biography of famous english poets

The 10 Best Biographies of Poets

The best biographies of poets compiled in this list represent a range of eras, poetic movements, and poets as different from each other as can be. But they do all have one thing in common: these poets rocked the world of poetry, and literature at large, forever changing how we think about verse. This list includes not just biographies of English poets, but also biographies of famous poets from other places on the globe. In this list of literary biographies, you’ll learn more about the lives of literature’s greatest poets in some of the best author biographies around. And now on to the books!

But first, if you like this article about poetry, definitely check out this blog’s guide to “Learn Poetry Writing with the 17 Best Books on Writing Poetry.”

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And now for the 10 best biographies of poets!

Being shelley: the poet’s search for himself  by ann wroe.

If you’re looking for famous English poetry biographies, this one is a good fit. Percy Bysshe Shelley died young, leaving behind his wife, Mary Shelley, who later went on to write the extraordinarily radical Frankenstein . But though he lived a short life, Shelley lived a full one, and it’s that life we learn about in Ann Wroe’s Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself . What distinguishes this book from other biographies of Shelley is Wroe’s skilled ability to bring to life Shelley’s sense of purpose when it came to his writing. In that way, Being Shelley portrays the poet’s existential quest to understand himself as an artist and feed his ambitious desire to be a poet in every sense of the identity. This biography offers a deep dive into the inner life of one of the world’s greatest poets.

How to read it: Purchase Being Shelley on Amazon

The bughouse: the poetry, politics, and madness of ezra pound by daniel swift.

American poet Ezra Pound is best remembered for his poetry, but in The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics, and Madness of Ezra Pound , Daniel Swift explores the poet’s relationship to madness. This book is definitely among the best author biographies anywhere. Doomed to stand trial for producing fascist broadcasts in Italy during the Second World Wide, instead Pound was found to be insane and locked up in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., a mental institution. It’s there that Pound’s prominent circle of friends came to call, including T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and William Carlos Williams. The result is a biography not just of Pound but the entire Modernist movement’s leading artists, making a key contribution to literary biographies.

How to read it: Purchase The Bughouse on Amazon

Heav’nly tidings from the afric muse: the grace and genius of phillis wheatley by richard kigel.

This book is a compelling biography of Phillis Wheatley, whom biographer Richard Kigel has deemed the “true Poet Laureate of the American Revolution.” Kigel’s biography contextualizesWheatley’s poetry within the era she lived when she managed to find freedom after being a slave. What happens next is Wheatley’s feverishly paced writing career, which Kigel situates within the context of African American literature and women’s literature of the time. What we’re left with is deft criticism and strong praise of Wheatley’s work as informed by her remarkable life in this superb book, certainly one of the best author biographies.

How to read it: Purchase Heav’nly Tidings from the Afric Muse on Amazon

Keats: a brief life in nine poems and one epitaph by lucasta miller.

John Keats is one of my favorite poets, and this is one of the best biographies of poets around. We’ve already had an exceptional biographical movie of Keats ( Bright Star ), so why do we need yet another biography of Keats? Well, it turns out we can stand to have one more Keats biography, and this one is the mic drop of them all; in Lucasta Miller’s Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph , Keats’ life is organized around nine of his poems and one epitaph. Miller excavates Keats’ life to see how it influenced some of his most incredible poems. What this biography does so well is braid Keats’ life with Keats’ creativity, showing how one interacted with the other in this tour-de-force of a book that’s definitely one of the best biographies of English poets.

How to read it: Purchase Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph on Amazon

Neruda: the biography of a poet by mark eisner.

This biography of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda—a finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography—finally reveals this groundbreaking poet’s fascinating life, which ranks among the best literary biographies. Author Mark Eisner has skillfully woven together several strands of Neruda’s life, including his personal history; Latin American culture, history, and politics; and his career as a poet. Eisner has crafted an authoritative yet extremely accessible biography of this influential poet.

How to read it: Purchase Neruda: The Biography of a Poet on Amazon

Red comet: the short life and blazing art of sylvia plath by heather clark.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Red Comet is an exceptional biography of Sylvia Plath and definitely counts as one of the best biographies of poets. It might seem hard to believe that there’s anything left to say of Plath, given that she has inspired multiple biographies before Red Comet . Yet this one stands out because of its unique approach to put Plath’s work front and center. Biographer Heather Clark here expands on what we thought we knew about Plath, sifting through previously unavailable source materials and viewing Plath’s life not for the sole purpose of tragedy porn, which has surrounded much of Plath’s life since she took her life in 1963 at age 30. Instead, Clark has crafted perhaps the first fully realized biography of this consequential poet whose short life, her extraordinary writing, and her significant legacy shattered the world. Sitting at close to 2,000 pages, Red Comet is the definitive biography of Sylvia Plath.

How to read it: Purchase Red Comet on Amazon

Robert lowell, setting the river on fire: a study of genius, mania, and character by kay redfield jameson.

In this unique and creative biography, psychologist Kay Redfield Jameson sifts through the mind of renowned Confessional poet Robert Lowell. As a writer who shares Lowell’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Jameson analyzes Lowell’s life through a unique perspective. Jameson, whose memoir Touched with Fire I recommended in this blog’s article on “ The 20 Best Books about Bipolar Disorder,” finds connections between Lowell’s life-long battle with mental illness and the astonishing poetry he penned both during times of suffering and times of remission. What we’re left with is a thorough understanding of how Lowell’s moods impacted his writing and vice versa. Jameson has done a real service to Lowell in this book, for sure one of the best biographies of poets.

