBirthsRose Fyleman (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsToru Dutt (India), of pulmonary tuberculosis

1878

• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, 2nd seriesBirthsAdelaide Crapsey (US); Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty (Ireland); Don Marquis (US); John Masefield (Representative Poetry Online); Carl August Sandburg (US); Edward ThomasDeathsWilliam Cullen Bryant; Frank Oliver Call (Canada); Bayard Taylor; George Boyer Vashon; Sarah Helen Whitman

1879

THOMAS EDISON PATENTS THE ELECTRIC LIGHTBULB• Robert Browning's Dramatic Idyls, including "Ivàn Ivànovitch"• Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance• Alfred lord Tennyson's Ballads and Other PoemsBirthsJoseph Campbell (Ireland); Vachel Lindsay (US); Harold Edward Munro; Wallace Stevens (US)DeathsFrances Brown (Browne); James Branch Cabell (US); Richard Henry Dana; Sarah Josepha Hale; Rosanna Eleanor (Mullins) Leprohon; James Clerk Maxwell

1880

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ultima Thule• Algernon Charles Swinburne's The Heptalogia• Seven Balliol College Oxford members led by H. C. Beeching and J. W. Mackail publish The Masque of B-ll--l, which is immediately suppressed by authoritiesBirthsGuillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Joseph Warren Beach (US); Radclyffe Hall; Alfred Noyes (UK); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

DeathsLydia Maria Child; Eliza Dunlop; Mary Ann Evans (pseud. "George Eliot"); George Moses Horton ?; Epes Sargent; Jones Very

1881

• Frederick James Furnivall founds the Browning Society• Christina Rossetti's A Pageant, and other Poems• Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Ballads and Sonnets, with "The House of Life" complete, and Poems• Oscar Wilde's PoemsBirthsFranklin Pierce Adams; Clive Bell; Witter Bynner (US); Lascelles Abercrombie; Padraic Colum (Ireland); Eleanor FarjeonDeathsThomas Carlyle; Edgar Albert Guest; Josiah Gilbert Holland; Sidney Lanier; Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

1882

• F. J. Child's edition of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, in 5 vols. (1882-98): multiple versions of 305 ballads• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's In the HarborBirthsMartin Donisthorpe Armstrong; John Drinkwater; James Joyce (Ireland); Mina Loy (Representative Poetry Online); A. A. Milne; E.J. Pratt (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anne Spencer (US); James Stephens (Ireland)DeathsRalph Waldo Emerson (US); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; William Brighty Rands; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; James Thomson

1883

• Robert Browning's Jocoseria• Emma Lazarus writes "The New Colossus" in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund (for the New York "Statue of Liberty")• George Meredith's Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth• Algernon Charles Swinburne's A Century of Roundels• Ella (Wheeler) Wilcox's Poems of PassionBirthsWilliam Baylebridge (Australia); Charles Badger Clark (US); Thomas Ernest Hulme; Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy; Marjorie Pickthall (Canada); William Carlos Williams (US)DeathsCharles Timothy Brooks; Edward Fitzgerald

1884

• Isabella Valency Crawford's Old Spookses' Pass, Malcolm's Katie, and Other Poems• Amy Levy's A Minor Poet and Other Verse• Percy Montrose's "Oh My Darling Clementine"• Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnBirthsJames Elroy Flecker; Edith Alice Mary Harper, aka Anna Wickham; John Collings Squire; Francis Brett YoungDeathsCharles Stuart Calverley; John Harris; Henry Clay Work

1885

• Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Marino Faliero• Alfred lord Tennyson's Tiresias and Other Poems, and "Balin and Balan"BirthsCharles Richard Allen (New Zealand); Kingsley Fairbridge (Rhodesia); David Herbert Lawrence; Ezra Pound (US); Elinor Morton Hoyt Wylie (US); Andrew John Young (Scotland); Gerald Gould (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsGeorge Frederick Cameron; Helen Hunt Jackson; Monckton Milnes; Susanna Moodie; Charles Whitehead

1886

• Frederick James Furnivall founds the Shelley Society• Rudyard Kipling's Departmental Ditties• Alfred lord Tennyson's "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After"BirthsZoë Rumbold Akins (US); William Rose Benêt (US); Frances Cornford; Hilda Doolittle (US); John Gould Fletcher (US); John Henry Gray; Joyce Kilmer (US); Siegfried Sassoon; Charles WilliamsDeathsWilliam Barnes; Emily Dickinson; Paul Hamilton Hayne; John Pierpont; Abram Joseph Ryan; George Thomas Lanigan (Representative Poetry Online)

1887

• Robert Browning's Parleyings with Certain People• George Meredith's Ballads and Poems of Tragic LifeBirthsLeonard Bacon (US); Rupert Brooke; Elizabeth Daryush, daughter of Robert Bridges; Sir Julian Sorell Huxley; John Robinson Jeffers (Academy of American Poets Web site; US)

Marianne Craig Moore (US); Edwin Muir (Scotland); Edith Louisa Sitwell; Sir Sacheverell SitwellDeathsDinah Maria Mulock Craik; Isabella Valency Crawford; Emma Lazarus (US); Edward Rowland Sill

1888

• Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism, second series• Ernest Henley's A Book of Verses• George Meredith's A Reading of Earth• Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat"BirthsT. S. Eliot (US to 1927; then British); Julian Grenfell; Aline Kilmer (US); Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand); Eugene O'Neill (US); Fernando Pessoa (Portugal) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Crowe Ransom (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alan Seeger DeathsA. Bronson Alcott; Matthew Arnold; Mary Howitt; Edward Lear; John Crowe Ransom

1889

• Robert Browning's Asolando• Eugene Field's A Little Book of Western Verse, including "Little Boy Blue" and "Wynkyn, Blynkyn and Nod"• Amy Levy's A London Plane Tree• Walter Pater's Appreciations: With an Essay on Style• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, 3rd series• Alfred lord Tennyson's Demeter and Other Poems; he writes "Crossing the Bar" in Oct. as he crossed the Solent• W. B. Yeats' The Wanderings of OisinBirthsAnna Andreyevna Akhmatova (Ukraine); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) William Hervey Allen (US); Conrad Aiken (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Claude McKay (US); Arthur David Waley; Dorothy Wellesley; Dion Titherage (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsWilliam Allingham; Robert Browning; Eliza Cook; Gerard Manley Hopkins, of typhoid; Amy Levy, by suicide; Cornelius Mathews; Martin Farquhar Tupper

1890

• Emily Dickinson's poems published posthumously• Walter Pater's Appreciations with an Essay on Style• Robert Louis Stevenson's Ballads

BirthsZora Cross (Australia); Ivor Gurney; A. P. Herbert; Boris Pasternak (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Isaac RosenbergDeathsGeorge Henry Boker (US); J. H. Newman; John Boyle O'Reilly (US)

1891

• John Davidson's In a Music Hall• William Morris's Poems by the Way• The Rhymers Club gathered at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street, London, 1891-93, including John Davidson, Ernest Dowson, W. B. Yeats, and others• James Kenneth Stephen's Lapsus Calami and Quo Musa TendisBirthsJohn Peale Bishop (US); Francis Ledwidge (Ireland) Osip Mandelstam (Russia); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsJohn Henry Hopkins, Jr.; James Russell Lowell; Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton; Herman Melville (US)

1892

• Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, including "Gunga Din"• Alfred Tennyson's The Death of OenoneBirthsRichard Aldington; Djuna Barnes (US); Mary Phelps Crosby (US); Archibald MacLeish (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Hugh MacDiarmid (Representative Poetry Online); Edna St. Vincent Millay (US); Victoria Mary ("Vita") Sackville-West; J. R. R. Tolkien César Vallejo (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsBarcroft Boake, by suicide; Maxwell Bodenheim; Josiah D. Canning; Robert P. Coffin (US); Rose Terry Cooke; William John Cory; Christopher Pearse Cranch; Alfred lord Tennyson; Walt Whitman; John Greenleaf Whittier

1893

SUFFRAGE REFORM IN NEW ZEALAND• Thomas Edward Brown's Old John, and Other Poems• John Davidson's Fleet Street Eclogues• Francis Thompson's Poems, including "The Hound of Heaven"BirthsGerald William Bullett; Arthur Stanley Bourinot (Canada); Richard Church; Jorge Guillén (Spain); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Thomas MacGreevy (Ireland); Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols; Wilfred Owen; Dorothy Parker (US); Sir Herbert Edward Read; Ivor Armstrong Richards; Sylvia Townsend Warner

DeathsSarah Tittle Bolton; Phillips Brooks; Fanny Kemble; Charles Sangster; John Addington Symonds

1894

• Robert Browning's Asolando• John Davidson's "Thirty Bob a Week" • Ben King's Verse (2nd edn., 1898)• Algernon Charles Swinburne's Astrophel and Other Poems• The Yellow Book, published 1894-97• W. B. Yeats' The Land of Heart's DesireBirthsEdward Estlin Cummings, aka e. e. cummings (US); Eileen Duggan (New Zealand); Charles Reznikoff (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); W. W. E. Ross (Canada); Jean Toomer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Bessie Smith (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsJohn Askham; Robert Fuller Murray, of consumption; Oliver Wendell Holmes; Benjamin Franklin King; Roden Berkely Wriothesley Noel; Walter Pater; Christina Rossetti, of cancer; Robert Louis Stevenson, of a brain haemorrhage, in Samoa; Celia Thaxter; Julia Augusta Webster; Constance Fenimore Woolson

1895

• Katharine Lee Bates' "America the Beautiful"• Gelett Burgess' "The Purple Cow"• James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphant Annie"BirthsCapel Boake (Australia); Lilian Bowes-Lyon; Babette Deutsch (US); Paul Eluard (France); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Graves (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Hillyer (US); David Michael Jones (Wales); Charles Hamilton SorleyDeathsCecil Frances Alexander; Louisa Sarah Bevington; Eugene Field; Thomas Henry Huxley; Frederick Locker-Lampson; William Wetmore Story; James Byrne Leicester Warren, baron de Tabley

1896

• Alfred Austin made British Poet Laureate• Ernest Christopher Dowson's Verses, including "Non Sum Qualis Eram"• A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad• William Morris publishes the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer's works• Andrew Barton (`Banjo') Paterson's The Man from Snowy River

BirthsEdmund Charles Blunden; Austin Clarke (Ireland); Nancy Cunard (US); Walter D'arcy Cresswell (New Zealand); Frederick Robert Higgins (Ireland) Eugenio Montale (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsMathilde Blind; Henry Cuyler Bunner; Thomas Edward Brown; Alexander McLachlan; William Morris; Coventry Patmore Paul Verlaine, at 52 (Jan. 8); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1897

• Edwin Arlington Robinson's The Children of the NightBirthsLouise Bogan (US); Kenneth Burke (US); William Faulkner (US)DeathsIsabella Banks; Jean Ingelow; James Joseph Sylvester

1898

• Thomas Hardy's Wessex Poems• Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading GaolBirthsStephen Vincent Benét (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Louise Bogan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Harindranath Chattopadhyana (India); Govinda Krishna Chettur (India); Philip Albert Child; Horace Gregory (US); Luis Palés Matos (Puerto Rico); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Edgell Rickword; William Soutar (Scotland)DeathsLewis Carroll; Evan MacColl; Alexander MacGregor Rose (Scotland-Canada)

1899

• Stephen Crane's War is Kind• Ernest Dowson's Decorations: in Verse and Prose• W. B. Yeats' The Wind among the ReedsBirthsLéonie Fuller Adams (US; Academy of American Poets Web site); Noël Coward; Hart Crane (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Ernest Miller Hemingway (US); Raymond Knister (Canada); Federico Garcia Lorca (Spain; Academy of American Poets Web site; US); F. R. Scott (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Allen Tate (US); Constance WoodrowDeathsArchibald Lampman; Robert Lowry; Allen Tate (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1900

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA PROCLAIMED JULY 9• Stephen Crane's The Black Riders and Other Lines• Ernest Henley's For England's Sake• Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch edits The Oxford Book of English Verse.• W. B. Yeats' The Shadowy WatersBirthsBasil Bunting; Robert Desnos (France); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Richard A. W. Hughes (Wales); Yvor Winters (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Giorgos Seferis (Greece); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Yvor Winters (US)DeathsStephen Crane; Richard Watson Dixon; Ernest Christopher Dowson; Richard Hovey; William Larminie; Melvin Tolson; Henry Duff Traill; Oscar WildeFloruitAlice Mary Buckton (South Africa);

1901

EDWARD VII (-1910)• Thomas Hardy's Poems of the Past and Present• a small plaque is set on the Statue of Liberty and holds Emma Lazarus' poem, "The New Colossus" (1883)• George Meredith's A Reading of LifeBirthsAdrian Hanbury Bell; Ignatius Roy D. Campbell (South Africa); Sterling Brown (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Salvatore Quasimodo (Italy); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Laura Riding Jackson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kenneth Slessor (Australia)DeathsRobert Williams Buchanan; Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael; William Ellery Channing; William Cosmo Monkhouse; Albery Allson WhitmanFloruitThomas Craig (South Africa);

1902

• Thomas Hardy's Poems of the Past and Present• Walter De la Mare's Songs of Childhood• John Edward Masefield's Salt-Water Ballads, including "I must go down to the sea again"• on June 2, Clara Butt sings a special version of "Land of Hope and Glory," the final chorus from the "Coronation Ode" composed by Edward Elgar with lyrics by Arthur Christopher Benson• W. B. Yeats' Cathleen Ni HoulihanBirthsArna Bontemps (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Kay Boyle (US); Kenneth Fearing; Nazim Hikmet (Greece); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Langston

Hughes (US); Ogden Nash (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Michael William Edward Roberts; A. J. Smith (Canada); Stevie Smith (Representative Poetry Online);DeathsPhilip James Bailey; Aubrey Thomas De Vere; Thomas Dunn English; Lionel Pigot Johnson; Bret Harte; William McGonagall (ca; Scotland); Albery A. Whitman; Septimus Winner (Representative Poetry Online)Georgians 1903-1920

1903

ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT MAKE THE FIRST AIR FLIGHT• Thomas Traherne's Poetical Works, published posthumously.• W. B. Yeats' Ideas of Good and EvilBirthsCountee Cullen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lorine Niedecker (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); William Charles Franklyn Plomer (South Africa); A. L. Rowse (Cornwall)DeathsIsa Craig (Scotland); William Ernest Henley; Charles Godfrey Leland; David Mills (Canada)

1904

• Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts, I, followed by II (1906) and III (1908)• Christina Rossetti's Poetical Works, edited by W. M. Rossetti• Algernon Charles Swinburne's A Channel Passage, and Other Poems• W. B. Yeats' The King's Threshold and The Hour-GlassBirthsHarold Acton; A. Alexandra Brown (Canada); Earle Birney (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Arthur R. D. Fairburn (New Zealand); Cecil Day-Lewis; Richard Eberhart (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Mary Elizabeth Frye; Pablo Neruda (Chile); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Louis Zukovsky (US)DeathsSir Edwin Arnold; Daniel Decatur Emmett; Adela Florence Nicolson Cory (pseud. "Lawrence Hope"), of suicide; Trumbull Stickney

1905

ALBERT EINSTEIN PROPOSES HIS SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY• Edmund Clerihew Bentley's Biography for Beginners and the invention of the clerihew• Ernest Dowson's Poems• Duncan Campbell Scott's "The Forsaken"• Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, published posthumouslyBirthsBrian Coffey (Ireland); Idris Davies (Wales); Frank Marshall Davis (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Geoffrey Grigson; Patrick Kavanagh (Ireland); Stanley

Kunitz (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Phyllis McGinley (Representative Poetry Online); Peter Quennel; Kenneth Rexroth (US); Rex Warner (Ireland); Robert Penn Warren (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsViolet Fane; John Hay; George MacDonald

1906

• C. M. Doughty's The Dawn in Britain• Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts, II• Picasso's portrait of Gertrude SteinBirthsSamuel Beckett; John Betjeman, later Sir (Representative Poetry Online); Bruce Charles (Canada); William Empson, later Sir; Anne Lindbergh (US); Vernon Watkins (Wales); Helen Bevington (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsRonald Bottrall; Martha Browne; Paul Laurence Dunbar; James McIntyre

1907

• James Joyce's Chamber Music• Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer's Prejudice Unveiled• Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Rudyard Kipling• Robert Service's The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, also titled Songs of a Sourdough, including "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"BirthsW. H. Auden (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); A. D. Hope (Representative Poetry Online); Lincoln Kirstein (US); John Lehmann; Louis MacNeice (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Christopher Caudwell (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsThomas Bailey Aldrich (US); Mary Coleridge; William Henry Drummond; Francis Miles Finch; John Arthur Phillips; Francis Thompson; Annie Louisa Walker