How to read it: Purchase Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire on Amazon

Savage beauty: the life of edna st. vincent millay by nancy milford.

Historian Nancy Milford here trains her gaze on a formidable heroine: the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. In this biography, Milford distills the woman from the myth, creating a thorough yet engaging biography of the poet who would revolutionize her field and go on to become the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. In Savage Beauty , Millay comes alive like never before.

How to read it: Purchase Savage Beauty on Amazon

These fevered days: ten pivotal moments in the making of emily dickinson by martha ackmann.

American poet Emily Dickinson penned well over 1,500 poems, but she was seen in her lifetime as was seemingly “quiet.” She stayed inside mostly and kept to her home, yet she lived an extremely intellectual and creative life that forever changed poetry. In These Fevered Days , Martha Ackmann drills down deep to ten pivotal days in Dickinson’s life, unearthing these consequential moments that helped shape Dickinson into the woman and poet she was. If you’re someone who struggles with conventional biographies, which, let’s be honest, can be both bloated and boring, this is the book for you with its inventive, engaging structure. Read it and see what makes These Fevered Days one of the best biographies of poets.

How to read it: Purchase These Fevered Days on Amazon

The whole harmonium: the life of wallace stevens by paul mariani.

Closing out our list of the best biographies of poets is The Whole Harmonium , in which biographer Paul Mariani takes poet Wallace Stevens as his subject. Mariani’s biography is unique because it seeks to find the connections between Stevens’ work as a poet and his self-confessed purpose to find and translate the sublime into art. See why Booklist wrote, in a starred review, that The Whole Harmonium is an “incandescent….redefining biography of a major poet whose reputation continues to ascend.”

How to read it: Purchase The Whole Harmonium on Amazon

And there you have it the 10 best biographies of poets. which one will you read first, share this:.

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Sarah S. Davis is the founder of Broke by Books, a blog about her journey as a schizoaffective disorder bipolar type writer and reader. Sarah's writing about books has appeared on Book Riot, Electric Literature, Kirkus Reviews, BookRags, PsychCentral, and more. She has a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Library and Information Science from Clarion University, and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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World History Edu

• English Poets

10 Most Renowned English Poets and their Best-Known Works

by World History Edu · December 13, 2022

For centuries, English poets have produced some of the most evergreen poems in history.

In a fast-paced modern culture of Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook and other social media platforms, good old poetry seems to have lost its original appeal. Over the years, the quality of beauty and intensity with which people regarded poetry have dwindled, giving way to more “fun” and visually stunning ways of entertainment.

The true essence of poetry however, is not easily replaced. Like the English poet William Wordsworth wrote, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

Poetry originates from the era of the 2nd millennium B.C. when cavemen and the earliest witchdoctors narrated incidents and stories in songs, tales and symbols.

By the turn of the 21st century, the genre had evolved and many poets leaned more towards free verse and artistic expressions with such characteristics as irregular stanza structure and disarranged syntax. For centuries, English poets have produced some of the most evergreen poems in the history of Western civilization and given voice to genuine emotions connected to human conditions.

Now let’s take a look at our list of the 10 most renowned English men and women who came to world renown by crafting some of the most compelling poems in English literature. The list is in no particular order.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 71,” details how the speaker’s death could affect his beloved.

Of course, Shakespeare is renowned even more as one of the greatest English playwrights to have graced planet earth.  A central figure in English literature, he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He loved to write poetry for himself when he was not preoccupied with exploring his obsession: plays.

Shakespeare’s name is synonymous with the numerous famed monologues he cleverly wove in his plays and prose. Many of these became popular poems in both history and present day. His contributions helped advance the English language by introducing about 300 words and many phrases.

To a large extent, the biggest influence on much of Shakespeare’s poems was the Roman poet, Ovid. The Ovidian influence was explicitly seen in the narrative poem, “The Rape of Lucrece.”

The themes of Shakespeare’s poems have covered love, beauty, mortality and conflict. As a result of the private nature of his poems, relatively few were published.

Among his most significant poems are “Sonnet 29” and “Sonnet 71” both published in 1609. The former begins with the speaker lamenting over his status as a social outcast. At the end of the piece however, the speaker’s mood switches to feelings of bliss as he thinks of his beloved.

“Sonnet 71” details how the speaker’s death could affect his beloved. There is a sudden shift when Shakespeare adopts a humorous tone to lighten up the poem’s mood. Apart from their spellbinding lyrics, these Shakespearean sonnets are particularly appealing because they were seen as a true story of the poet’s love life. Also loved by us and many lovers of Shakespeare include the poems:

• “A Fairy Song”
• “Dear Friend”
• “Venus and Adonis”
• “Sonnet 73”
• “Sonnet 18”

Guinness World Records named Shakespeare as “the world’s best-selling playwright” with over 400 billion of his works sold in the over 40 decades since his death.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Wordsworth, highly regarded as the 19th century’s most influential poet.

Needless to say, Wordsworth was regarded as the 19th century’s most influential poet largely because of his rare sensitivity to the beauty and power of nature. He habitually stressed the benefits of nature to a person’s intellectual and spiritual development in his poems.

The Cockermouth native lost his mother at an early age and the ordeal shaped much of his work. In addition, his experiences during the French Revolution and his stay in France piqued his interest in the challenges and speech of the common folk. As a matter of fact, these issues served as a backdrop to many of his poems. Another turning point in Wordsworth’s life was in the mid-1790s when he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a leader of the British Romantic movement. The duo’s collaborative efforts produced the poetry collection “Lyrical Ballads” published in 1798.

One of Wordsworth’s most notable poems, “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” materialized from his fascination with a bed of daffodils when he and his sister were visiting Ullswater. “The Prelude,” another one of his most famous poems, was an autobiographical piece published posthumously in 1850. The most interesting thing about “The Prelude” is the setting of the events in the poem which is the poet’s mind and not the outside world. The poem depicted the various stages of his life; childhood and later years.

Wordsworth’s contributions to the literary world were crowned when he became Poet Laureate in 1843. In early 2020, a number of postage stamps were launched by the Royal Mail to mark the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth.

Other famous poems that added to Wordsworth’s enviable legacy are:

• “To the Skylark”
• “My Heart Leaps Up”
• “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”
• “Ode: Intimidations of Mortality”
• “Tintern Abbey”

John Keats (1795-1821)

A sculpture of John Keats at the Guys and Saint Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Undoubtedly one of the most quoted English lyric poets of all time, Keats eventually became known as part of the British Romantic literary tradition. Considering his early death at only 25 years, his poetic achievements were nothing short of incredible. His collections earned high praise from essayists such as Charles Lamb and Percy Shelley.

Much of Keats’ inspiration for poetry stemmed from his contemporaries including John Milton, Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron. The London-born poet had the most productive period of his life between 1818 and 1819 when he met and fell in love with his “Bright Star,” Fanny Brawne. During this time he published several famous odes.

Keats’ poetic style has often been compared with the sonnets of William Shakespeare and has for many years been regarded with similar acclaim. The earliest of Keats’ early 19th century odes, “Ode to Psyche” published in 1820 is seen as one of his best works. The poem celebrates the imaginative and creative prowess of the speaker’s own mind.

Keats’ “To Autumn” (also published in 1820) is another one of his greatest masterpieces and arguably the most renowned poem about the season in the history of English literature. According to critic Christopher Ricks, “To Autumn” is “the finest of Keats” odes with its vivid depiction of physical sensations ranging from delightful to appalling. Keats’ themes in his major poems have explored life and death, mortality and immortality and separation and connection and joy and sorrow. Our selection of the poet’s best poems also includes:

• “Ode to Melancholy”
• “Bright Star”
• “The Eve of St. Agnes”
• “Ode to a Nightingale”
• “Ode to Indolence”

Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

Another towering figure in the world of English literature is Emily Bronte. The life of the famed writer of “Wuthering Heights” was shaped by different conflicting influences which later served as inspirations for her poetic achievements. Not surprisingly, her native Yorkshire moors became the setting for her only novel, “Wuthering Heights.”

The name Brontë may have rang a bell in literary circles. That is because Emily is sisters with poets Charlotte and Anne Brontë and perhaps the most skillful of the Brontë sisters. We, as well as many critics, believe that Emily’s collection from “Poems” takes centre stage when it comes to her best work in poetry.

Her persuasive lyrics in “A Day Dream,” (1846) for instance, caught the attention of author Lawrence J. Starzyk who penned some impressive remarks about the poem. We consider “No Coward Soul is Mine,” Emily’s last poem written in early 1846 a fitting climax of her poetic accomplishment. It is also one of our favorites by her. The poem showcases the speaker’s extreme passion for God and the strength she draws from her faith.

When Emily was age 12, she and Anne created a fictional North Pacific country called Gondal and penned over 40 poems relating to this imaginary world.

Other poems by Emily that vied for the top spot include:

• “Hope” (Ballad)
• “Remembrance
• “All Hushed and Still Within the House”
• “O Come with Me”
• “A Little While”

Before her untimely death at 30 years old, Emily had carved a niche for herself not only as an accomplished writer but also as a phenomenal poet.

Alice Oswald (1966-present)

Who said all the great poets have to belong to the womb of history? Well, we discovered who was born and lived in our time. Alice Oswald has authored over 10 poetry collections. Her work is accessible, witty and often delves into themes of that natural world, pastoral tradition, particularly, about the English countryside. This could have been influenced by her training as a classicist and her early work as a gardener. It is almost impossible to be a student of English poetry and not come across some of her poems. We listed her 1996 first poetry collection, “The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile” and her second book, an intriguing 48-page single poem, “Dart,” as 2 of her most prolific works.

“The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile” (1996) is made up of many poems that talk about gardening and the physical environment in general. The book represented the arrival of a unique new voice and was shortlisted for a Forward Poetry Prize in 1996 and the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2002. “Dart” (2002) was inspired by the River Dart located in Devon, England around which Oswald lived at the time.