1908

• John Davidson's Mammon and his Message• Barbara Frietchie, a film directed by J. Stuart Blackton (redone in 1915 and 1924) and based on the story told by John Greenleaf Whittier in the poem of the same name.• Edith Nesbit's Ballads & Lyrics of Socialism• Ezra Pound's A Lume SpentoBirthsJulian Bell; Dennis Devlin (Ireland); Paul Engle (US); Josephine Jacobsen (Canada); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) George Oppen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kathleen Jessie Raine; Theodore Roethke (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Julian Bell (Representative Poetry Online)

DeathsErnest Fenollosa; Alexander L. Posey; James Ryder Randall; Edmund Clarence Steadman

1909

• Andrew Cecil Bradley's Oxford Lectures on Poetry• Founding of the Poetry Recital Society (now the Poetry Society)• Thomas Hardy's Time's Laughingstocks• George Meredith's Last Poems• Ezra Pound's Personae• Robert Service's Ballads of a Cheechako• John Millington Synge's Poems and TranslationsBirthsCharles Brasch (New Zealand); John Glassco (Canada); Robert Garioch (Scotland); A.M. Klein (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Dorothy Livesay (Canada); Stephen Spender (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsJohn Davidson; Romesh Chunder Dutt (India); George Essex Evans (Australia); Richard Watson Gilder; William Reed Huntington; Sarah Orne Jewett; George Cabot Lodge; George Meredith; Stephen Spender (Feb. 28); Algernon Charles Swinburne; John Millington Synge; John Banister Tabb (US)FloruitEdith L. M. King (South Africa);

1910

GEORGE V (-1936)• John Masefield's Ballads and Poems• W. B. Yeats' Poems: Second SeriesBirthsNorman Alexander MacCaig (Scotland); Charles Olson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsAugusta Cooper Bristol; Gilbert E. Brooke (Singapore); James Lister Cuthbertson; Julia Ward Howe; William Vaughn Moody (US); Arthur Joseph Munby; Mark Twain; Anna Letitia Waring

1911

• Britain establishes six copyright libraries (to which copies of all books published in the country must be sent): Bodleian Library (Oxford); British Library (London); National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh); National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth); Trinity College (Dublin); and University Library (Cambridge)• Rupert Brooke's Poems 1911• Ezra Pound's Canzoni

BirthsElizabeth Bishop (Representative Poetry Online); J. V. Cunningham (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Allen Curnow (New Zealand); Robert W. V. Gittings; Paul Goodman (US) Sorley Maclean, aka Somhairle Macgill-Eain (Gailic); Josephine Miles (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Czeslaw Milosz (Lithuania); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kenneth Patchen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Mervyn Laurence PeakeDeathsElizabeth Akers Allen; James A. Bland; Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (India); W. S. Gilbert; Frances Ellen Watkins

1912

• Pauline Johnson's Flint and Feather• Sir Edward Marsh's anthology Georgian Poetry 1911-12• H. E. Monro edits The Poetry Review, journal of the Poetry Recital Society• Harriet Munroe founds Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in Chicago• Ezra Pound's Ripostes• Robert Service's Rhymes of a Rolling StoneBirthsKenneth Allott; Clement Byrne Christesen (Australia); Lawrence George Durrell; Roy Fuller; Christopher Vernon Hassall; Irving Layton (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Charles Henry Madge; Frank Prince (South Africa); Anne Ridler; May Sarton (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsAndrew Lang (Scotland); Caroline Lindsay; Margaret E. SangsterFloruitFrancis Ernley Walrond (South Africa);

1913

• Robert Bridges made British Poet Laureate• Robert Frost's A Boy's Will• D. H. Lawrence's Love Poems• Vachel Lindsay's General Booth Enters Heaven and Other Poems• Harold Monro founds the Poetry Bookshop in LondonBirthsGeorge Barker (US); Aimée Césaire (Martinique); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Hayden (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Frederick Nims (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Muriel Rukeyser (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Delmore Schwartz (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Karl Shapiro (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); R. S. Thomas (Wales); Anne Marriott (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsAlfred Austin; Edith Emma Cooper; Pauline Johnson; George Johnston (Canada); Joaquin Miller

1914

WAR WORLD I BEGINS (JULY-SEPT.)• Robert Frost's North of Boston• Thomas Hardy's Satires of Circumstance• Des Imagistes: An Anthology, edited by Ezra Pound• Joyce Kilmer's Trees and Other Poems, including "Trees"• Carl Sandburg publishes "Chicago" in the magazine Poetry• W. B. Yeats' ResponsibilitiesBirthsJohn Berryman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Clifford Dyment (Wales); David Ignatow (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Randall Jarrell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Weldon Kees (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Laurie Lee; Douglas Lepan (Canada); Octavio Paz (Mexico) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Henry Reed; Charles Hubert Sisson; Dylan Thomas (Representative Poetry Online); William Stafford (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsIsodore Gordon Ascher; Ambrose Bierce (?); Katharine Harris Bradley; Madison Cawein; Adelaide Crapsey; Henrietta Anne Huxley

1915

• Richard Aldington's Images 1910-1915• Rupert Brooke's 1914 & Other Poems• Adelaide Crapsey's Verse, and her invention of the quintain, a five-line form• T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" published in Poetry (Chicago)• Thomas Hardy publishes "The Convergence of the Twain," on the sinking of the Titanic• Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology• Ezra Pound's Cathay• Edith Sitwell's The Mother and Other PoemsBirthsMona Brand (Australia); (Rupert) John Cornford (Representative Poetry Online); R. A. D. Ford (Canada); Isabella Stewart Gardner (US); Alun Lewis (Wales); Sydney Goodsir Smith (Scotland); Ruth Stone (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Judith Wright (Australia)DeathsRupert Brooke; James Elroy Flecker; Julian Grenfell, killed at Ypres; Stuart Merrill; Eric Roach (Tobago); Charles Hamilton Sorley, killed in WW1 in France

1916

• Hilda Doolittle's Sea Garden ("H.D.")• Robert Frost's Mountain Interval, including "Out, Out--"• D. H. Lawrence's Amores• Ezra Pound's Lustra• Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems

• Robert Service's Rhymes of a Red Cross Man• Charles Hamilton Sorley's Marlborough and Other PoemsBirthsJohn Ciardi (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Gavin Buchanan Ewart; David Gascoyne; Eve Merriam (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); P.K. Page (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsH. H. Munro ("Saki"); James Whitcomb Riley; Alan Seeger, in WW1 in France; Arabella Eugenia Smith; John Todhunter; John Townsend Trowbridge

1917

UNITED STATES ENTERS WORLD WAR I• Sarah Cleghorn's Portraits and Protest• T. S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations• Thomas Hardy's Moments of Vision• D. H. Lawrence's Look! We have Come Through!• Edna St. Vincent Millay's Renascence and Other Poems• Poetry (Chicago) publishes Ezra Pound's first three cantos• Siegfried Sassoon's The Old Huntsman• Edward Thomas's Poems• W. B. Yeats' The Wild Swans at CooleBirthsGwendolyn Brooks (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Charles Causley; Robert Conquest; Ruth Herschberger (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Lowell (Representative Poetry Online); James McAuley (Australia); Bertram Warr (Canada)DeathsWilliam Hamilton (South Africa), died in Flanders; Thomas Ernest Hulme, killed in WW1; Francis Ledwidge, killed at Flanders in WW1; Dr. John McCrae; John James Platt; Edward Thomas, killed in WW1 at Arras

1918

• Rupert Brooke's Collected Poems• Gerard Manley Hopkins' Poems, edited by Robert Bridges• James Joyce's Exiles• D. H. Lawrence's New Poems• Wilfred Owen composes Dulce et Decorum Est• Siegfried Sassoon's Counter-Attack• Edward Thomas' Last Poems• Arthur David Waley's A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems• W. B. Yeats' Per Amica Silentia LunaeAwards• Sara Teasdale's Love Songs (1917) wins a special Pulitzer prizeBirthsMargaret Avison (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Martin Bell; Louis Dudek

(Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anne Elder (New Zealand); William Sydney Graham (Scotland); John Heath-Stubbs; James Kirkup; Al Purdy (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); William Jay Smith (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Muriel Spark (Scotland)DeathsHenry Adams; Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Jane Barlow; William John Courthorpe; Joyce Kilmer, at the second battle of the Marne; Wilfred Owen, killed at the Sambre canal; Isaac Rosenberg, killed in action; Lena Guilbert Ford (Representative Poetry Online)

1919

TREATY OF VERSAILLES ENDS WORLD WAR I (JUNE 28)• T. S. Eliot's Poems• Thomas Hardy's Collected Poems• Lieut.-Col. John McCrae's In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, posthumously published• Ezra Pound's Quia Pauper Amavi• Sigfried Sassoon's War PoemsAwards• Carl Sandburg's Cornhuskers (1918), awarded a special Pulitzer prize• Margaret Widdemer's Old Road to Paradise (1918) wins a special Pulitzer prizeBirthsLouise Simone Bennett, aka Louise Bennett-Coverley, aka "Miss Lou" (Jamaica); Ruth Dallas (New Zealand); Madeline DeFrees (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Duncan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) William Meredith (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jiri Orten (Czechoslovakia); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); May Swenson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsBenjamin Paul Blood; Wilfred Campbell; Sarah Morgan Piatt; Ella Wheeler WilcoxModerns 1920-1960

1920

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE ADOPTED IN THE UNITED STATES• T. S. Eliot's The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism and Poems• Wilfred Owen's Poems, posthumously published• Ezra Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley• Carl Sandburg's Smoke and Steel• W. B. Yeats' Michael Robartes and the DancerBirthsCharles Bukowski (US; Aug. 16); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Paul Celan (Romania); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Amy Clampitt (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Alex Comfort; Rosemary Dobson (Australia); Keith Castellain Douglas; Dennis Joseph Enright; Barbara Guest (Academy of American Poets

Web site; US) Edwin Morgan (Scotland); Howard Nemerov (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alexander Scott (Scotland)DeathsCharles Edward Carryl; Louise Imogen Guiney; William Dean Howells; Dollie Radford

1921

• Mrs. Dawson-Scott founds PEN, an international Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists• T. S. Eliot's describes "dissociation of sensibility" as a poetic splitting of emotion from reason• D. H. Lawrence's Tortoises• Marianne Moore's Poems• John Collings Squire's Collected ParodiesBirthsGeorge Mackay Brown; Hayden Carruth (Academy of American Poets Web site; US), James A. Emanuel (US), Chester Kallman (US); Marie Ponsot (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Raymond Souster (Canada); Mona Van Duyn (Representative Poetry Online); Richard Wilbur (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsFrancis William Bourdillon; Austin Dobson; Ernest Myers

1922

• T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land• Thomas Hardy's Late Lyrics and Earlier• James Weldon Johnson's Book of American Negro Poetry• Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows• Marjorie Pickthall's The Wood Carver's Wife, including "Marching Men"• Carl Sandburg's Slabs of the Sunburnt West• Sir William Walton's composition, Façade, a musical setting of 21 poems by Edith Sitwell• W. B. Yeats' Later PoemsAwards• Edwin Arlington Robinson's Collected Poems (1921) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsKingsley Amis (April 16); Elizabeth Brewster (Canada); John Bruce (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Donald Davie; Douglas Grant Lochhead (Canada); A. L. Hendricks (Jamaica); Jack Kerouac (US); Sidney Arthur Kilworth Keyes; Philip Larkin (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Gillespie Magee Jr. (US); Jackson Mac Low (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Eli Mandel (Canada); Vernon ScannellDeathsJohn Kendrick Bangs; Wilfred Scawen Blunt; Henry Lawson (Australia); Alice Meynell, née Thompson; Josephine Peabody; Marjorie Pickthall; Walter Alexander Raleigh; Harry Dacre (Representative Poetry Online)

1923

• e. e. cummings' Tulips and Chimneys• Walter De La Mare's anthology Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of all Ages• D. H. Lawrence's Birds, Beasts, and Flowers, including "Snake"• John Masefield's Collected Poems• Wallace Steven's Harmonium, including "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"• Jean Toomer's Cane• W. B. Yeats' The Cat and the Moon, including "Leda and the Swan"Awards• Edna St. Vincent Millay's The Ballad of the Harp-weaver, A Few Figs (2nd edn.), and Eight Sonnets, all published in 1922, awarded the Pulitzer Prize this year• Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to W. B. YeatsBirthsDannie Abse; Milton Acorn (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Ivor Cutler (UK); James Dickey (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Alan Dugan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Mari Evans (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Cola Franzen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anthony Hecht (Representative Poetry Online); Daniel Hoffman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Richard Hugo (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Denise Levertov (Representative Poetry Online); John Logan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Schuyler (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Louis Simpson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Wislawa Szymborska (Poland); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsMaurice Henry Hewlett; Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand); Francis Coutts (Representative Poetry Online)

1924

• John Masefield's Sard Harker• A. A. Milne's When We Were Very Young, for children• Marianne Moore's ObservationsAwards• Robert Frost's New Hampshire (1923) awarded the Pulitzer Prize• Vita Sackville-West's The Land, winner of the Hawthornden PrizeBirthsClaribel Alegría (Nicaragua); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Yehuda Amichai (Germany); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Elizabeth Bartlett; Patricia Beer; Edgar Bowers (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Dennis Brutus (South Africa); Jane Cooper (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Lauris Edmond (New Zealand); Nissim Ezekiel (India); David Ferry (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Edward Field (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Janet Frame (New Zealand); Michael Hamburger John Haines (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

Zbigniew Herbert (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lisel Mueller (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsSabine Baring-Gould; William Herbert Carruth (US); Thomas William Hodgson Crosland; Kingsley Fairbridge (South Africa); Edith Nesbit; Woodrow Wilson (US)

1925

• T. S. Eliot's Poems 1909-25, including "The Hollow Men"• Thomas Hardy's Human Shows• Ezra Pound's A Draft of XVI Cantos• W. B. Yeats' A VisionAwards• Edwin Arlington Robinson's The Man Who Died Twice (1924), awarded the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsPhilip Booth (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Theodore Enslim (US); Ian Hamilton Finlay (Scotland); Donald Justice (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Bob Kaufman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carolyn Kizer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kenneth Koch (Representative Poetry Online); Maxine Kumin (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Gerald Stern (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Wain (March 14); Francis Webb (Australia)DeathsArthur Christopher Benson; Alfred Denis Godley; Amy Lowell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); George Washington Cable

1926

• Langston Hughes' The Weary Blues, including "The Weary Blues"• Hugh MacDiarmid's A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle• Archibald MacLeish's Streets in the Moon, including "The End of the World"• Dorothy Parker's Enough Rope• Ezra Pound's PersonaeAwards• Amy Lowell's What's O'Clock (1925) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsA. R. Ammons (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) James K. Baxter (New Zealand); Robert Bly (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Creeley (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Marya Fiamengo (Canada); Allen Ginsberg (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Phyllis Gotlieb (Canada); Elizabeth Jennings; Christopher Logue (UK); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Merrill (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Frank O'Hara (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Reaney (Canada); W. D. Snodgrass (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Francis Edward Sparshott (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); David Wagoner (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

DeathsAda Cambridge; Charles Montagu Doughty; Perceval Gibbon (South Africa); Eva Selena Gore-Booth; Rainer Maria Rilke, (Dec. 29), of leukemia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Francis Joseph Sherman

1927

• Gilbert Keith Chesterton's Collected Poems• T. S. Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi"• James Weldon Johnson's God's Promises• James Joyce's Pomes Penyeach• J. L. Lowes' The Road to Xanadu, a book on the composition of S. T. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"• Don Marquis' archie and mehitabel, a collection of vers libre poems typed by a former-poet-turned-cockroach by jumping on the keys of a typewriter• A. A. Milne's Now We are Six• W. B. Yeats' October Blast, including "Among School Children"Awards• Leonora Speyer's Fiddler's Farewell (1926) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsJohn Ashbery (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Martin Carter (Guyana); Henry Coulette (US); David Diop (France); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Larry Eigner (US); Galway Kinnell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); W. S. Merwin (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Richard Murphy (Ireland); Charles Tomlinson; Phyllis Webb (Canada); James Wright (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsEmma Marie Caillard; Charles Mair