She was honored as one of the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation poets in 2004. Oswald’s followers are sure to find these other poems worth reading;

• “A Sleepwalk on the Severn”
• “Falling Awake”
• “Weeds and Wildflowers”

John Milton (1608-1674)

Long before his highly acclaimed epic poem, “Paradise Lost” (1667) won him overwhelming admiration, Milton was a well-known activist who vehemently advocated for the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Although he had lost his sight by 1651, he dictated himself to writing his most famous works including his “Paradise Lost” collection and “Paradise Regained.” The former contains poems which chronicle the story of Adam and Eve; their creation, falling into the devil’s temptation and their fall from God’s grace. The collection was Milton’s way of justifying the ways of God to men.

The work’s intense popularity was probably due to the poet’s ambitious way of treating some of the key philosophical advances that characterized his time.  “Paradise Lost” is widely regarded as “the greatest poem ever to have been written in the English language.” When the poem was published, Milton was perceived often as an equal or superior to all other English poets, including Shakespeare.

“Paradise Regained” (1671) dramatized Satan’s temptation of Christ. This was a follow-up epic which calls attention to the idea of Christian heroism and shows how faith and belief could restore glory to humanity.  Our favorite Milton’s poems also include:

• “On His Blindness”
• “Samson Agonistes”
• “On his Deceased Wife”
• “On Shakespeare”
• “Song on May Morning”

John Donne (1572- 1631)

Donne was credited with the founding of the Metaphysical Poets which also comprised such names as George Herbert and Andrew Marvell. Although Donne’s poetry was greatly valued during his time, his poems went out of fashion during the Stuart Restoration and remained so for hundreds of years. While Donne may no longer reach the cult status he attained in the early 1900s, modern readers have had some success in trying to rehabilitate his works in the first 20 years of the 20th century.

Donne was born into a Catholic family in London and served as a cleric for many years. His faith was the driving force behind his work which often focused on paradoxes of faith, human and divine love. In his later years however, his writing depicted his fear of death.

Donne’s finest poems include the incredibly famous “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” which was posthumously published in 1633 and appeared in the collection “Songs and Sonnets.” This poem had themes of spirituality and celebration of love and was written for Donne’s wife, Anne.

In another famous poem, “The Sun Rising,” Donne cleverly uses metaphors to chastise the sun for penetrating the curtains and rousing him and his lover as they lie in bed together.

Get to know Donne’s style better by immersing yourself in other beautiful poems such as:

• “The Good-Morrow”
• “The Ecstasy”
• “Holy Sonnet: Death, be not Proud”
• “To His Mistress Going to Bed”

Donne’s work as a poet and priest is commemorated (on March 31) in such calendars as the Calendar of Saints of the Church of England and the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Lord Byron was named 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale.

Born into an aristocracy in London, Byron inherited Newstead Abbey in Nottingham and was named 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale when his great uncle died. A lover of the arts, Byron experimented with various writing styles ranging from satire, neoclassicism to romanticism. He soon secured for himself a unique place in the world of English literature.

Regarded as the “most fashionable poet” of the early 1800s, Byron was just as famous for his controversial private life as for his work. He had a scandalous affair with the Anglo-Irish married novelist, Lady Caroline as well as with several other women.

Byron’s writings were highly influenced by Greek culture which he came to know and appreciate during his earlier travels. His masterly poems include the 4-part narrative poem, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (1812) and the satirical epic poem, “Don Juan” (1819).

“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” describes the travels of Childe Harold who became disillusioned with his pursuits of pleasure and resolved to make meaning out of his life.

“Don Juan” plays on themes of romance, love and innocence. The protagonist of the poem, Don Juan, was inspired by the Spanish legend of the same name who was seen as a womanizer. The poem seeks to “correct” that perception and portray Don Juan instead, as a target for romantic schemes and ploys of women.

Also making the list of our top Byron poems are:

• “She Walks in Beauty”
• “When We Two Partied”
• “To Thyrza”
• “Love and Death”
• “Stanzas for Music”

William Blake (1757-1827)

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” The originator of this quote, William Blake, was a native of Soho, London. His upbringing was shaped by the tenets of the Bible which remained a great influence throughout his life. A dominant figure in poetry and visual arts in the Romantic Age, Blake’s idiosyncrasies and advocacy for imagination and the power of the mind gave enough reasons for his critics to consider him mad. In Blake’s defense, the highly distinguished T.S. Eliot wrote: “Blake’s poetry has a peculiar honesty, which in a world too frightened to be honest, is peculiarly terrifying.”

Later critics however esteemed the Londoner for his expressiveness and eccentricity. Until 1863 when biographer Alexander Gilchrist published “Life of William Blake,” the poet was known only to a small readership. Blake preferred to write in free verse and developed a style for 14 syllable measures which became his signature.

Perhaps his most famous poems are “Songs of Innocence” published in 1789 and the “Songs of Experience” in 1794. Blake contrasts the innocent world of childhood in the former with the corruption of the adult world in the latter. “Songs of Innocence” was written against the backdrop of the repressive nature of the church and state in England and the rights of children to be respected. “Songs of Experience” portrays a child’s innocence as corrupted by human experience.

Most of Blake’s works have explored political and social themes, religion, love and sexuality. Among other popular works by Blake worth reading are:

• “The Tyger”
• “A Poison Tree”
• “The Chimney Sweeper”
• “The Little Black Boy”

Blake’s poetic and philosophical ideas inspired some works of former Irish senator, W.B. Yeats.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

At an early age, Jane Austen wrote stories and poems for her family’s entertainment.

It may surprise our readers that the “Pride and Prejudice” author made the list of our top 10, considering she was more celebrated for her fiction. Austen’s occasional poetry writing however helped highlight some of the prevalent themes of her better known works such as the novels, “Sense and Sensibility” of 1811 and “Mansfield Park” of 1814.

Austen grew up in a large Hampshire family which was part of the lower ranks of the English landed gentry. From an early age, she wrote stories and poems for her family’s entertainment. It was during her 30s that her famous works were produced.

Surprisingly, her reputation as a great writer was built only after many decades of her death. Her writing was often witty, ironic, light and pleasingly rhythmic. Morality and societal values were predominant themes in many of Austen’s works. We begin the list of the most renowned poems of Austen with “Ode to Pity” which was written while she was in her teens. Ironically, the satirical Austen did not address the subject of pity at all in this poem. We love this 2-stanza poem for the way the speaker used nature-related imagery to give a detailed account of a walk in the moonlight.

Our second favorite from Austen is “This Little Bag.” The “bag” in question was a needle bag Austen gave to her niece Caroline on Christmas of 1972. The speaker in the poem uses symbolism and personification to describe how useful the bag would be to Caroline.

If you are a fan of Austen, you may also want to explore:

• “My Dearest Frank, I Wish You Joy”
• “I’ve a Pain in my Head”
• “When Stretch’d on One’s Bed”
• “This Little Bag”

In 2013, Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” was featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.

We believe you have enjoyed our list of the most renowned English poets. Go on! Connect and fall in love with more poetry. We’ll be thrilled to receive your own picks and perhaps feature them in future write-ups.

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Why is John Milton famous?

Where was john milton educated, how did john milton influence others.

John Milton

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• Pressbooks - An Open Companion to Early British Literature - John Milton: Poems and Sonnets
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John Milton (1608–74) is considered the most significant English writer after William Shakespeare . His epic Paradise Lost , classical tragedy Samson Agonistes , and pastoral elegy Lycidas are widely regarded as the greatest poems of their kind in English. He is also known for such prose works as Areopagitica —a fierce defense of freedom of speech.

When he was 11, John Milton entered St. Paul’s School, London, where he excelled in Greek , Latin , and Italian . He composed Latin verse and translated a psalm from Hebrew into English verse and later into Greek. He sharpened his rhetorical skills at Christ’s College, Cambridge , and stayed in Florence , meeting Galileo and befriending Italian literati .

When John Milton’s Paradise Lost appeared in 1667, only people close to him commended it. By the early 1700s, however, John Dryden had written an operatic adaptation of it, and Alexander Pope had parodied it in The Rape of the Lock . Later Percy Bysshe Shelley modeled Prometheus in Prometheus Unbound (1820) on Milton’s Satan .

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John Milton (born December 9, 1608, London , England—died November 8?, 1674, London?) was an English poet, pamphleteer, and historian, considered the most significant English author after William Shakespeare .

Milton is best known for Paradise Lost , widely regarded as the greatest epic poem in English. Together with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes , it confirms Milton’s reputation as one of the greatest English poets. In his prose works Milton advocated the abolition of the Church of England and the execution of Charles I . From the beginning of the English Civil Wars in 1642 to long after the restoration of Charles II as king in 1660, he espoused in all his works a political philosophy that opposed tyranny and state-sanctioned religion . His influence extended not only through the civil wars and interregnum but also to the American and French revolutions. In his works on theology , he valued liberty of conscience , the paramount importance of Scripture as a guide in matters of faith, and religious toleration toward dissidents. As a civil servant, Milton became the voice of the English Commonwealth after 1649 through his handling of its international correspondence and his defense of the government against polemical attacks from abroad.

Milton’s paternal grandfather, Richard, was a staunch Roman Catholic who expelled his son John, the poet’s father, from the family home in Oxfordshire for reading an English (i.e., Protestant ) Bible. Banished and disinherited, Milton’s father established in London a business as a scrivener, preparing documents for legal transactions . He was also a moneylender, and he negotiated with creditors to arrange for loans on behalf of his clients. He and his wife, Sara Jeffrey, whose father was a merchant tailor, had three children who survived their early years: Anne, the oldest, followed by John and Christopher. Though Christopher became a lawyer, a Royalist, and perhaps a Roman Catholic, he maintained throughout his life a cordial relationship with his older brother. After the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660, Christopher, among others, may have interceded to prevent the execution of his brother.

The elder John Milton, who fostered cultural interests as a musician and composer, enrolled his son John at St. Paul’s School, probably in 1620, and employed tutors to supplement his son’s formal education. Milton was privately tutored by Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian who may have influenced his gifted student in religion and politics while they maintained contact across subsequent decades. At St. Paul’s Milton befriended Charles Diodati, a fellow student who would become his confidant through young adulthood. During his early years, Milton may have heard sermons by the poet John Donne , dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral , which was within view of his school. Educated in Latin and Greek there, Milton in due course acquired proficiency in other languages, especially Italian, in which he composed some sonnets and which he spoke as proficiently as a native Italian, according to the testimony of Florentines whom he befriended during his travel abroad in 1638–39.