1928

• T. S. Eliot's For Lancelot Andrewes• Thomas Hardy's Winter Words• Carl Sandburg's Good Morning America• Allen Tate's Mr. Pope and Other Poems, including "Ode to the Confederate Dead"• W. B. Yeats' The TowerAwards• Edwin Arlington Robinson's Tristram (1927) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsMaya Angelou, aka Marguerite Annie Johnson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Bruce Beaver (Australia); Carol Bergé (US); R. F. Brissenden (Australia); Don Coles (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Peter Davison (US); Irving Feldman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Donald Hall (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Thomas Kinsella (Ireland); Philip Levine (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anne Sexton (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alan Sillitoe; Iain Crichton Smith (Scotland); James Wright (US)

DeathsEdmund Gosse; Thomas Hardy; Charlotte Mary Mew, by suicide; David McKee Wright (New Zealand) Elinor Morton Hoyt Wylie

1929

• Robert Bridges' The Testament of Beauty• Cecil Day-Lewis' Transitional Poem• D. H. Lawrence's Pansies• I. A. Richards' Practical Criticism: A Study in Literary Judgement• W. B. Yeats' The Winding StairAwards• Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body (1928) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsAnne Ellen Beresford; Edward Dorn (US); Ursula A. Fanthorpe; Thom Gunn (UK); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Hollander (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Richard Howard (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) X. J. Kennedy (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Patrick Montague; Ned O'Gorman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter Porter; Adrienne Rich (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter Dale Scott (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsKatharine Lee Bates; Bliss Carman; Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy

1930

• W. H. Auden's Poems• Samuel Beckett's Whoroscope• Hart Crane's The Bridge• T. S. Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday"• William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity, a book of criticism• John Masefield made British Poet LaureateAwards• Conrad Aitken's Selected Poems (1929) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsChinua Achebe (Nigeria); Adonis (Academy of American Poets; Syria); Edward Brathwaite (Barbados); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Gregory N. Corso (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Roy Fisher; Ted Hughes (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Mazisi Kunene (South Africa); Jon Silkin; Gary Snyder (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anthony Thwaite; Derek Walcott (West Indies); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRobert Bridges (April 21); D. H. Lawrence (March 2), of tuberculosis

1931

• John Betjeman's Mount Zion• Edmund Blunden publishes Wilfred Owen's poemsAwards• Robert Frost's Collected Poems (1930) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsP'Bitek (East Africa); Alan Charles Brownjohn; Sonja Dunn (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Ruth Fainlight; Etheridge Knight (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter Levi; Jay Macpherson (Canada); Adrienne Rich (US); Peter Chad Tigar Tomas Tranströmer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Judith Viorst (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsKatharine Hinkson, aka Katharine Tynan (Ireland); Vachel Lindsay, by suicide

1932

• W. H. Auden's The Orators• Sterling Brown's Southern Road• T. S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes and Selected Essays• Thomas Hardy's Collected Poems• Sir Julian Sorell Huxley's The Captive Shrew and other Poems of a Biologist• F. R. Leavis' New Bearings in English Poetry attacks late Victorian and Georgian poetry and praises Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and other modernists• W. B. Yeats' Words for Music PerhapsAwards• George Dillon's The Flowering Stone (1931) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsPatrick Cullinan (South Africa); Geoffrey Hill (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jenny Joseph; Douglas Livingstone (South Africa); George Mann MacBeth (Jan. 19); Michael McClure (US); Adrian Mitchell; Christopher Okigbo (Nigeria); Linda Pastan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sylvia Plath (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter William Redgrove John Updike (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Linda M. Stitt (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsGamaliel Bradford (US); Christopher Brennan; Hubert N. W. Church; Edmund Vance Cooke (US); Hart Crane, by suicide; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Raymond Knister, by drowning; Harold Edward Monro; Clinton Scollard

1933

• W. H. Auden's The Dance of Death• Cecil Day-Lewis' The Magnetic Mountain• T. S. Eliot's The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism• Gregory Grigson founds New Verse (1933-39)• A. E. Housman's Leslie Stephen Lecture at Cambridge, "The Name and Nature of Poetry"• D. H. Lawrence's Last Poems

• Stephen Spender's Poems• W. B. Yeats' Collected PoemsAwards• Archibald MacLeish's Conquistador (1932) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsGerald William Barrax (US); Maureen Duffy; Kevin Ireland (New Zealand); John Edward Mackenzie Lucie-Smith (Jamaica); Alden Nowlan (Canada); Joe Rosenblatt (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anne Stevenson; Robert Sward (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsC. P. Cavafy (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) John Jay Chapman; Henry Van Dyke

1934

• The Barretts of Wimpole Street, a film directed by Sidney Franklin, with Norman Shearer as Elizabeth Barrett and Fredric March as Robert Browning; redone in 1957, less successfully• T. S. Eliot's The Rock• Dylan Thomas' Eighteen Poems, including "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower"• William Carlos Williams' Collected Poems• W. B. Yeats' The King of the Great Clock TowerAwards• Robert Hillyer's Collected Verse (1933) wins the Pulitzer Prize• Laurence Whistler wins the King's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)BirthsFleur Adock; Jack Agüeros (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Amiri Baraka (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Ted Berrigan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Wendell Berry (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Leonard Cohen (Canada); Kamala Das (India); Diane Di Prima (US); Henry Dumas (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); M. Travis Lane (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Everett Le Roi Jones, aka Amiri Baraka; Hettie Jones (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Audre Lorde (Representative Poetry Online); David Malouf (Australia); Walt McDonald (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); N. Scott Momaday (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sonia Sanchez (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Wole Soyinka (Nigeria); Mark Strand (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsJean Blewett; John Henry Gray; Dion Titherage (Representative Poetry Online)

1935

• T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral• William Empson's Some Versions of Pastoral• George Gershwin's musical Porgy and Bess• Louis MacNeice's Poems

• John Masefield's Box of Delights• Wallace Stevens' Ideas of Order• W. B. Yeats' A Full Moon in MarchAwards• Audrey Wurdemann's Bright Ambush (1934) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsKofi Awoonor (Ghana); Michael Benedikt (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) George Bowering (Canada); Richard Brautigan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Roque Dalton (El Salvador); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Clayton Eshleman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Joy Kogawa (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Pat Lowther (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Mary Oliver (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); David R. Slavitt (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Donald Michael Thomas; Charles Wright (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jay Wright (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jon Stallworthy (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsAlice Dunbar-Nelson; Helena Mabel Forrest; Fernando Pessoa, (Nov. 30), of cirrhosis of the liver; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lizette Woodworth Reese; Edwin Arlington Robinson; George William Russell; Sir William Watson

1936

EDWARD VIII (-1936); GEORGE VI (-1952)• W. H. Auden's Look, Stranger!• T. S. Eliot's Collected Poems 1909-35, including Burnet Norton• James Laughlin founds New Directions Press New York), which published many modern poets for the first time• F. R. Leavis's Revaluation rejects Milton, Spenser, and Shelley and praises Donne, Pope, Hopkins, Eliot, and others• Dorothy Parker's Not So Deep as a Well• Michael Roberts edits The Faber Book of Modern Verse, which praises poets such as W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot and ignores poets like Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy• Dylan Thomas' Twenty-Five Poems, including "And Death Shall have No Dominion"• W. B. Yeats edits The Oxford Book of Modern VerseAwards• W. H. Auden wins the King's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Robert Coffin's Strange Holiness (1935) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsGeorge Bowering (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); John Pepper Clark (Nigeria); Lucille Clifton (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Robert Colombo (Representative Poetry Online); Jayne Cortez (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Sandra M. Gilbert (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Elisabeth Harvor (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); June Jordan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Clarence Major (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Marge Piercy (US) C. K. Williams (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Christopher Wiseman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); David Young (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

DeathsGilbert Keith Chesterton (Representative Poetry Online); Govinda Kristna Chettur; (Rupert) John Cornford (Representative Poetry Online); Miguel de Unamuno (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) A. E. Housman; Rudyard Kipling, (Jan. 18); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Federico García Lorca (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Harriet Monroe, of a cerebral haemorrhage; Gerald Gould (Representative Poetry Online)

1937

• John Betjeman's Continual Dew, including "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel"• Iowa Writers' Workshop founded by Paul Engle at the University of Iowa• David Jones' In Parenthesis• Isaac Rosenberg's Collected Works, posthumously published• J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit• the United States unofficially appoints Poet Laureates (as Poetry Consultants to the Library of Congress)Awards• Robert Frost's A Further Range (1936) wins the Pulitzer Prize• Edwin Markham wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsMarvin Bell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) John Fuller (US); Tony Harrison (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Susan Howe (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Glen Sorestad (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Diane Wakoski (Representative Poetry Online); Eleanor Wilner (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alicia Ostriker (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsJulian Bell, in the Spanish Civil War; Anna Branch; Ivor Gurney; Don Marquis; Edith Wharton; Constance Woodrow; Julian Bell (Representative Poetry Online); Christopher Caudwell (Representative Poetry Online); Bessie Smith (Representative Poetry Online)

1938

• Louis MacNeice's The Earth Compels• Understanding Poetry, edited by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren (appearing thereafter in revised editions to 1976)• W. B. Yeats' New Poems, including "Lapis Lazuli"Awards• Marya Zaturenska's Cold Morning Sky (1937) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsMichael Harper (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Tony Harrison; Frances Horovitz; Keroapetse Kgositsile (South Africa); Deena Linett (US); Leslie Allan Murray (Academy of American Poets Web site; Australia); John Newlove (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Ishmael Reed (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Charles

Simic (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); George Thaniel (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsLascelles Abercrombie; James Weldon Johnson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Osip Mandelstam, (Dec. 7); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sir Henry John Newbolt (Representative Poetry Online); César Vallejo, (April 15); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jack Judge (Representative Poetry Online)

1939

AUSTRALIA, GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND NEW ZEALAND DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY (SEPT. 3)• T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats• Gunga Din, a film directed by George Stevens, based loosely on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name• Poetry London, a magazine founded by Dylan Thomas, its editor James Meary Tambimuttu, and others• Dylan Thomas's The Map of Love• Christopher Smart's Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam, posthumously edited by W. F. Stead• W. B. Yeats' Last Poems and Two PlaysAwards• John Gould Fletcher's Selected Poems (1938) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsDick Allen (US); Paula Gunn Allen (US); Margaret Atwood (18 November RPO and Canadian Poetry site; Canada); Frank Bidart (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); bill bissett (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Siv Cedering (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Stephen Dunn (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Seamus Heaney (Ireland); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Michael Longley (Ireland); Patrick Lane (Canada) Dennis Lee (Academy of American Poets Web site; US; and Canadian Poetry Web site); José Emilio Pacheco (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Stanley Plumly (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Primus St. John (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Quincy Troupe (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Fred Wah (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Al Young (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRose Hartwick Thorpe; William Butler Yeats (Representative Poetry Online)

1940

• W. H. Auden's Another Time• Sir John Betjeman's Old Lights for New Chancels• T. S. Eliot's East Coker, published in New English Weekly• Dylan Thomas' Portrait of the Artist as a Young DogAwards• Michael Thwaites wins the King's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Mark Van Doren's Collected Poems (1939) wins the Pulitzer Prize

BirthsDouglas Barbour (Canada); Joseph Brodsky (Representative Poetry Online); Martha Collins (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Fanny Howe (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Angela De Hoyos (US); Gary Hyland (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Paul Mariani (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); David W. McFadden (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Robert Pinsky (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jack Prelutsky (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsWilliam Henry Davies; Hamlin Garland; Edwin Markham (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Ernest Lawrence Thayer

1941

JAPAN ATTACKS PEARL HARBOR (NOV. 27)• W. H. Auden's New Year Letters (or The Double Man)• T. S. Eliot's The Dry Salvages, published in New English Weekly• On September 3, 19-year-old John Gillespie Magee, Jr., flew a high-altitude test flight in a Spitfire V and afterwards wrote "High Flight" about the experience• John Crowe Ransom's The New CriticismAwards• Leonard Bacon's Sunderland Capture (1940) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 5)BirthsBilly Collins (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Toi Derricotte (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Stephen Dobyns (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Hass (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lyn Hejinian (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Gwendolyn MacEwen (Representative Poetry Online); Derek Mahon (Ireland), (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Dave Margoshes (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Simon J. Ortiz (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); David Rosenfield (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Lloyd Schwartz (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Stephen Yenser (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsFrederick Robert Higgins; Aline Kilmer; James Joyce; John Gillespie Magee Jr. (US); Jiri Orten (Aug. 30; Academy of American Poets Web site; US); A. B. (`Banjo') Paterson; Rabindranath Tagore (India)

1942

• Earle Birney's David and Other Poems• Walter De la Mare's Collected Poems• T. S. Eliot's Little Gidding, published in New English Weekly• Patrick Kavanagh's The Great Hunger• Alun Lewis' Raiders' Dawn, on a soldier's life in the World War IIAwards• William Rose Benét's The Dust Which is God (1941) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 4)

BirthsAma Ata Aidoo (Ghana); Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Mark DeFoe (US); Douglas Eaglesham Dunn (Scotland); Jennifer Footman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Marilyn Hacker (Representative Poetry Online); David Henderson (US); Haki Madhubuti (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); William Matthews (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Pat Mora (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Arthur Nortje (South Africa); Sharon Olds (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Henry Taylor (US); Hugo WilliamsDeathsWilliam Baylebridge; Miguel Hernández (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lucy Maud Montgomery; John Straw Nielson

1943

• Rodgers and Hammerstein's US musical Oklahoma• Dylan Thomas's New PoemsAwards• Robert Frost's A Witness Tree (1942) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3)BirthsBert Almon (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Alfred Corn (US); Emanuel di Pasquale (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Tess Gallagher (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Sarah Getty (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Louise Glück (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Maureen Harris (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Michael Ondaatje (Canada); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Michael Palmer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Tate (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Bill Zavatsky (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsStephen Vincent Benét, at 44 (March 13) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Laurence Binyon (Representative Poetry Online); Sidney A. K. Keyes, killed in Tunisia in WW2; Radclyffe Hall; Charles G. D. Roberts; William Soutar; Bertram Warr

1944

• W. H. Auden's For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio• Sir John Betjeman's New Bats in Old Belfries• Walter De la Mare's Collected Rhymes and Verses• H. D.'s (Hilda Dolittle's) Trilogy (1944-46), on war-time London• T. S. Eliot's Four QuartetsAwards• Stephen Vincent Benét's Western Star posthumously (1943) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 1)• Edith Henrich of Williams Bay, Wisconsin, wins the first prize of the Poetry Society of America (Jan. 2)BirthsSandra Alcosser (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Eavan Boland (Ireland);

John Donlan (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Paul Duncan; Susan Ioannou (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Penn Kemp (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Mary Kinzie (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); BP Nichol (Canada); Pedro Pietri (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Craig Anthony Raine; John Reibetanz (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Linda Rogers (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Alice Walker (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsJohn Peale Bishop; A. H. Reginald Buller; Olivia Bush; Joseph Campbell; Keith Castellain Douglas, killed in WW2 at Normandy; Stephen Leacock; Alun Lewis, killed in WW2 in Burma; Thomas Sturge Moore; Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols; Frederick George Scott

1945

THE UNITED STATES DROPS ATOMIC BOMBS ON HIROSHIMA (AUG. 6) AND NAGASAKI (AUG. 9)• Louise Bogen holds the Library of Congress Chair of Poetry (1945-46)• Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, based on George Crabbe's The Borough• Randall Jarrell's Little Friend, Little Friend, including "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"• Alun Lewis's Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets, posthumously published• Ezra Pound is arrested for treason at Genoa and imprisoned at Pisa by the US armyAwards• W. H. Auden wins the American Academy of Arts and Letters poetry prize (March 28)• Karl Shapiro's V-Letter and Other Poems (1944) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 7)BirthsTerry Blackhawk (US); Marianne Bluger (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Syl Cheyney-Coker (Sierra Leone); Wendy Cope; W. S. Di Piero (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Annie Dillard (US); Norman Dubie (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Calvin Forbes (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Ellen Jaffe (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Bernadette Mayer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); J.D. McClatchy (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carol Muske-Dukes (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alice Notley (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anne Waldman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Tom Wayman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Adam Zagajewski (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsMaurice Baring; Mary Ursula Bethell; Capel Boake; Robert Desnos (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas; Paul Valéry (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Charles Williams

1946

• W. H. Auden becomes a US citizen• Roy Campbell's Talking Bronco• Walter De la Mare's The Traveller• Henry Reed's A Map of Verona, including "Naming of Parts"