Milton enrolled at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1625, presumably to be educated for the ministry. A year later he was “rusticated,” or temporarily expelled, for a period of time because of a conflict with one of his tutors, the logician William Chappell. He was later reinstated under another tutor, Nathaniel Tovey. In 1629 Milton was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree, and in 1632 he received a Master of Arts degree. Despite his initial intent to enter the ministry, Milton did not do so, a situation that has not been fully explained. Possible reasons are that Milton lacked respect for his fellow students who were planning to become ministers but whom he considered ill-equipped academically or that his Puritan inclinations, which became more radical as he matured, caused him to dislike the hierarchy of the established church and its insistence on uniformity of worship; perhaps, too, his self-evident disaffection impelled the Church of England to reject him for the ministry.

Overall, Milton was displeased with Cambridge, possibly because study there emphasized Scholasticism , which he found stultifying to the imagination. Moreover, in correspondence with a former tutor at St. Paul’s School, Alexander Gill, Milton complained about a lack of friendship with fellow students. They called him the “Lady of Christ’s College,” perhaps because of his fair complexion, delicate features, and auburn hair. Nonetheless, Milton excelled academically. At Cambridge he composed several academic exercises called prolusions, which were presented as oratorical performances in the manner of a debate. In such exercises, students applied their learning in logic and rhetoric , among other disciplines . Milton authorized publication of seven of his prolusions, composed and recited in Latin, in 1674, the year of his death.

In 1632, after seven years at Cambridge, Milton returned to his family home, now in Hammersmith, on the outskirts of London. Three years later, perhaps because of an outbreak of the plague, the family relocated to a more pastoral setting, Horton, in Buckinghamshire. In these two locations, Milton spent approximately six years in studious retirement, during which he read Greek and Latin authors chiefly. Without gainful employment, Milton was supported by his father during this period.

In 1638, accompanied by a manservant, Milton undertook a tour of the Continent for about 15 months, most of which he spent in Italy, primarily Rome and Florence. The Florentine academies especially appealed to Milton, and he befriended young members of the Italian literati, whose similar humanistic interests he found gratifying. Invigorated by their admiration for him, he corresponded with his Italian friends after his return to England , though he never saw them again. While in Florence, Milton also met with Galileo , who was under virtual house arrest . The circumstances of this extraordinary meeting, whereby a young Englishman about 30 years old gained access to the aged and blind astronomer, are unknown. (Galileo would become the only contemporary whom Milton mentioned by name in Paradise Lost .) While in Italy, Milton learned of the death in 1638 of Charles Diodati, his closest boyhood companion from St. Paul’s School, possibly a victim of the plague ; he also learned of impending civil war in England, news that caused him to return home sooner than anticipated. Back in England, Milton took up residence in London, not far from Bread Street, where he had been born. In his household were John and Edward Phillips—sons of his sister, Anne—whom he tutored. Upon his return he composed an elegy in Latin, “ Epitaphium Damonis” (“Damon’s Epitaph”), which commemorated Diodati.

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The Best English Poets of All Time

Who is the best English poet? From the Renaissance, to the Jacobean era, to the Restoration, to the modern day, great English poets have been making readers think across the ages. If you love to debate, "Who is the best poet in English literature?" then this is the list for you. 

Written works have the ability to make us feel. They make us want to believe, be inspired, and live vicariously through the stories we read on the page. This list of English poets and their works demonstrate this particular skill. It all begins with the words written on the page. Whether short or long form, poetry is often illusory, and full of rich imagery or hidden meaning. It is these elements which provoke readers to dig deeper and make poetry so engaging and moving.

The best of poems and poets are read throughout the ages. They are read from generation to generation and taught throughout school to young students. Poets and their poetry have the ability to take us places and into the lives of those we’ve never imagined. Poets are often tortured souls or great thinkers who show readers a new view of the world they never would have imagined.  This list includes the great English poets, such as Rudyard Kipling, John Keats, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. 

These greatest English poets provide the kind of emotional connection to the written word that few can. So, who are the best of the famous English poets? Vote up the absolute best English poets on the list below, or add a famous poet from England who is truly great, but isn't already on the list.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, is renowned for his plays, but his poetic prowess is equally remarkable. His sonnets are considered some of the finest in the English language, exploring themes of love, beauty, and mortality with unparalleled eloquence and depth.

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John Milton

John Milton, a 17th-century poet, is best known for his epic poem "Paradise Lost," which recounts the biblical story of humanity's fall from grace. A master of blank verse, Milton's work is characterized by its intellectual rigor and profound exploration of religious and political themes.

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William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth, a key figure in the Romantic movement, revolutionized poetry by focusing on nature and the ordinary human experience. His magnum opus, The Prelude , is an autobiographical epic that traces his personal growth and development as a poet.

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John Keats, a Romantic poet, possessed an extraordinary gift for sensuous imagery and emotional intensity. His odes, particularly "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," are celebrated for their vivid evocations of beauty and the transience of life.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley, another leading Romantic poet, championed radical ideas and the power of imagination. His lyrical works, like "Ozymandias" and "To a Skylark," convey a sense of wonder and challenge conventional beliefs about society, religion, and nature.

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William Blake

William Blake, a visionary poet and artist, defied convention with his prophetic works that blended mysticism, social criticism, and vivid imagination. His illuminated poems, such as "Songs of Innocence and Experience," reveal a unique perspective on the human condition and the divine.

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Famous Writers

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Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan “Famous Writers”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net – 10th March 2015. Last updated 5 March 2018.