• Dylan Thomas' Deaths and Entrances, including "Fern Hill" and "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London"• William Carlos Williams' Paterson (1946-58)Awards• Ralph Hodgson wins the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Achievement to a foreign poet in the US (April 29)• Pulitzer Prize for poetry goes unawarded this year• Ridgely Torrance wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsRobert Bringhurst (Canada); Wanda Coleman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Patrick Friesen (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Alison Hawthorne Deming (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Larry Levis (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Thomas Lux (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Marilyn Nelson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Minnie Bruce Pratt (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Janis Rapoport (Canada; Canadian Poetry web site); Libby Scheier (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Susan Wood (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsCountee Cullen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Ernest Rhys; Gertrude Stein, (July 27), of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1947

• Richard Eberhart's Burr Oaks, including "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment"• Paul Hiebert's Sara Binks, "the sweet songstess of Saskatchewan"• Philip Larkin's A Girl in Winter• Louis MacNeice's The Dark Tower• Stephen Spender's Poems of DedicationAwards• Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle (1946) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 5)BirthsAi (Academy of American Poets Web site; US; and Representative Poetry Online); Cheryl Clarke (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Jane Kenyon (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Yusef Komunyakaa (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Liz Lochhead (Scotland); Nathaniel Mackey (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Al Moritz (Canada; Representative Poetry Online); Molly Peacock (Academy of American Poets Web site; US; Canadian Poetry Web site; and Representative Poetry Online); Charlie Smith (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Steffler (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Rosemary Sullivan (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site; and Representative Poetry Online)DeathsRichard Le Gallienne; Duncan Campbell Scott; Anna Wickham

1948

• Sir John Betjeman's Selected Poems• Bollingen Prize for Poetry is established• Robert Graves' The White Goddess, a "historical grammar" of poetic myth and inspiration• Ezra Pound's Pisan CantosAwards• W. H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety (1947) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3)• Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to T. S. Eliot (Nov. 4)• Percy MacKaye wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsDiane Ackerman (US); Anna Couani (Australia); Lorna Crozier (Canada; Canadian Poetry website); R. S. Gwynn (US); Lawrence Joseph (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Brian Henderson (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); David Lehman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anna Mioduchowska (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); John Oughton (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Sherod Santos (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Ntozake Shange, née Paulette Williams (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Leslie Marmon Silko (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Heather McHugh (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Frank Stanford (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); David Waltner-Toews (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsGordon Bottomley; Albert Goldbarth (US); Claude McKay; Michael William Edward Roberts

1949

• Judith Wright's Woman to ManAwards• Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos wins the Bollingen Prize (Feb. 19)• Peter Viereck's Terror and Decorum (1948) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 2)BirthsJohn Agard (Guyana); Agha Shahid Ali (India; Academy of American Poets Web site); Michael Blumenthal (US); David Bottoms (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Marilyn Bowering (Canada); Olga Broumas (US); Ralph Burns (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Pier Giorgio di Cicco (Canada; Representative Poetry Online); Victor Hernandez Cruz (Puerto Rico; Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Bei Dao (China; Academy of American Poets Web site); Lynn Emanuel (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Alice Major (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Mary di Michele (Canada); Barbara Ras (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Liam Rector (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Christopher Reid (Ireland); David St. John (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robyn Sarah (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Jane Urquhart (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Eliot Weinberger (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); C. D. Wright (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

DeathsWilliam Hervey Allen; Lilian Bowes-Lyon; Clara Ann Thompson (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas Thornely (Representative Poetry Online)The Beat Generation 1950-1970

1950

• W. H. Auden's Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944• Ezra Pound's Seventy CantosAwards• The Bollingen Prize for poetry is transferred to Yale University Library because of controversy over the award of the prize last year to Ezra Pound• Gwendolyn Brooks' Annie Allen (1949) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 1)• e. e. cummings wins the annual Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (Dec. 7)• Wallace Stevens, at 70, wins the Bollingen Prize for his entire body of work (March 27)• William Carlos Williams wins the National Book Award for poetry for his Paterson, Book III, and Selected PoemsBirthsCharles Bernstein (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Anne Carson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Frances Chung (US); Theodore Deppe (US); Christopher Dewdney (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Carolyn Forché (US; Academy of American Poets Web site; and Representative Poetry Online); Dana Gioia (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Jorie Graham (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Susan L. Helwig (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Edward Hirsch (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kim Maltman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Susan McMaster (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); E. Ethelbert Miller (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Wayne Scott Ray (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Stan Rogal (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Kenneth Sherman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Sandy Shreve (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Arthur Sze (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Chase Twichell (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Yau (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsWilliam Rose Benét; John Gould Fletcher; Edgar Lee Masters (?); Edna St. Vincent Millay, at 58 (Oct. 19), of a heart attack; James Stephens

1951

• W. H. Auden's Nones• Bad Lord Byron, a film directed by David Macdonald about the Romantic poet• Peter Mason Opie and Iona Margaret Balfour Opie publish The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery RhymesAwards• Carl Sandburg's Complete Poems (1950) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 7)• John Crowe Ransom wins the Bollingen Prize for his entire body of work (Jan. 22)• Wallace Stevens wins the National Book Award for poetry for The Auroras of Autumn (March 6)

BirthsRalph Angel (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robin Becker (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Ron Charach (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Lesley Choyce (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Peter Christensen (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); James Galvin (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Joy Harjo (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Garrett Hongo (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Andrew Hudgins (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter Johnson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Brigit Pegeen Kelly (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Paul Muldoon (Ireland); Betsy Struthers (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Robert Priest (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Afaa M. Weaver (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Susan Musgrave (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Robert Wrigley (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Eddy Yanofsky (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Ray A. Young Bear (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsGelett Burgess

1952

ELIZABETH I• "concrete poetry," a phrase invented in Brazil• David Jones' The Anathemata• Dylan Thomas' Collected Poems 1934-52, including "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night"Awards• Padraic Colum wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Marianne Moore's Collected Poems (1951) wins the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 11) and the National Book Award for poetry (Jan. 29)• Andrew Young wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)BirthsJimmy Santiago Baca (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Roo Borson (Canada); Judith Ortiz Cofer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Barry Dempster (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Rita Dove (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sky Gilbert (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Jan Horner (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Mark Jarman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carole Langille (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Dorianne Laux (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Malca Litovitz (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Andrew Motion (UK); D. C. Reid (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Alberto R?os (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Naomi Shihab Nye (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carolyn Smart (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Gary Soto (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Susan Stewart (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Elizabeth Spires (Representative Poetry Online)DeathsArthur Sheerly Cripps; Paul Eluard, at 56; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) George Santayana

1953

FRANCIS CRICK AND JAMES D. WATSON DISCOVER THE STRUCTURE OF DNA• Sir John Betjeman's A Few Late Chrysanthemums• Louis MacNeice's Autumn Sequel• Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems• J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings• Melvin Tolson's Libretto for the Republic of LiberiaAwards• Elizabeth Bishop wins the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America (Jan. 5)• Padraic Colum wins the Gregory Medal of the Irish Academy of Letters (May 23)• Robert Frost wins the fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (March 3)• Oliver St. John Gogarty, of Ireland, wins the Gold Medal for Service to Poetry from the Poetry Society of America (Jan. 13)• Archibald MacLeish's Collected Poems (1952) wins the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 10), the National Book Award for poetry (Jan. 27), and the Pulitzer Prize (May 4)• Marianne Moore wins the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (May 27)• Carl Sandburg wins the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement from the Poetry Society of America (Jan. 13)• Arthur Waley wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)BirthsDionne Brand (Trinidad and Canada); Mark Doty (USA); Rudyard Fearon (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Susan Glickman (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Jane Hirshfield (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Phil Hall (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Tony Hoagland (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); David Rivard (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Andrew Schelling (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Tom Sleigh (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Terpstra (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Rhea Tregebov (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Rosanna Warren (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Franz Wright (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsHilaire Belloc, at 82 (July 6); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) from burns resulting from a fall into a fireplace; Helena Jane Coleman; George Herbert Clarke; Idris Davies; Eugene O'Neill; Dylan Thomas (Representative Poetry Online)

1954

• W. H. Auden's The Shield of Achilles• Sir John Betjeman's A Few Late Chrysanthemums• Robert Creeley founds and edits the Black Mountain Review• Philip Larkin's The Less Deceived• Frank Prince's Soldiers Bathing and Other Poems• Jon Silkin's The Peaceable Kingdom, including "Death of a Son (who died in a mental hospital aged one)"• Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood is broadcast on radio on January 25• Tolkien's The Return of the King

Awards• Oliver St. John Gogarty and Louise Townsend Nicholl win the fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (Jan. 28)• W. H. Auden wins the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 10)• Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize (Oct. 28)• Theodore Roethke's The Waking: Poems, 1933-53 (1953) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3)BirthsKim Addonizio (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Catherine Anderson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Boates (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Lorna Dee Cervantes (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Sandra Cisneros (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Cornelius Eady (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Linda Hull (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jan Heller Levi (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Thylias Moss (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Erin Mouré (Canada) Luis J. Rodr?guez (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Stephen Sartarelli (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Vijay Seshadri (India); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsLeonard Bacon, at 66 (Jan. 1); Maxwell Bodenheim; Francis Brett Young

1955

• William Sydney Graham's The NightfishingAwards• Leonie Adams, for Poems; a Selection, and Louise Bogen, for Collected Poems 1922-53, jointly win the Bollingen Prize• e. e. cummings wins the National Book Award for poetry for Poems: 1923-1954• Robert Fitzgerald wins the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America (May 16)• Rolfe Humphries wins the American Academy of Poets fellowship (Dec. 29)• Ruth Pitter wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems (1954) wins the Pulitzer PrizeBirthsMarilyn Chin (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carol Ann Duffy; Margaret Lindsay Holton (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Kim Morrissey (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Erin Mouré (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Patricia Smith (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Dean Young (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRobert P. Coffin, 62 (Jan. 20); Weldon Kees (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Wallace Stevens

1956

• John Berryman's Homage to Mistress Bradstreet• Alan Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, a signature of the Beat Generation

• Ted Hughes and Silvia Plath marry• Anne Lindbergh's The Unicorn, and Other Poems• Rock and roll music beginsAwards• Edmund Blunden wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Elizabeth Bishop's Poems -- North & South / A Cold Spring (1955) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 7)• William Carlos Williams wins the Fellowship of the American Academy of Poets (Dec. 28)BirthsHenri Cole (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Annie Finch (US; Representative Poetry Online); Forrest Gander (Academy of American Poets Web site; US)DeathsEdmund Clerihew Bentley, at 80 (Mar. 30); Walter De la Mare, at 83 (June 22); A. A. Milne, at 74 (Jan. 31); Percy MacKaye, at 81 (Aug. 31); Dorothy Wellesley

1957

• T. S. Eliot's On Poetry and Poets• Ted Hughes' The Hawk in the Rain, including "The Thought Fox"• Jay Macpherson's The Boatman• Ogden Nash's You Can't Get There from Here• Stevie Smith's Not Waving but DrowningAwards• Conrad Aiken wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Siegfried Sassoon wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Allen Tate wins the Bollingen Prize for his life works (Jan. 13)• Richard Wilbur's Things of this World wins the Pulitzer Prize for 1957 (May 6) as well as the National Book Award (March 13)BirthsCyrus Cassells (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Afua Cooper (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Martín Espada (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Essex Hemphill (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Li-Young Lee (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Bruce Meyer (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anthony Molino (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsJoseph Warren Beach; Ignatius Roy D. Campbell (South Africa); Charles Badger Clark; Arthur R. D. Fairburn; Merrill Moore, at 54 (Sept. 20); Christopher Morley, at 66 (March 28); Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty, at 79 (Sept. 22), of a heart attack; Rose Fyleman (Representative Poetry Online)

1958

• Chief Justice Bolitha J. Laws in the U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C., dismisses treason charges against Ezra Pound (April 18) after psychologists declare him insane

• John Betjeman's Collected Poems• Brazilian manifesto for concrete poetry, which focuses on visual and other sensory qualities• Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the MindAwards• Robinson Jeffers wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• James Reaney's A Suit of Nettles, imitating Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar, wins the Governor General's award in Canada• Robert Penn Warren's Promises: Poems 1954-1956 (1956) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 5)BirthsJill Battson (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anne Michaels (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Harold Rhenisch (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Andrew Waterhouse (Nov. 27)DeathsZoë Rumbold Akins, at 72 (Oct. 29); Gerald William Bullett, at 64 (Jan. 3); James Branch Cabell, at 79 (May 5); Roy Campbell; Alfred Noyes, (June 25); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert W. Service, at 84 (Sept. 11); John Collings Squire

1959

• John Berryman's Homage to Mistress Bradstreet• Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish, written about his mentally-ill mother• Kenneth Koch's Ko, or a Season on Earth• Irving Layton's A Red Carpet for the Sun• Robert Lowell's Life StudiesAwards• Louise Bogan and Leonie Adams wins the Fellowship of the American Academy of Poets (Nov. 4)• Frances Cornford wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Donald B. Justice wins the Lamont Poetry Selection (Nov. 4)• Stanley Kunitz's Selected Poems 1918-1958 (1958) wins the Pulitzer Prize for 1959 (May 4)• Theodore Roethke wins the National Book Award for Words for the Wind (March 3)BirthsBrian P. Cleary (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Laura Lush (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsSarah Cleghorn, at 83 (April 4); Dennis Devlin; Edgar Albert Guest, at 77 (Aug. 5), known as the "poet of the people"; Luis Palés Matos, of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Edwin Muir, at 70 (Jan. 3); Alfred Noyes Carl Phillips (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);The Movement 1960-1980

1960

• W. H. Auden's Homage to Clio• Sir John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells• Ted Hughes' Lupercal• Sylvia Plath's The ColossusAwards• John Betjeman wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Delmore Schwartz wins the Bollingen Prize for Summer Knowledge (Jan. 10)• W. D. Snodgrass's Heart's Needle (1959) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 2)• Jesse Stuart wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship Demetria Martinez (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);BirthsGeorge Elliott Clarke (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site; and Representative Poetry Online); Jeffery Donaldson (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsFranklin Pierce Adams (Representative Poetry Online); Frances Cornford; David Diop (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Frank S. Flint; Harry Kemp, at 76 (Aug. 8) Boris Pasternak, (May 30), of lung cancer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Jesse Edgar Middleton (Representative Poetry Online)

1961

• Thom Gunn's My Sad Captains• LeRoi Jones' Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide NoteAwards• Robert Fitzgerald wins the Bollingen Translation Prize for his Homer's Odyssey (Oct. 31), the first time it is awarded• Horace V. Gregory wins the Fellowship of the American Academy of Poets (Nov. 15)• Randall Jarrell wins the National Book Award for The Woman at the Washington Zoo (March 14)• Phyllis McGinley's Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades (1960) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 1)• Yvor Winters wins the Bollingen Prize for his Collected Poems (Jan. 8)BirthsGitaujali Badruddin (India); Denise Duhamel (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Steven Heighton (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsHilda Doolittle ("H.D."), at 75 (Sept. 27), of a heart attack; Kenneth Fearing; Robert Hillyer; Ernest Miller Hemingway, at 61 (July 2), suicide by gunshot

1962

• the Beatles (1962-70)• Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, including settings for Wilfred Owen's poems• Robert Frost's In the Clearing• Thom Gunn's My Sad Captains

• Kenneth Koch's Thank You• Anne Sexton's All my Pretty Ones, including "The Truth the Dead Know"Awards• Alan Dugan's Poems (1961) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 7) and the National Book Award (March 13)• Richard Eberhart, for his life work, and John Hall Wheelock, for The Garden and Other Poems, jointly win the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 7)• Edward Field wins the American Academy of Poets Lamont Poetry Selection for "Stand Up Friend, with me" (Nov. 13)• Christopher Fry wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Richard Lattimore's The Frogs, from Aristophanes, and Robert Lowell's Imitations, jointly win the Bollingen Translation Prize (Nov. 13)• John Crowe Ransom wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsElizabeth Alexander (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Paul Beatty (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Stacy Doris (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Julia Kasdorf (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Virgil Suárez (Cuba); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRichard Aldington; e. e. cummings, at 67 (Sept. 3), of a stroke; William Faulkner, at 64 (July 6), of a heart attack; Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; Mary Gilmore; Ralph Edwin Hodgson; John Robinson Jeffers (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1963

• Philip Hobsbaum and Edward Lucie-Smith edit A Group Anthology• Silvia Plath's The Bell Jar, an autobiographical novel published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas• The Raven, a film directed by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, and loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same nameAwards• William C. Plomer wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Ezra Pound and Allen Tate win the American Academy of Poets Fellowship (Sept. 4)• William Stafford wins the National Book Award for Traveling through the Dark (March 12)• William Carlos Williams' Pictures from Brueghel (1962) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 6), and he wins the American Academy of Arts and Letters gold medal (May 22)BirthsLynn Crosbie (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Claudia Rankine (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Richard Sanger (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsRobert Frost, at 88 (Jan. 29); Christopher Vernon Hassall; Louis MacNeice, at 55 (Sept.3), of pneumonia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sylvia Plath, by suicide; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Theodore Roethke (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); William Carlos Williams, at 79 (March 4)

1964

• Sir John Betjeman's Ring of Bells• Leonard Cohen's Flowers for Hitler, including "The Only Tourist in Havana Turns his Thoughts Homeward"• Philip Larkin's Whitsun Weddings• Robert Lowell's For the Union DeadAwards• Elizabeth Bishop wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• John Crowe Ransom wins the National Book Award for Selected Poems (March 10)• Louis Simpson's At the End of the Open Road (1963) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 4)• Rev. Ronald S. Thomas wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)BirthsRafael Campo (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Catherine Graham (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Kathy Shaidle (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsClive Bell; Zora Cross; E.J. Pratt (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site), at 81 (April 26); Edith Sitwell, at 77 (Dec. 9), of a heart attack

1965

• Bob Dylan's album Highway 61 Revisited• Seamus Heaney's Death of a Naturalist• Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings• Sylvia Plath's Ariel, including "Daddy," published posthumously• Jon Silkin's Nature with Man• Meic Stephens founds Poetry Wales• Melvin Tolson's Harlem GalleryAwards• John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs (1964) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3)• Richard Dickey's Buckdancer's Choice wins the National Book Award for Poetry• Philip Larkin wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Marianne Moore wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Theodore Roethke posthumously wins the National Book Award for The Far Field (March 9)BirthsMichael Crummey (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Adeena Karasick (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Jay Ruzesky (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); R. M. Vaughan (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsJoseph Auslander, at 67 (June 22), of a heart attack; Richard Blackmur, at 61 (Feb. 2); Nancy Cunard; T. S. Eliot, at 76 (Jan. 4); Eleanor Farjeon; Randall Jarrell, at 51 (Oct. 14), in a highway accident; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Timothy Liu (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1966

• Basil Bunting's Briggflatts• James Dickey serves as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, 1966-68• Josephine Jacobsen's The Animal Inside• LeRoi Jones' Black Art• Raymond Souster founds the League of Canadian Poets• Anthony Thwaite and John Hollander publish the first anthology of double dactyls, Jiggery PokeryAwards• Richard Eberhart's Selected Poems 1930-65 (1965) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 2)• Archibald MacLeish and John Berryman win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• William Meredith wins the National Institute of Arts and Letters Loines Award for poetry (March 23)BirthsSherman Alexie (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Maurice Manning (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Michael Redhill (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Natasha Trethewey (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsAnna Andreyevna Akhmatova (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Berton Braley, at 83 (Jan. 23); Raymond Duncan, at 91 (Aug. 14); Georgia Douglas Johnson, at 86 (May 14), of a stroke; Alfred Kreymborg, at 82 (Aug. 14); Mina Loy (Representative Poetry Online); Frank O'Hara (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); W. W. E. Ross; Delmore Schwartz, at 52 (July 11), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Melvin Tolson; Henry Treese, at 55 (June 10); Arthur David Waley

1967

• Margaret Atwood's The Circle Game• the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band (recording)• C. Day-Lewis made British Poet Laureate• Ted Hughes' Wodwo• the Liverpool poets: Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten• Wole Soyinka's Idanre, and Other PoemsAwards• A. R. Ammons wins the Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (May 24)• Charles Causley wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• James Merrill wins the National Book Award for Nights and Days (March 8)• Anne Sexton's Live or Die, to win the Pulitzer Prize for 1967 (May 1)• Mark Van Doren wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Robert Penn Warren wins the Bollingen Prize for his Selected Poems (Feb. 5)BirthsSaskia Hamilton (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Karen Volkman (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsDavid C. DeJong, at 62 (Sept. 5); Langston Hughes, at 65 (May 22), of heart failure;

Patrick Kavanagh, at 62 (Nov. 30), of pneumonia; Margaret Larkin, at 67 (May 8); John Masefield (Representative Poetry Online); Thomas MacGreevy; Christopher Okigko; Dorothy Parker, at 73 (June 7), of a heart attack; V. Penelope Pelizzon (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Carl Sandburg, at 89 (July 22), of a heart attack; Siegfried Sassoon, at 80 (Sept. 1); Odel Shepard, at 82 (July 19); Jean Toomer (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Vernon Watkins

1968

• Cecil Day-Lewis is named British Poet Laureate (Jan. 1)• LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal co-edit Black Fire, an anthology of African-American poetryAwards• W. H. Auden wins the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (May 28)• Robert Bly's The Light around my Body wins the National Book Award (March 6)• Gwendolyn Brooks succeeds Carl Sandburg as Poet Laureate of Illinois• Robert Graves wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Anthony Hecht's The Hard Hours (1967) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 6) and he also wins the Loines Award (May 28)• Stanley Kunitz wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsNan Cohen (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Michael Teig (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsWitter Bynner, at 86 (June 1); Donald Davidson, at 74 (April 26); George Hill Dillon, at 62 (May 9); Mervyn Laurence Peake; Salvatore Quasimodo, (June 14); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sir Herbert Edward Read, at 74 (June 12); Winfield Townley Scott, at 58 (April 28); David Stacton, at 42 (Jan. 20); Yvor Winters, at 67 (Jan. 25); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1969

MOON-WALK and the ARPANET • W. H. Auden's City without Walls• Sir Arthur Bliss' cantata The world is charged with the grandeur of God, from Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet of the same first line• Louise Bogan publishes The Blue Estuaries and retires after 38 years as poetry critic for The New Yorker (Dec.)• Lucille Clifton's Good Times, selected as one of the year's best books by The New York Times• Donald Davies' Essex Poems• Seamus Heaney's Door into the Dark• LeRoi Jones's Black Magic: Poetry, 1961-1967• Wole Soyinka's Poems from PrisonAwards• Samuel Beckett awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature• Richard Eberhart and Anthony Hecht win the fellowship of the American Academy of

Poets (Feb. 13)• George Oppen's Of Being Numerous (1968) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 5)• Karl Shapiro's Selected Poems and John Berryman's His Toy, His Dream, His Rest win the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 5), and Berryman also wins the National Book Award for his book (March 10)• Stevie Smith wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)BirthsStephanie Bolster (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Natalie Wilson (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Davis McCombs (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsFloyd Bell, at 82 (July 23), of a heart ailment; Charles Edison, aka Tom Sleeper, at 78 (July 31), of heart failure; Rolfe Humphries, at 74 (April 22), of emphysema; Sir Osbert Sitwell, at 76 (May 4), of a heart attack

1970

• Margaret Atwood's The Journals of Susanna Moodie• Noël Coward knighted• Ted Hughes' Crow• LeRoi Jones' It's Nation Time• Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid• Ezra Pound's Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX to CXVII• Henry Reed's "The Naiming of Parts," published in his The Lessons of War• Tomfoolery, an animated film directed by Joy Batchelor and John Halas, based on the nonsense verse of Edward Lear (especially "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo") and Lewis CarrollAwards• Elizabeth Bishop's Complete Poems wins the National Book Award (March 2)• Roy Fuller wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Richard Howard's Untitled Subjects (1969) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 4)• Howard Nemerov wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsBrenda Shaughnessy (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); nathalie stephens (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Kevin Young (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsLouise Bogan, at 72 (Feb. 4); Paul Celan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Mary Phelps Crosby; Edsel Ford, at 41 (Feb. 19); Lorine Niedecker (Dec 31); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Arthur Nortje; Charles Olson, of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Dos Passos

1971

• Dick Allen's Anon and Various Time Machine Poems• Maya Angelou's Just Give Me a Cool Glass of Water 'Fore I Diie

• The Canterbury Tales, a film directed by Pier Paulo Pasolini, providing a soft-pornographic, controversial version of four tales by Geoffrey Chaucer• Josephine Jacobsen is named Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress• Right On!, a film directed by Herbert Danska, of poetry recitations with bongo accompaniments on New York city streets (April 8)Awards• Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns wins a Whitbread Literary award• W. S. Merwin's The Carrier of Ladders (1970) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3)• Stephen Spender wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Richard P. Wilbur's Walking to Sleep and Mona Van Duyn's To See, To Take win the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 10); and Van Duyn also wins the National Book Award for her book (March 2)• James Wright wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipDeathsClifford Dyment; Lenore G. Marshall, at 72 (Sept. 9); Ogden Nash, at 68 (May 19); Giorgos Seferis (Sept. 21); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Stevie Smith (Representative Poetry Online); Alexander Young

1972

• Sir John Betjeman made British Poet Laureate (Oct. 10)• LeRoi Jones' Spirit Reach (as Amiri Imamu Baraka, a Black Muslim)• Mervyn Laurence Peake's A Book of Nonsense• Wole Soyinka's A Shuttle in the CryptAwards• Frank O'Hara's Collected Poems and Howard Moss's Selected Poems win the National Book Award (April 11)• W. D. Snodgrass wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• James Wright's Collected Poems (1971) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 1)DeathsJames K. Baxter; John Berryman, at 57 (Jan. 7), of suicide (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Padraic Colum, at 90 (Jan. 11); Cecil Day-Lewis, at 68 (May 22); Eileen Duggan; Robert Fletcher, at 87 (Nov. 20), poet of "Don't Fence Me In"; Paul Goodman, of a heart attack (US); A.M. Klein (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site), at 63 (Aug. 21); Marianne Craig Moore, at 84 (Feb. 5); Kenneth Patchen, at 60 (Jan. 8), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Ezra Pound, at 87 (Nov. 1), of an intestinal blockage; Gladys Schmitt, 63 (Oct. 3); Mark Van Doren, 78 (Dec. 10); Andrew John Young

1973

• Derek Walcott's Another LifeAwards• A. R. Ammons's Collected Poems wins the National Book Award (April 10)• John Heath-Stubbs wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Maxine Kumin's Up Country: Poems of New England (1972) wins the Pulitzer Prize

(May 7)• James Merrill wins the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 7)• W. S. Merwin wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipBirthsBen Doyle (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sonnet L'Abbé (Canada; Representative Poetry Online); Paul Vermeersch (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)DeathsConrad Aiken (Academy of American Poets Web site; US), at 84 (Aug. 17), of a heart attack; Kenneth Allott; W. H. Auden, at 66 (Sept. 28); Arna Bontemps, at 70 (June 4), of a heart attack (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Charles Brasch; Noël Coward, at 73 (March 26), of a heart attack; Ramon Guthrie, at 77 (Nov. 22); Pablo Neruda, (Sept 23), of leukemia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); J. R. R. Tolkien, at 81 (Sept. 2); Francis Webb

1974

• David Jones' The Sleeping Lord• Philip Larkin's High Windows• Bruce Springsteen's song "Born to Run"Awards• Léonie Adams wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Allen Ginsberg's The Fall of America and Adrienne Rich's Diving into the Wreck win the National Book Award (April 18)• Ted Hughes wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Robert T. S. Lowell Jr.'s The Dolphin (1973) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 7)DeathsEdmund Clarke Blunden; Jacob Bronowski, at 66 (Aug. 22); Austin Clarke; Julian Davis, at 72 (Sept. 6), the gold-miner poet of "Cripple Creek Poem Poke" David Jones, at 78 (Oct. 28); Ogden Nash, (May 19); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Tyler Parker, 70 (July 24); John Crowe Ransom, at 86 (July 5); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Eric Roach; Anne Sexton, at 45 (Oct. 4), of suicide; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1975

• Maya Angelou's Oh Pray My Wings are Gonna Fit Me Well• Kenneth Koch's The Art of Love• Stevie Smith's Collected PoemsAwards• Robert Hayden wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Gary Snyder's Turtle Island wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 5)BirthsTony Tost (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);DeathsRoque Dalton, executed; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Lloyd Frankenberg, at 67 (March 12); Sir Julian Sorell Huxley; Chester Kallman, at 53 (Jan.

18); Pat Lowther (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site), murdered by her husband, Roy Lowther; Sir Francis Meynell, at 84 (July 10); Sydney Goodsir Smith; Stanley Young, at 69 (March 22)

1976

• Marya Fiamengo's In Praise of Older Women• Thom Gunn's Jack Straw's Castle• Two poems written in 1965 by Mao Tse-tung just before the cultural revolution, including "Two Birds: A Dialogue," are published on Jan. 1 (Facts on File 36 [1976]: 9)• Derek Walcott's Sea GrapesAwards• John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) wins the Pulitzer Prize (May 3) and the National Book Award (April 19)• Alex Derwent Hope wins the Robert Frost Award for Poetry• J. V. Cunningham wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipDeathsBenjamin Britten; Anne Elder; Richard A. W. Hughes; James McAuley; Charles Reznikoff, (Jan. 22); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Louis Sissman, at 48 (March 10), of Hodgkin's disease (March 10)

1977

• Samuel Beckett's Collected Poems in English and French• Joseph Brodsky's A Part of Speech• Donald Davies' To Scorch or Freeze• Gay News is successfully prosecuted for blasphemy and libel for publishing James Kirkup's "The love that dares to speak its name"• Ted Hughes' GaudeteAwards• Louise Coxe wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Richard Eberhardt's Collected Poems wins the National Book Award (April 11)• James Merrill's Divine Comedies (1976) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 18)• Norman Nicholson wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)DeathsGitaujali Badruddin; Katherine C. Biddle, at 87 (Dec. 30); Elizabeth Daryush; Robert Lowell (Representative Poetry Online); Louis Untermeyer, at 92 (Dec. 18)

1978

• Maya Angelou's And Still I Rise• Craig Raine's The Onion, Memory• Stevie, a film directed by Robert Enders, based on Hugh Whitemore's play about the poet Stevie Smith, played here by Glenda JacksonAwards• Josephine Miles wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship

• Howard Nemerov's Collected Poems (1977) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 17) and the National Book Award (April 10)DeathsFaith Baldwin, at 84 (March 19); Martin Bell; Gilbert Highet, at 71 (Jan. 20), of cancer; Hugh MacDiarmid (Representative Poetry Online); Phyllis McGinley (Representative Poetry Online); Frank Stanford, at 29 (June 3), by suicide; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Sylvia Townsend Warner; John Hall Wheelock, at 91 (March 22); Louis Zukofsky, at 74 (May 12)

1979

• one copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789) fetches £70,000 in London• Ted Hughes' Moor Town• Craig Raine's A Martian Sends a Postcard Home• Derek Walcott's The Star-Apple KingdomAwards• James Merrill's Mirabell: Books of Numbers wins the National Book Award (April 23)• Mark Strand and May Swenson win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Robert Penn Warren's Now and Then wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 16)DeathsElizabeth Bishop (Representative Poetry Online); I. A. Richards; Allen Tate at 79 (Feb. 9), of emphysema (Academy of American Poets Web site; US)Postmoderns 1980-

1980

• Derek Walcott's The Star-Apple KingdomAwards• Donald Justice's Selected Poems wins the Pulitzer Prize for 1980 (April 14)• Mona Van Duyn wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipDeathsRobert Hayden, at 66 (Feb. 25), of a heart ailment; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Julia Reynolds, at 98 (Nov. 28); Muriel Rukeyser, at 66 (Feb. 12), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); A. J. M. Smith; James Wright, at 52 (March 25), of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1981

Awards• Kenneth Burke wins the National Medal for Literature (April 30)• Dennis J. Enright wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Richard Hugo wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Howard Nemerov and May Swenson win the Pulitzer Prize• James Schuyler's The Morning of the Poem wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 13)

DeathsIsabella Stewart Gardner; John Glassco; Robert Garioch; Eugenio Montale, at 85; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Helen Steiner Rice, at 80 (April 23), greeting-card poet

1982

• Margaret Avison's Winter Sun / The Dumbfounding: Poems 1940-66• Gitaujali Badruddin's Poems of Gitaujali, posthumously published• Louise Simone Bennett's Selected Poems• Dylan Thomas was posthumously honoured by a floor plaque in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey (March 1)Awards• John Ashbery and John Frederick Nims win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• William Bronk receives the American Book Award for Life Supports (April 27)• Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems (1981), introduced by Ted Hughes, wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 12)DeathsDjuna Barnes, at 90 (June 18); P'Bitek; Babette Deutsch, at 87 (Nov. 13); Horace Gregory, at 83 (March 11); Richard Hugo, at 58 (Oct. 22), of leukemia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Archibald MacLeish, at 89 (April 20); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kenneth Rexroth, at 76 (June 6), of a heart ailment; Edgell Rickword; Maria Zaturenska, at 80 (Jan. 19), of heart failure