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10 Most Famous English Poets of All Time

The work of a poet is beautiful, delicate, simple yet complex, and some of them left their marks forever in the history of literature.

Writing is a beautiful work, so as the writers, novelists and especially, poets. It is not easy to convey all thoughts, emotions and opinions into a few sentences and words, and yet make all the pieces rhythm in the ears. The best of poems and poets are read throughout the ages. They are read from generation to generation and taught throughout school to young students. Poets and their poetry have the ability to take us places and into the lives of those we’ve never imagined. Poets are often tortured souls or great thinkers who show readers a new view of the world they never would have imagined.

After looking through multiple sources, social media and literature websites, we have compiled a list of top 10 most famous English poets of all time, in which their works are still used in teaching and researching in school, university nowadays.

List of top 10 most famous English poets of all time

10. charles dickens, 9. robert browning, 8. t.s. eliot, 7. john milton, 6. john donne, 5. oscar wilde, 4. sylvia plath, 3. john keats, 2. william blake, 1. william shakespeare, who are the most famous english poets of all time.

(Biography source: Poetry Foundation , Poets.org )

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, the son of a clerk at the Navy Pay Office. His father, John Dickens, continually living beyond his means, was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824. 12-year-old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory earning six shillings a week to help support the family.

This dark experience cast a shadow over the clever, sensitive boy that became a defining experience in his life, he would later write that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age."

This childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens' later views on social reform and the world he would create through his fiction.

Dickens would go on to write 15 major novels including, Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and his personal favorite, David Copperfield. He will forever be associated with the celebration of Christmas due to his Christmas Books, the most popular being A Christmas Carol. Dickens also edited, and contributed to, weekly journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Near the end of his life he traveled throughout Britain and America giving public readings of his work.

Charles Dickens died an old man of 57, worn out with work and travel, on June 9, 1870. He wished to be buried, without fanfare, in a small cemetery in Rochester, Kent, but the Nation would not allow it. He was laid to rest in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, the flowers from thousands of mourners overflowing the open grave. Among the more beautiful bouquets were many simple clusters of wildflowers, wrapped in rags.

Browning was born on May 7, 1812 in Camberwell, a middle-class suburb of London. He was the only son of Robert Browning, a clerk in the Bank of England, and a devoutly religious German-Scotch mother, Sarah Anna Wiedemann Browning. He had a sister, Sarianna, who like her parents was devoted to Browning. While Mrs. Browning’s piety and love of music are frequently cited as important influences on the poet’s development, his father’s scholarly interests and unusual educational practices may have been equally significant. The son of a wealthy banker, Robert Browning the elder had been sent in his youth to make his fortune in the West Indies, but he found the slave economy there so distasteful that he returned, hoping for a career in art and scholarship. A quarrel with his father and the financial necessity it entailed led the elder Browning to relinquish his dreams so as to support himself and his family through his bank clerkship.

Browning’s early career has been characterized by Ian Jack as a search for an appropriate poetic form, and his first published effort, Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833), proved in retrospect to be a false start. Browning’s next poetic production, Paracelsus (1835), achieved more critical regard and began to move toward the greater objectivity of the dramatic monologue form that Browning perfected over the next several years. Browning also wrote several plays intended for the stage, along with closet dramas; however, he was not suited to be a playwright. His chief theatrical patron, William Macready, was already becoming disillusioned by the plays’ lack of success and the poet’s persistent difficulties in creating theatrical plots.

Before that estrangement, however, the alliance between Browning and Macready had one salutary effect: it provided the occasion for Browning’s composition of “The Pied Piper.” In May 1842 Macready’s son Willie was sick in bed; Willie liked to draw and asked Browning to give him “some little thing to illustrate” while in confinement. The poet responded first with a short poem, “The Cardinal and the Dog,” and then, after being impressed with Willie’s drawings for it, with “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” The story of the Pied Piper was evidently well known in Browning’s home. The poet’s father began his own poem on the subject in 1842 for another young family friend, discontinuing his effort when he learned of his son’s poem. The primary source of the story was a 17th-century collection, Nathaniel Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World (1678). Browning claimed many years later that this was the sole source, but William Clyde DeVane notes that some significant details in Browning’s account, including an erroneous date for the event described, occur in an earlier work, Richard Verstegen’s Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities (1605), but not in Wanley.

Browning wrote relatively little during the marriage, in part because the family frequently moved and, because of Elizabeth’s frail health, he was usually busy making all the arrangements for housing and transportation. The Brownings had one child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, called “Pen,” born in 1849 (the same year Browning’s mother died). Both parents doted on the boy, and Robert Browning took particular responsibility for his son’s education—yet another diversion from poetic production. The poet who some years earlier had produced a major children’s poem to amuse the son of a friend made no similar creations for his own son, however, but continued to work on longer philosophical poems for an adult audience.

Browning became in his later years that curious phenomenon, the Victorian sage—widely regarded for his knowledge and his explorations of philosophical questions of great resonance in Victorian life. He witnessed the creation (by F.J. Furnivall in 1881) of the Browning Society, dedicated to the study of the poet’s work and thought. Just before his death in 1889, Browning finally published the other poem written for young Willie Macready, “The Cardinal and the Dog.” This 15-line poem, like “The Pied Piper,” originated in one of the legends recounted in Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World. It tells how Cardinal Crescenzio, a representative of the pope at the Council of Trent, was frightened by the apparition of a large black dog that only he could see, after which he became seriously ill; on his deathbed he again saw the dog. The poem has elicited little critical response and has seldom been anthologized; its interest today lies primarily in its role as a warm-up to “The Pied Piper.”