1983

• Maya Angelou's Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?• Elizabeth Bishop's Collected Poems 1927-1979, published posthumously• Amy Clampitt's KingfisherAwards• Philip Booth and James Schuyler win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Anthony E. Hecht and John Hollander win the Bollingen Prize• Galway Kinnell's Selected Poems wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 18)• Kinnell's collection and Charles Wright's Country Music win the American Book Award (April 28)DeathsTed Berrigan, at 48 (July 4) (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Edwin Denby, at 80 (July 12), by suicide; R. Buckminster Fuller, at 87 (July 1), of a heart attack; Frances Horovitz; Alden Nolan; Robert Payne, at 71 (Feb. 18)

1984

• Seamus Heaney's Station Island• Philip Larkin turns down the British Poet Laureateship, and Ted Hughes becomes Poet Laureate (Dec. 19)

• Craig Raine's Rich• Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and "Glory Days"Awards• Robert Francis and Richard Lattimore win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Mary Oliver's American Primitive wins the Pulitzer Prize for 1984 (April 16)DeathsSir John Betjeman (Representative Poetry Online); Richard Brautigan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Sir William Empson, at 77 (April 15); Jorge Guillén (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Richard Lattimore, at 77 (Feb. 26), of cancer; George Oppen, at 76 (July 2), of Alzheimer's disease; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Hal Porter, at 73 (Sept. 29); Jesse Stewart, at 76 (Feb. 17), of a stroke

1985

• Amy Clampitt's What the Light was Like• Douglas Eaglesham Dunn's Elegies• Robert Hayden's Collected Poems, posthumously published• Stephen Spender's Collected Poems 1947-80Awards• John Ashbery and Fred Chappell win the Bollingen Prize for their life's works (Jan. 15)• Amy Clampitt and Maxime Kumin win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Douglas Dunn's Elegies wins a Whitbread literary award (Jan. 28)• Carolyn Kizer's Yin wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 24)• Norman MacCaig wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Sharon Olds's The Dead and the Living wins the National Book Critics Circle award (Jan. 14)DeathsBasil Bunting, at 85 (April 17); J. V. Cunningham (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Robert Graves, at 90; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Stuart Fitzgerald, at 74 (Jan. 16); Robert Graves, at 90 (Dec. 7); Geoffrey Grigson, at 80 (Nov. 25); Alfred Hayes, at 74 (Aug. 14), of menengitis, poet of the labor song "Joe Hill"; Philip Larkin, at 63 (Dec. 2), of throat cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Josephine Miles, of pneumonia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Nathan, at 91 (May 25), of kidney failure; F. R. Scott (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site), at 85 (Jan. 31);

1986

• Wendy Cope's Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis becomes a best-seller• the Pforzheimer Collection of the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his circle is donated to the New York Public Library (Dec. 18)• US President Ronald Reagan demonstrates the educational value of memorization by reciting lines from Robert Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" (March 4)• Robert Penn Warren, first US Poet Laureate, 1986-87 (Jan. 26)

Awards• Afrikaner poet Breten Breytenbach wins the Rapport Prize in South Africa (April 12)• Irving Feldman and Howard Moss win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles wins the National Book Critics Circle Award (Feb. 17)• Peter Reading's Stet wins the Whitbread Poetry Award• Adrienne Rich wins the Lilly Prize (June 6);• Wole Soyinka wins the Nobel Prize (Oct. 16)• Henry Taylor's The Flying Change wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 17)DeathsMilton Acorn, at 63 (Aug. 20), of heart disease and diabetes (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); John Ciardi, at 69 (March 30), of a heart attack; Elizabeth Coatsworth, at 93 (Aug. 31); William Sydney Graham; Brion Gysin, at 70 (July 13); Bob Kaufman, at 60 (Jan. 12), of emphysema; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Henry Reed, at 72 (Dec. 8); Elizabeth Smart, at 72 (March); Rex Warner

1987

• Maya Angelou's Now Sheba Sings the Song• U.S. Supreme Court Justices William J. Brennan, Jr., Harry A. Blackman, and John Paul Stevens rule unanimously that Shakespeare's sonnets were written by Shakespeare, not by Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford (Sept. 25)• Richard Wilbur, US Poet Laureate, 1987-88 (April 17)• Jay Wright's Selected PoemsAwards• Joseph Brodsky (a US citizen from 1972) wins the Nobel Prize for literature (Oct. 22)• Alfred Corn and Josephine Jacobsen win the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah wins the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (April 16)• Seamus Heaney's The Haw Lantern wins the Whitbread literary award• Edward Hirsch's Wild Gratitude wins the National Book Critics Circle award (Jan. 12)• Stanley Kunitz wins the Bollingen Prize (Feb. 10)• Philip Levine wins the Lilly Prize (July 4)DeathsRichard Lehmann; John Logan, (Nov. 6); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Gwendolyn MacEwen (Representative Poetry Online); Howard Moss, poetry editor of The New Yorker, at 65 (Sept. 16), from a heart attack; Glenway Wescott, at 85 (Feb. 22), from a stroke

1988

• Joseph Brodsky's To Urania• Philip Larkin's Collected Poems• Howard Nemerov becomes US Poet Laureate (May 16)Awards• Anthony Hecht wins the Lilly Prize (June 3)• Donald Justice wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship

• William Meredith's Partial Accounts wins the Pulitzer Prize (March 31)• Peter Porter's The Automatic Oracle wins a Whitbread literary award• Derek Walcott wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• C. K. Williams' Flesh and Blood wins the National Book Critics Circle Award (Jan. 11)DeathsLéonie Fuller Adams (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Sterling Brown; Henry Coulette; Robert Duncan, at 69 (Feb. 3), of a heart attack; John Clellon Holmes, at 62 (March 30), of cancer; Miguel Pinero, at 41 (June 16), of cirrhosis of the liver; Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, at 90 (Oct. 1)

1989

• The Dead Poets Society, a film directed by Peter Weir, with a screenplay by Tom Schulman and excerpts from many traditional poets, ending with the title and opening line of Walt Whitman's lament on the death of Abraham Lincoln, "O Captain! My Captain!"• Edward Dorn's The Gunslinger• Rita Dove's Grace Notes• My Left Foot, a film directed by Jim Sheridan about Christy Brown, the Irish poet, and based on his autobiography• Howard Nemerov, US Poet Laureate, 1988-90Awards• Edgar Bowers is awarded the Bollingen Prize for For Louis Pasteur• Allen Curnow wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Michael Donaghy's Shibboleth wins the Whitbread Poetry Award• Donald Hall's The One Day wins the National Book Critics Circle award (July 9)• Richard Howard wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Mona Van Duyn wins the Lilly Prize (June 2)• Richard Wilbur's New and Collected Poems wins the Pulitzer Prize (March 30)DeathsRichard Willard Armour, at 82 (Feb. 28), of Parkinson's disease; Sterling Allen Brown, at 87 (Jan. 13), of leukemia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) May Swenson (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Robert Penn Warren, at 84 (Sept. 15), of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1990

• Maya Angelou's I Shall Not be Moved• Allen Ginsberg is crowned Majelis King in Prague on May Day• Mark Strand, US Poet Laureate, 1990-91 (May 25)Awards• Hayden Carruth wins the Lilly Prize (June 1)• Paul Durcan's Daddy, Daddy wins the Whitbread Poetry Prize• Rodney Jones' Transparent Gestures wins the National Book Critics Circle award (Feb. 12)• Sorley Maclean wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)

• William Meredith wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• James Merrill's The Inner Room wins the Library of Congress Bobbitt National Prize (Oct. 26)• Charles Simic's The World Doesn't End wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 12)DeathsFrances Chung (US); Lawrence George Durrell

1991

• W. H. Auden's Collected Poems• Joseph Brodsky, US Poet Laureate, 1991-92 (May 10)• Wendy Cope's best-selling Serious ConcernsAwards• Amy Gerstler wins the National Book Critics Circle Award• Laura Riding Jackson's The Word "Women" and other Related Writings and Donald Justice's New and Selected Poems win the Bollingen Prize (Jan. 30)• Philip Levine's What Work Is wins the National Book Award (Nov. 20)• Michael Longley's Gorse Fires wins the Whitbread Poetry Prize• J. D. McClatchy wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Mona Van Duyn's Near Changes wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 9)• David Wagoner wins the Lilly Prize• Judith Wright wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)DeathsGeorge Barker; R. F. Brissenden; Paul Engle; Roy Fuller; Etheridge Knight (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Howard Nemerov, at 71 (July 5), of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Laura Riding Jackson, at 90 (Sept. 2), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Schuyler, at 67 (April 12), of a stroke (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); George Thaniel (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)

1992

• Mona Van Duyn, US Poet Laureate, 1992-93 (June 14)Awards• John Ashbery wins the Lilly Prize• Albert Goldbarth's Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology wins the National Book Critics Circle Award (Feb. 14)• Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats, about AIDS, wins the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection (UK and Eire)• Tony Harrison's The Gaze of the Gorgon wins the Whitbread Poetry Prize• Mary Oliver's New and Selected Poems wins the National Book Award for poetry (Nov. 18)• Adrienne Rich wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• James Tate's Selected Poems (1991) wins the Pulitzer Prize for 1992 (April 7)• Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Derek Walcott (Oct. 8)

DeathsKenneth Burke; George MacBeth (Feb. 16), of motor neuron disease; Robert W. V. Gittings; Audre Lorde (Representative Poetry Online); Eve Merriam, (née Moskowitz; April 11), of cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1993

• Maya Angelou reads "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President William Clinton (Jan. 20)• Bound by Honor, a film directed by Taylor Hackford, based on the life of poet Jimmy Santiaga Baca, who co-wrote the screenplay• Geoffrey Dearmer's A Pilgrim's Song: Selected Poems• Rita Dove, 7th US Poet Laureate, 1993-95 (May 18)• Poetic Justice, a film directed by John Singleton: Maya Angelou's poetry is featured, and she appears as Aunt June• Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia"Awards• A. R. Ammons' Garbage wins the National Book Award for poetry• Hayden Carruth's Collected Poems 1946-1991 wins the National Book Critics Circle poetry award (Feb. 28)• Ciaran Carson's First Language wins the T. S. Eliot Prize• Carol Ann Duffy's Mean Time wins the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection and the Whitbread Poetry Prize• Louise Glück's The Wild Iris (1992) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 13)• Stanley Kunitz wins the National Medal of Arts (Oct. 7)• Kathleen Raine wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Gerald Stern wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Mark Strand's Dark Harbor wins the Bollingen Prize• Charles Wright wins the Lilly Poetry Prize (May 4)DeathsWilliam Stafford (Representative Poetry Online)

1994

• Four Weddings and a Funeral, a film directed by Mike Newell in which W. H. Auden's "Stop all the clocks" is read as a eulogy• Craig Raine's History: The Home Movie• John Wain's Hungry GenerationsAwards• Gwendolyn Brooks wins the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters for her Annie Allen (Nov. 16)• Mark Doty's My Alexandria wins the National Book Critics Circle Award (Feb. 13)• James Fenton's Out of Danger wins the Whitbread Poetry Prize• David Ferry wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Donald Hall wins the Lilly Poetry Prize• Alan Jenkins' Harm wins the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection

• Yusef Komunyakaa's Neon Vernacular (1993) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 12)• W. S. Merwin wins the Academy of American Poets Tanning Prize (Sept. 29)• Paul Muldoon's The Annals of Chile wins the T. S. Eliot Prize• James Tate's Worshipful Company of Fletchers wins the National Book Award for poetry (Nov. 16)• Richard Wilbur wins the National Medal of Arts (Oct. 14)DeathsCharles Bukowski, of leukemia (March 9); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Amy Clampitt, (Sept. 10), of ovarian cancer; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Lynda Hull, in an automobile accident; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Peter Quennel; John Wain (May 24), of a stroke

1995

• Robert Hass is named US Poet Laureate 1995-97 (May 7)• Jim Mays, head of English at University College, Dublin, announces that 300 poems by S. T. Coleridge have been discovered (Feb. 16)• Sotheby's uncovers four Walt Whitman notebooks (Feb. 17)Awards• A. R. Ammons wins the Lilly Poetry Prize (April 26)• Gwendolyn Brooks wins the National Medal of Arts (Oct. 5)• Mark Doty's My Alexandria wins the T. S. Eliot Prize• Seamus Heaney wins the Nobel Prize for Literature (Oct. 5)• Kenneth Koch's One Train wins the Bollingen Prize (Feb. 6)• Stanley Kunitz's Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected wins the National Book Award for poetry• Denise Levertov wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Philip Levine's Simple Truth (1994) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 18)• Sean O'Brien's Ghost Train wins the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection• Bernard O'Donoghue's Gunpowder wins the Whitbread Poetry Prize• Mark Rudman's Rider wins the National Book Critics Circle poetry award (Feb. 26)• James Tate wins the Academy of American Poets Tanning Prize (Sept. 19)DeathsKingsley Amis, at 73 (Oct. 22), after an accidental fall; Earle Birney (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Donald Davie, at 73 (Sept. 18), of cancer; Essex Hemphill, from complications relating to AIDS; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Helene Johnson (July 7), after osteoporosis; Jane Kenyon, (April), of leukemia; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Merrill, at 68 (Feb. 6), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); May Sarton (Representative Poetry Online); Sir Stephen Spender, at 86 (July 16), of a heart ailment; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1996

• Dead Man, a film directed by Jim Jarmusch about a man named William Blake who goes on a trek through the western US and is taken by a character named Nobody as the resurrected Romantic poetAwards• Hayden Carruth's Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems 1991-1995 wins the National Book Award (Nov. 6)• John Fuller's Stones and Fires wins the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection• Jorie Graham's The Dream of the Unified Field (1995) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 9)• Seamus Heaney's The Spirit Level wins the Whitbread Prize (Jan. 21, 1997)• William Matthews' Time & Money wins the National Book Critics Circle poetry award (March 21)• Sir Les Murray's Subhuman Redneck Poems wins the T. S. Eliot Prize• Peter Redgrove wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Adrienne Rich wins the Tanning Prize• Gerald Stern wins the Lilly Prize• Jay Wright wins the Academy of American Poets FellowshipDeathsJoseph Brodsky (Representative Poetry Online); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) George M. Brown, at 74 (April 13); Geoffrey Dearmer, at 103 (Aug. 18); Larry Levis, at 49, of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Mina Loy (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

1997

• Miller Williams of Arkansas reads his poem, "Of History and Hope," at the inauguration of President Clinton (Jan. 20)• Regeneration, a film based on Pat Barker's novel of the same name, about the World War I poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon• Wilde, a film directed by Brian Gilbert, on the life of Oscar Wilde• Robert Pinsky becomes new US Poet Laureate, 1997-2000Awards• John Haines wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Robert Hass' Sun under Wood wins the Book Critics Circle Award (March 18)• Anthony Hecht wins the Tanning Prize• Ted Hughes wins the Whitbread Award for Tales from Ovid (Jan. 27, 1998)• William Matthew wins the Lilly Prize• William Meredith's Effort at Speech wins the National Book Award (Nov. 18)• Lisel Mueller's Alive Together: New and Selected Poems (1996) wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 7)• Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers without End wins the Bollingen PrizeDeathsJames Dickey, at 73 (Jan. 19); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) Allen Ginsberg, at 70, of liver cancer (April 5); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US) David Ignatow (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); James Laughlin, at 83 (Nov. 12); Laurie Lee, at 82 (May 15); Denise Levertov (Representative Poetry Online);

William Matthews, at 55, (Nov. 12), of a heart attack; (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anne Marriott (Representative Poetry Online)

1998

Awards• A. R. Ammons wins the Tanning Prize• Paul Farley's The Boy from the Chemist is here to see you, wins the Forward award for the best first collection of poems• Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters, a volume of poems addressed to his late first wife, Sylvia Plath, wins the Whitbread Award (Jan. 27, 1999)• W. S. Merwin wins the Lilly Prize (July 8)• Sir Les Murray wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Charles Simic wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Gerald Stern's This Time wins the National Book Award (Nov. 18) and the National Book Critics Circle Award• Charles Wright wins the Pulitzer Prize for Black Zodiac (April 14)DeathsJohn Malcolm Brinnin; Aimee Joan Grunberger, of cancer, at 44; Zbigniew Herbert (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Ted Hughes, of cancer (Oct. 28); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Janet Lewis (Dec. 1); Hilda Morley, at 81; Octavio Paz, Mexican poet (April 19); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Martin Seymour-Smith (July 1)

1999

• Ernest Hemingway's oldest son John donates his father's Three Stories and Ten Poems to the Library of Congress• Andrew Motion becomes British Poet Laureate (May 19)• Robert Pinsky becomes US Poet Laureate (April 27)• Scotland's Parliament opened with the singing of Robert Burns' "A Man's a Man For A'That," instead of "God Save The Queen" (July 1)Awards• Ai's Vice: New and Selected Poems wins the National Book Award (Nov. 17)• Gwendolyn Brooks wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Robert Creeley's So There and Life & Death win the Bollingen Prize (Feb. 9)• Seamus Heaney wins the Whitbread Prize for his translation of Beowulf (Jan. 2000)• Maxime Kumin wins the Lilly Prize• Jackson MacLow wins the Tanning Prize• Edwin Morgan wins the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (UK)• Marie Ponsot wins the Book Critics Circle Award for The Bird Catcher (March 8)• Adrienne Rich wins the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award (Oct.)• Mark Strand wins the Pulitzer Prize for Blizzard of One (April 12)DeathsPatricia Beer, at 79; Edward Dorn, 70 (Dec.); Ida Affleck Graves, 97 (Dec.) Moondog, street poet (aka Louis T. Hardin), 83 (Sept. 8); John Frederick Nims, (Jan. 13); (Academy

of American Poets Web site; US); Shel Silverstein, 66 (May 9); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US);

2000

• Stanley Kunitz is appointed US Poet Laureate (July 31)• Janice Mirikitani succeeds Lawrence Ferlinghetti as San Francisco's Poet Laureate (Feb.)• National Poetry Day in Great Britain (Oct. 4): 300 school children at the Royal Festival Hall and 4,000 persons nationwide performed Patience Agbabi's "Word," a new Guinness World Record for simultaneous mass performance of a poem• Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat" named Britain's favourite children's poem in a BBC Poll (Oct. 3)• Justin Trudeau quotes from Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods" at the funeral of his father, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Oct. 3)• Spike Milligan is made an honorary knightAwards• John Burnside's The Asylum Dance wins the Whitbread Poetry Award• Anne Carson and Lucia Perillo win MacArthur Fellowships (June 13)• Lucille Clifton's Blessing the Book wins the National Book Award• Carl Dennis wins the Lilly Prize (April 17)• Lyn Hejinian wins the Academy of American Poets Fellowship• Ruth Stone's Ordinary Words wins the National Book Critics Circle Award (March 13)• Hugo Williams's Billy's Rain wins the T. S. Eliot Prize (Jan.)• C. K. Williams' Repair wins the Pulitzer Prize (April 10)• Maya Angelou wins the National Medal of Arts (Dec. 14)• Frank Bidart wins the Wallace Stevens Award, formerly the Tanning Prize (Dec. 15)• David Ferry's Of No Country I Know wins the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry (Dec. 18)DeathsYehuda Amichai (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Edgar Bowers, at 75, of non-Hodgkins' lymphoma; Gwendolyn Brooks (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Bruce (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Roland Flint, at 66 (Jan. 2), of cancer; A. D. Hope (Representative Poetry Online); Al Purdy (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site), at 81 (April 21), of lung cancer; Libby Scheier (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Karl Shapiro, at 86 (May 14); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); R. S. Thomas, 87 (Sept. 25); Judith Wright, 85, of a heart attack; William Scammell (Nov. 29); Gwendolyn Brooks, 83 (Dec. 3), of cancer; Adrian Henry (Dec. 20)

2001

• Billy Collins is named US Poet Laureate (June 20), starting October• (Canadian) P. K. Page's poem "Planet Earth" was selected by Marilyn Hacker to be read during the last week in March as part of the United Nations project, "Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry," at the U.N. building in New York, Mount Everest, the West Philippines Sea, and Antarctica. Over 200 poetry readings in 150 cities worldwide

took place that week.• Professor John Basinger, 67, performed, from memory, John Milton's Paradise Lost at Three Rivers Community-Technical College in Norwich, Connecticutt, on Dec. 7-9, a feat that took 18 hoursAwards• Judy Jordan's Carolina Ghost Woods wins the Book Critics Circle Award (March 12)• Stephen Dunn's Different Hours wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (April 16)• Yusef Komunyakaa wins the Lilly Prize (April 26)• Alan Dugan's "Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry" wins the National Book Award for Poetry (Nov.)• Anne Carson's Men in the Off Hours wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize• Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband wins the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry Awarded by the Poetry Book SocietyDeathsA. R. Ammons (Feb. 25; Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Gregory N. Corso, 70 (Jan. 17; Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Agha Shahid Ali (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Louis Dudek (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Anne Ridler, 89 (Oct. 16) Andrew Waterhouse (Oct. 20); Elizabeth Jennings (Oct. 26); Pamela Gillilan (Oct. 26); David Gascoyne (Nov. 25); Helen Bevington (Representative Poetry Online)

2002

Awards• Christian Bök's Eunoia wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize• Alice Notley's Disobedience wins the International Griffin Poetry Prize• Alice Oswald's Dart wins the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry awarded by the Poetry Book Society• Carl Dennis's Practical Gods wins the Pulitzer Prize for poetryDeathsJune Jordan, of breast cancer (June 14); (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Kenneth Koch (Representative Poetry Online)

2003

Awards• Paul Muldoon's Moy Sand and Gravel wins the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry• Margaret Avison's Concrete and Wild Carrot wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize• Don Paterson's Landing Light wins T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Poetry Book SocietyDeathsAlan Dugan (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); John Newlove (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)

2004

Ted Kooser is appointed US Poet Laureate on August 12Awards• August Kleinzahler's The Strange Hours Travelers Keep wins the International Griffin Poetry Prize• Anne Simpson's Loop wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize• Franz Wright's Walking to Martha's Vineyard wins the Pulitzer Prize for poetry• George Szirtes' Reel wins T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Poetry Book SocietyDeathsPedro Pietri, March 3 (Academy of American Poets Web site; US); Anthony Hecht (Representative Poetry Online); Mona Van Duyn (Representative Poetry Online)

2005

Awards• Charles Simic's Selected Poems 1963-2003 wins the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize• Roo Borson's Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize• Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows wins the Pulitzer Prize for poetry• Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture wins T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Poetry Book SocietyDeathsStanley Kunitz, May 14, in Manhattan; Malca Litovitz (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site)

2006

Awards• Sylvia Legris's Nerve Squall wins the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize for 2006, and the 2006 Pat Lowther Memorial Award• Kamau Brathwaite's Born to Slow Horses wins the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize• Claudia Emerson's Late Wife wins the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetryDeathsLouise Bennett-Coverley (Jamaica), "Miss Lou", folk poet, July 26; Ivor Cutler (UK), March 3; Patricia Goedicke (US), of pneumonia, July 14; Irving Layton, Jan. 4, of Alzheimer's disease (Canada; Canadian Poetry Web site); Trinidad Sánchez Jr. (US); Muriel Spark (Scotland) Your comments and questions are welcomed.All contents copyright © Ian Lancashire (Department of English) and the University of TorontoRPO is hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries.

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John Dryden (1631-1700)

Mac FlecknoeA Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.

              1 All human things are subject to decay,              2And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:              3This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young              4Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:              5In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute              6Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.              7This aged prince now flourishing in peace,              8And blest with issue of a large increase,              9Worn out with business, did at length debate            10To settle the succession of the State:            11And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit            12To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;            13Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he            14Should only rule, who most resembles me:            15Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,            16Mature in dullness from his tender years.            17Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he

            18Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.            19The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,            20But Shadwell never deviates into sense.            21Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,            22Strike through and make a lucid interval;            23But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,            24His rising fogs prevail upon the day:            25Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye,            26And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:            27Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,            28And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.            29 Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,            30Thou last great prophet of tautology:            31Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,            32Was sent before but to prepare thy way;            33And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came            34To teach the nations in thy greater name.            35My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung            36 When to King John of Portugal I sung,            37Was but the prelude to that glorious day,            38When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way,            39With well tim'd oars before the royal barge,            40Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge;            41 And big with hymn, commander of an host,            42The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd.            43 Methinks I see the new Arion sail,            44The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.            45At thy well sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore            46The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar:            47Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call,            48And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall.            49About thy boat the little fishes throng,            50As at the morning toast, that floats along.            51Sometimes as prince of thy harmonious band            52Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.            53 St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,            54 Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme:            55Though they in number as in sense excel;            56So just, so like tautology they fell,            57 That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore            58The lute and sword which he in triumph bore            59And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.            60Here stopt the good old sire; and wept for joy            61In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.            62All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,            63That for anointed dullness he was made.

            64       Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,            65(The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)            66An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight,            67 There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:            68A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains,            69Of all the pile an empty name remains.            70From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,            71Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.            72Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep,            73And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.            74 Near these a nursery erects its head,            75Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;            76Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,            77Where infant punks their tender voices try,            78 And little Maximins the gods defy.            79 Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,            80Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;            81 But gentle Simkin just reception finds            82Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds:            83 Pure clinches, the suburbian muse affords;            84 And Panton waging harmless war with words.            85Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,            86Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.            87 For ancient Decker prophesi'd long since,            88That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,            89Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense:            90 To whom true dullness should some Psyches owe,            91But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow;            92Humorists and hypocrites it should produce,            93Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.

            94      Now Empress Fame had publisht the renown,            95Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.            96Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet,            97From near Bun-Hill, and distant Watling-street.            98No Persian carpets spread th'imperial way,            99But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay:          100From dusty shops neglected authors come,          101Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum.          102 Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay,          103But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way.          104Bilk'd stationers for yeoman stood prepar'd,          105 And Herringman was Captain of the Guard.          106The hoary prince in majesty appear'd,          107High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.

          108 At his right hand our young Ascanius sat          109Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.          110His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,          111And lambent dullness play'd around his face.          112 As Hannibal did to the altars come,          113Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome;          114So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,          115That he till death true dullness would maintain;          116And in his father's right, and realm's defence,          117Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.          118The king himself the sacred unction made,          119As king by office, and as priest by trade:          120In his sinister hand, instead of ball,          121He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale;          122 Love's kingdom to his right he did convey,          123At once his sceptre and his rule of sway;          124Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young,          125And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung,          126His temples last with poppies were o'er spread,          127That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head:          128Just at that point of time, if fame not lie,          129On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.          130So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,          131Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.          132Th'admiring throng loud acclamations make,          133And omens of his future empire take.          134The sire then shook the honours of his head,          135And from his brows damps of oblivion shed          136Full on the filial dullness: long he stood,          137Repelling from his breast the raging god;          138At length burst out in this prophetic mood:

          139     Heavens bless my son, from Ireland let him reign          140To far Barbadoes on the Western main;          141Of his dominion may no end be known,          142And greater than his father's be his throne.          143Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen;          144He paus'd, and all the people cry'd Amen.          145Then thus, continu'd he, my son advance          146Still in new impudence, new ignorance.          147Success let other teach, learn thou from me          148Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.          149Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;          150Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.          151 Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,          152Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;

          153Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,          154And in their folly show the writer's wit.          155Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,          156And justify their author's want of sense.          157Let 'em be all by thy own model made          158Of dullness, and desire no foreign aid:          159That they to future ages may be known,          160Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.          161Nay let thy men of wit too be the same,          162All full of thee, and differing but in name;          163 But let no alien Sedley interpose          164To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.          165And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull,          166Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;          167But write thy best, and top; and in each line,          168 Sir Formal's oratory will be thine.          169Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,          170 And does thy Northern Dedications fill.          171Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,          172 By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.          173Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,          174And Uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.          175Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part;          176What share have we in Nature or in Art?          177Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,          178And rail at arts he did not understand?          179 Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein,          180Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?          181 Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,          182Promis'd a play and dwindled to a farce?          183When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,          184As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?          185But so transfus'd as oil on waters flow,          186His always floats above, thine sinks below.          187This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,          188 New humours to invent for each new play:          189This is that boasted bias of thy mind,          190By which one way, to dullness, 'tis inclin'd,          191Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,          192And in all changes that way bends thy will.          193Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence          194Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.          195A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,          196But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin of wit.          197Like mine thy gentle numbers feebly creep,          198Thy Tragic Muse gives smiles, thy Comic sleep.

          199With whate'er gall thou sett'st thy self to write,          200Thy inoffensive satires never bite.          201In thy felonious heart, though venom lies,          202It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.          203Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame          204In keen iambics, but mild anagram:          205Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command          206Some peaceful province in acrostic land.          207 There thou may'st wings display and altars raise,          208And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.          209Or if thou would'st thy diff'rent talents suit,          210Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.          211He said, but his last words were scarcely heard,          212 For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd,          213And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.          214 Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,          215Born upwards by a subterranean wind.          216The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,          217With double portion of his father's art.

Notes

1] The first edition of Mac Flecknoe appeared in 1682 but the badness of the text makes it unlikely that it was authorized by Dryden. Consequently, the present text follows that of the "authorized edition" first published in Miscellany Poems, 1684.The sub-title, "A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T.S.", refers to Thomas Shadwell. In Dryden's text, the name of Shadwell is indicated throughout by Sh.., and although it is tempting to see a scatological reference in this abbreviation Dryden's metre gives the name the value of two syllables. The Shaftesbury plotters made much of being the "true-blue Protestant party," and armed their bullies with "Protestant flails." Dryden's satire on Thomas Shadwell (1642-1692) would appear to have been written as early as 1678, when the two dramatists were, on the surface at least, on fairly friendly terms. The particular occasion of their quarrel is unknown but it was probably brought about by personal dislike and jealousy aggravated by the political fever of the years following the Popish Plot. Shadwell was a staunch adherent of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Dryden's dislike of his Whiggish opinions is sufficiently indicated in the title-page to this poem. Shadwell answered Dryden's attack on Shaftesbury in The Medall with an abusive satire entitled The Medal of John Bayes, published in May, 1682; Mac Flecknoe appeared in about October of the same year. Dryden also pilloried Shadwell in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel.The idea of Mac Flecknoe was suggested by the death of the Irish priest and poet Richard Flecknoe (d. 1678). Dryden imagined Flecknoe, the monarch of the "Realms of Non-sense," immediately before death, appointing Shadwell as his worthy successor.

29] Thomas Heywood (d. 1650?) and James Shirley (1596-1666) were both voluminous dramatists but hardly deserving of this disparagement.

36] Flecknoe had lived in Lisbon for some years and been patronized by King John.

41] Shadwell published his play of Epsom Wells in 1673 but the phrase to which Dryden refers--"Such a fellow as he deserves to be tossed in a blanket"--occurs in another of Shadwell's plays, The Sullen Lovers.

43] In Greek legend the poet and lyrist Arion was borne across the sea on the backs of dolphins.

53] St. André: a popular dancing master.

54] Shadwell's verse opera of Psyche was elaborately produced in 1676.

57] Singleton, a singer, played the part of Villerius in Sir William D'Avenant's opera of The Siege of Rhodes.

64] Augusta: London.

67] The Barbican stood in Aldersgate Street, north of St. Paul's.

74] The Nursery, a theatrical school for training boys and girls for the stage, was established in 1662.

78] The hero of Dryden's Tyrannic Love is Maximin.

79-80] Buskins and socks are symbols respectively of tragedy and comedy, associated here with the Elizabethan playwrights John Fletcher and Ben Jonson.

81] Simkin: a character of a cobbler in an interlude.

83] Clinches (sometimes clenches): puns.

84] Panton: a celebrated punster.

87] Thomas Dekker (1570?-1632), dramatist and miscellaneous writer.

90] Psyche, The Miser, The Humourists: titles of Shadwell's plays. Raymond is a character in The Humourists, and Bruce a character in another of Shadwell's plays, The Virtuoso.

102] John Ogilby (1600-1676), the translator of Virgil.

105] Henry Herringman had been Dryden's publisher. Dryden gives in his text only the initial H....

108] Our young Ascanius: Shadwell. Ascanius was the son of Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome.

112] Hannibal, the great Carthaginian leader, was solemnly sworn by his father, Hasdrubal, to eternal enmity towards Rome.

122] Flecknoe's pastoral tragi-comedy of Love's Kingdom was published in 1664.

151] Gentle Gorge: Sir George Etherege (1634?-1691), the admirable comic dramatist. The names in the two following lines are characters in his comedies.

163] Sir Charles Sedley (1639?-1701), dramatist, wit, and profligate, was supposed to have helped Shadwell in the composition of Epsom Wells. Dryden slightly disguises his name in the text as S--dl--y.

168] Sir Formal Trifle, an oratorical character in Shadwell's comedy of The Virtuoso.

170] A reference to Shadwell's dedications addressed to the Duke of Newcastle (1592-1676), himself a dramatist.

172] Shadwell was an eulogist of Ben Jonson, whose theory of drama, particularly his conception of "humours," he copied, and wished to be compared with him in ability and style.

179] Prince Nicander: a character in Shadwell's Psyche.

181] Cant catch-phrases used by Shadwell characters, the last by a character in The Virtuoso.

188] Shadwell sees himself as continuing Jonson's tradition of the "Comedy of Humours."

207] It was a fashion during the earlier years of the seventeenth century to write verses in such a variety of metres that their shapes on the printed page resembled, among other objects, wings and altars.

212] Bruce and Longeville, in Shadwell's The Virtuoso, dismiss Sir Formal Trifle by opening a trap-door while he is delivering a speech.

214] Drugget: a coarse cloth.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.

Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: John Dryden, Poetry, Prose, and Plays, ed. Douglas Grant (Reynard Library edition: Hart-Davis, 1952). PR 3412 G7 1952 ROBA. The base text is John Dryden, Miscellany Poems (1684). B-10 4961 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).First publication date: 1682 RPO poem editor: G. G. FalleRP edition: 3RP 2.27-32.Recent editing: 4:2002/3/21

Form: Heroic Couplets

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John Keats (1795-1821)

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

              1 Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,              2      And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;              3      Round many western islands have I been              4Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.              5Oft of one wide expanse had I been told              6      That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;              7       Yet did I never breathe its pure serene              8Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:              9 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies            10      When a new planet swims into his ken;            11 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes            12      He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men            13Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--            14      Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Notes

1] Keats knew very little Greek, and read Homer only in translation.

7] pure serene. This phrase is to be found in Coleridge'sHymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni, 72, and also in Cary's translation of Dante's Paradiso, XV, 11.

9-10] Keats perhaps had in mind Sir William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781.

11] Cortez. Actually it was Balboa, not Cortez, who first crossed the isthmus to the Pacific. Keats had read Robertson's History of America and apparently confused two scenes there described: Balboa's discovery of the Pacific and Cortez' first view of Mexico City. The two passages read as follows: "At length the Indians assured them, that from the top of the next mountain they should discover the ocean which was the object of their wishes. When, with infinite toil, they had climbed up the greater part of the steep ascent, Balboa commanded his men to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he might be the first who should enjoy a spectacle which he had so long desired. As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretching in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, returned thanks to God, who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country, and so honourable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude" (Bk. III). "In descending from the mountains of Chalco, across which the road lay, the vast plain of Mexico opened gradually to their view. When they first beheld this prospect, one of the most striking and beautiful on the face of the earth; when they observed fertile and cultivated fields, stretching farther than the eye could reach; when they saw a lake resembling the sea in extent, encompassed with large towns, and discovered the capital

city rising upon an island in the middle, adorned with its temples and turrets; the scene so far exceeded their imagination, that some believed the fanciful descriptions of romance were realized, and that its enchanted palaces and gilded domes were presented to their sight; others could hardly persuade themselves that this wonderful spectacle was any thing more than a dream. As they advanced, their doubts were removed, but their amazement increased. They were now fully satisfied that the country was rich beyond any conception which they had formed of it" (Bk. V).

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Leigh Hunt, The Examiner (London, Dec. 1, 1816). P LE E ROBA.First publication date: 1817 RPO poem editor: J. R. MacGillivrayRP edition: 3RP 2.620.Recent editing: 4:2001/12/28

Composition date: October 1816 Form: Italian SonnetRhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd

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John Keats (1795-1821)

Ode to a Nightingale

              1My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains              2       My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,              3Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains              4       One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:              5'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,              6      But being too happy in thine happiness,--              7            That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees              8                In some melodious plot              9       Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,            10           Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

            11 O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been            12      Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,            13 Tasting of Flora and the country green,            14       Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!            15 O for a beaker full of the warm South,            16       Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,            17           With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,            18                And purple-stained mouth;            19      That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,            20           And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

            21Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget            22      What thou among the leaves hast never known,            23The weariness, the fever, and the fret            24      Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;            25Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,            26       Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

            27           Where but to think is to be full of sorrow            28                And leaden-eyed despairs,            29      Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,            30           Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

            31Away! away! for I will fly to thee,            32       Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,            33 But on the viewless wings of Poesy,            34      Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:            35Already with thee! tender is the night,            36      And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,            37            Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;            38                But here there is no light,            39      Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown            40           Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

            41I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,            42      Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,            43 But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet            44      Wherewith the seasonable month endows            45The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;            46       White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;            47           Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;            48                And mid-May's eldest child,            49      The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,            50           The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

            51 Darkling I listen; and, for many a time            52      I have been half in love with easeful Death,            53Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,            54      To take into the air my quiet breath;            55           Now more than ever seems it rich to die,            56      To cease upon the midnight with no pain,            57           While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad            58                In such an ecstasy!            59      Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--            60              To thy high requiem become a sod.

            61Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!            62      No hungry generations tread thee down;            63The voice I hear this passing night was heard            64      In ancient days by emperor and clown:            65Perhaps the self-same song that found a path            66      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,            67            She stood in tears amid the alien corn;            68                The same that oft-times hath

            69      Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam            70           Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

            71Forlorn! the very word is like a bell            72      To toll me back from thee to my sole self!            73Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well            74      As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.            75Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades            76      Past the near meadows, over the still stream,            77           Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep            78                In the next valley-glades:            79      Was it a vision, or a waking dream?            80           Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

Notes

2] hemlock: a poisonous plant which produces death by paralysis.

4] Lethe: a river of the lower world from which the shades drank, and thus obtained forgetfulness of the past.

7] Dryad: a wood nymph.

9] beechen: of the beech tree.

11] draught: what can be swallowed in a single drink.

13] Flora: the goddess of flowers, here used for flowers themselves. Cf. Keats' letter to Fanny Keats ca. May 1, 1819: "O there is nothing like fine weather ... and, please heaven, a little claret-wine cool out of a cellar a mile deep -- with a few or a good many ratafia cakes -- a rocky basin to bathe in, a strawberry bed to say your prayers to Flora in" (Letters, II, 56).

14] Provençal song. In the early Middle Ages the poets of southern France, the troubadours of Provence, were particularly famous for their love lyrics.

15] warm South: a southern wine.

16] Hippocrene: a fountain on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses.

26] Tom Keats died of consumption on Dec. 1, 1818.

32] Bacchus and his pards: the Roman god of wine, whho traditionally is shown in a conveyance drawn by leopards.

33] viewless: invisible. This phrase appears in half a dozen poems from 1765 to Mary Robinson's "The Progress of Liberty" in 1806 (II, 426).

37] Fays: fairies.

43] embalmed: full of balms, or perfumes. Lines 43-49 appear to echo Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.i.249-52 The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans and J. J. M. Tobin, 2nd edn. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997):

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine ...

46] pastoral eglantine. Eglantine is properly the sweet-briar, though popularly applied to various varieties of the wild rose. "Pastoral" presumably because often referred to in pastoral poetry.

51] Darkling: in the dark; cf Milton, Paradise Lost, III, 38-40: "As the wakeful Bird/Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid/Tunes her nocturnal Note."

60] high requiem: a liturgical song for the repose of the dead.

67] alien corn: alien because Ruth was not an Israelite but a Moabitess, gleaning in the barley fields of Judah (Ruth 2:1-2).

Commentary by Ian Lancashire(2002/9/9)

Between the first three words of "Ode to a Nightingale," "My heart aches," and its last, "sleep," John Keats describes a brief personal escape from an existence whose suffering he can no longer endure. The "I" who speaks eight times in this perfect eight-stanza lyric is Keats himself, not a surrogate persona. Ambiguity, irony, and even implication have no place here, but biography does. Keats' letters show that he certainly believed the poet possessed "negative capability," the self-nullifying power to enter other things and speak as and for them. "Ode to a Nightingale" depicts one such experience. True enough, Keats leaves his "sole self" (72) to join with the nightingale in verse that briefly realizes, in human language, the ageless beauty of its unintelligible song. Yet it is Keats who does so, in May 1819, not the living reader, not some character in a dramatic monologue manipulated by a poet who stays outside his created world. During his training as a medical practitioner, Keats saw drugs like opium (3) and wine (11) deaden the pain of feverishly ill men, the aged shaking from palsy, and the consumptive young (23-26). His own brother Tom, dying of consumption at this time, lingers on in "Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies" (26).

Keats' friend Charles Brown recollected, 17 years later, how Keats wrote this ode.

In the spring of 1818 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under the plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale. The writing was not well legible; and it was difficult to arrange the stanzas on so many scraps. With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his 'Ode to a Nightingale', a poem which has been the delight of every one.

The only surviving draft of the ode, in Keats' handwriting, is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. It appears on two half-sheets and has "an uncancelled rejected beginning ... and the first thirty lines written continuously without stanza divisions" (Stillinger 651). Perhaps this manuscript, which Keats gave to his friend J. H. Reynolds, represents a later stage of the poem than what Brown saw on four or five "scraps." Whatever the textual history may be (and we are unlikely to know much more), Brown recalls the earliest stage of composition. Keats took "his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under the plum-tree" near Brown's house and sat under it "for two or three hours," taking pleasure in the song of a nightingale that "had built her nest" there. Afterwards, Keats returned to the house with some "scraps" on which he had been writing the ode.

Keats did not record these few hours in "Ode to a Nightingale." In the poem, the bird sings "in some melodious plot / Of beechen green" (8-9), not in a plum-tree. The time is "night" or "midnight" (35, 56), not a morning after breakfast. The season is summer (10, 50), not spring. Keats' imagination transmutes what he experiences under the plum-tree. He acknowledges, for this reason, flying up to the bird "on the viewless wings of Poesy" (33) and only returning to himself when his "fancy" fails, its spell broken by a word, "forlorn" (71-74). The morning in his chair under the plum-tree stimulated the experience described by the poem, in what we now call lucid (or wide-awake) dreaming. At poem's end, Keats recognizes this when he asks, "Was it a vision, or a waking dream? / ... Do I wake or sleep?" (79-80). He has had a disorienting, transcendental experience. One moment, sightless in a pitch-black midnight, high among the leaves of a forest of trees, he was listening to the nightingale's "ecstasy"; and then suddenly he was back alone, if Brown remembers truly, under a plum-tree one morning near his house.

In retrospect, after the event, Keats describes his experience as a somatoform (bodily) dissociation, an out-of-body experience, or what parapsychologists term an OBE. Others might call it a "near-death" experience. During a critical illness, such as a heart attack, the self may appear to rise out of the dying body and to rush down a tunnel towards a light, only returning to the body when its trauma ceases. Both out-of-body and near-death experiences, available to a very large percentage of the population, are widely documented by those who had them and by other observers. A typical OBE begins when sensory input is disrupted, sometimes by drugs. The mind then feels itself float upwards

out of the body to a height that has been termed "bird's-eye" or tree-high. Often the ascent may seem like travelling through a tunnel towards a bright light. Experiencing itself being divided into two, or having a dissociated double, the self may feel itself near death. Afterwards, when the mind returns to the body, the person recalls his experience, not as a dream during REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep, but as vivid or wide-awake dreaming.

"Ode to a Nightingale" opens when Keats acknowledges feeling "a drowsy numbness" that he associates with having taken drugs like hemlock or opium, or with drinking from the classical river, Lethe, which makes humanity forget what it was like to have lived. Keats then wishes to drink deeply of red wine so that he could "fade away" (20-21), leaving the suffering world for the nightingale's joyful song. What transports him, however, is the imagination. Despite the physical brain, which "perplexes and retards" (34), his mind enables him to "fly" up to the nightingale in the trees. He imagines the moon's bright light blown through "winding mossy ways" (40) but arrives in utter darkness, lacking sight and smell. He imagines himself desiring death, "Now more than ever seems it rich to die" (55), and experiencing it, becoming "a sod" (60). Imagination ends the experience it initiated. At the word "forlorn," Keats comes "back" to his "sole self," that is, the self left alone by its flying double. He becomes conscious of what he has experienced as, perhaps, "a waking dream" (79). Many facets of an OBE are here: drug-associated sensory deprivation, a flight upwards of a double mind through dark "ways" illuminated by a great light, the moon, a bird's-eye perspective among the tree-tops, a near-death experience, the descent of a double to its abandoned self, and a sense of having had a vivid dream.

Keats did not write "Ode to a Nightingale" as testimony about an "out-of-body experience"; it would not be recognized or named for more than a century. On the other hand, neither does Keats appear to invent this dissociative event or to copy it from other poets. Anyone can meditate, one fine, warm morning, about escaping from the harsh world of humanity into the countryside and its healing natural beauty. Samuel T. Coleridge did so in his lyric, "The Lime-tree Bower my Prison":

... Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,No waste so vacant, but may well employEach faculty of sense, and keep the heartAwake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,That we may lift the soul, and contemplateWith lively joy the joys we cannot share.

Some readers believe that Keats drew from Coleridge here, but despite "lift[ing] the soul," opiate Coleridge remained fully possessed, in sunlight, of himself and his senses. Keats' last six lines owe much more to Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper." Wordsworth described the valley maiden singing, in a strange language as "No Nightingale did ever chaunt" (9), such "plaintive numbers" (18; cf. Keats' "plaintive anthem") that, once the

speaker had climbed the hill, remained in his mind as "music ... / Long after it was heard no more" (31-32). As the reaper's song "could have no ending" (26), so the voice of Keats' nightingale was "immortal," heard in "ancient days" and Biblical history as in contemporary England. Both poets cluster "plaintive," unheard "music," "hill-side," and "valley" in the context of a nightingale's song, strong evidence for influence, but Wordsworth does not allude to any dissociative experience.

Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" springs from a poet's personal life-changing, mind-wrenching experience of a timeless paradise, a world "with no pain" (56). Only someone who has spent days tending the terminally ill can understand with what depth Keats longs for this respite. In the event's aftermath, he recreates the experience "on the viewless wings of Poesy" (33), using all his craft's resources, but with little sensory recall. The "tender" night (35) and "embalmed darkness" (43) disable his sight and leave him guessing at fragrances. Simple words like "song," "voice," "anthem," and "music" only hint at the nightingale's soul-pouring "ecstasy" (58). He imitates it with astonishingly resonant lines like "Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways" (40), and "The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves" (50). For the rest, Keats must describe the bird-song "of summer" (10) by depicting what he knows, its hearers over the centuries. To recreate the nightingale's song, we must listen in the context of human suffering. Only by being in two worlds at once, the self below, its double above, can we know the song's essential beauty. Why else did the song that "found a path / Through the sad heart of Ruth ... sick for home," leave her standing "in tears amid the alien corn" (65-67)? She was not, like Keats at the start, "too happy in thine happiness" (6). Quintessentially, we know the nightingale's song truly only when we are aware that we cannot keep it for long. It is, at heart, "plaintive" (75), that is, sorrowful.

For this reason, Keats echoes Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" in the last stanza. Although their ways to beauty are different, their experiences are one.

Bibliography Blackmore, Susan J. Beyond the Body: an Investigation of Out-of-Body

Experiences. London: Heinemann, 1982. --. In search of the light: the adventures of a parapsychologist. Amherst, N.Y.:

Prometheus Books, 1996. Brown, Charles Armitage. Life of John Keats. Ed. Dorothy Hyde Bodurtha and

Willard Bissell Pope. London Oxford University Press, 1937. Irwin, Harvey J. "The Disembodied Self: An Empirical Study of Dissociation and

the Out-of-body Experience." The Journal of Parapsychology 64.1 (Sept. 2000): 261 ff.

--. Flight of mind: a psychological study of the out-of-body experience. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985.

The Letters of John Keats. Ed. Hyder Edward Rollins. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.

Masi, Alberto. European Birds; Songs and Sonagrams. 1997. http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~siler/masi/eurosongs3.html

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Annals of the Fine Arts (July 1819). Republished in John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820). Facs. edn.: Scolar Press, 1970. PR 4830 E20AB Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).First publication date: 1820 RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire, J. R. MacGillivrayRP edition: 3RP 2.649.Recent editing: 4:2001/12/28*1:2002/9/9*1:2002/11/21

Composition date: 1819 Composition date note: Spring of 1819Form: English OdeRhyme: ababcdecde

Other poems by John Keats

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