Anyone as widely adulated as Browning was during the later years of his life is bound to suffer a decline in critical valuation. Along with other Victorians, Browning was dismissed by influential figures among the modernists, including T.S. Eliot (although Ezra Pound paid tribute to Browning as one of his literary fathers). Following World War II, however, Browning’s reputation has been salvaged by a more objective generation of critics who note his poetic failings but also trace his influence on the poetic forms and concerns of his 20th-century successors. Through all the vicissitudes of critical reputation, however, Browning’s major contribution to the canon of children’s literature, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” has retained its popular audience.

At the time of his death in 1889, he was one of the most popular poets in England.

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work, and marry there. He became a British citizen in 1927 at the age of 39, subsequently renouncing his American citizenship.

Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1915, which was received as a modernist masterpiece. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including "The Waste Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and Four Quartets (1943). He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".

Eliot died of emphysema at his home in Kensington in London, on 4 January 1965, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were taken to St Michael and All Angels' Church, East Coker, the village in Somerset from which his Eliot ancestors had emigrated to America. A wall plaque in the church commemorates him with a quotation from his poem East Coker: "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."

In 1967, on the second anniversary of his death, Eliot was commemorated by the placement of a large stone in the floor of Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey. The stone, cut by designer Reynolds Stone, is inscribed with his life dates, his Order of Merit, and a quotation from his poem Little Gidding, "the communication / of the dead is tongued with fire beyond / the language of the living."

In 1986, a blue plaque was placed on the apartment block - No. 3 Kensington Court Gardens - where he lived and died.

John Milton’s career as a writer of prose and poetry spans three distinct eras: Stuart England; the Civil War (1642-1648) and Interregnum, including the Commonwealth (1649-1653) and Protectorate (1654-1660); and the Restoration. Milton’s chief polemical prose was written in the decades of the 1640s and 1650s, during the strife between the Church of England and various reformist groups such as the Puritans and between the monarch and Parliament. Designated the antiepiscopal or antiprelatical tracts and the antimonarchical or political tracts, these works advocate a freedom of conscience and a high degree of civil liberty for humankind against the various forms of tyranny and oppression, both ecclesiastical and governmental. In line with his libertarian outlook, Milton wrote Areopagitica (1644), often cited as one of the most compelling arguments on the freedom of the press. In March 1649 Milton was appointed secretary for foreign tongues to the Council of State. His service to the government, chiefly in the field of foreign policy, is documented by official correspondence, the Letters of State, first published in 1694. Milton vigorously defended Cromwell’s government in Eikonoklastes (1649), or Imagebreaker, which was a personal attack on Charles I likening him to William Shakespeare‘s duke of Gloucester (afterward Richard III), a consummate hypocrite. Up to the Restoration, Milton continued to write in defense of the Protectorate despite going blind by 1652. After Charles II was crowned, Milton was dismissed from governmental service, apprehended, and imprisoned. Payment of fines and the intercession of friends and family, including Andrew Marvell, Sir William Davenant, and perhaps Christopher Milton, his younger brother and a Royalist lawyer, brought about Milton’s release. In the troubled period at and after the Restoration he was forced to depart his home which he had occupied for eight years in Petty-France, Westminster. He took up residence elsewhere, including the house of a friend in Bartholomew Close; eventually, he settled in a home at Artillery Walk toward Bunhill Fields. On or about 8 November 1674, when he was almost sixty-six years old, Milton died of complications from gout.

Placing himself in a line of poets whose art was an outlet for their public voice and using, like them, the pastoral poem to present an outlook on politics, Milton aimed to promote an enlightened commonwealth, not unlike the polis of Greek antiquity or the cultured city-states in Renaissance Italy. In 1645 he published his first volume of poetry, Poems of Mr. John Milton , Both English and Latin, much of which was written before he was twenty years old. The volume manifests a rising poet, one who has planned his emergence and projected his development in numerous ways: mastery of ancient and modern languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Italian; awareness of various traditions in literature; and avowed inclination toward the vocation of poet. The poems in the 1645 edition run the gamut of various genres: psalm paraphrase, sonnet, canzone, masque, pastoral elegy, verse letter, English ode, epigram, obituary poem, companion poem, and occasional verse. Ranging from religious to political in subject matter, serious to mock-serious in tone, and traditional to innovative in the use of verse forms, the poems in this volume disclose a self-conscious author whose maturation is undertaken with certain models in mind, notably Virgil from classical antiquity and Edmund Spenser in the English Renaissance. When one considers that the 1645 volume was published when Milton was approximately thirty-seven years old, though some of the poems were written as early as his fifteenth year, it is evident that he sought to draw attention to his unfolding poetic career despite its interruption by governmental service. Perhaps he also sought to highlight the relationship of his poetry to his prose and to call attention to his aspiration, evident in several works in the 1645 volume, to become an epic poet. Thus, the poems in the volume were composed in Stuart England but published after the onset of the English Civil War. Furthermore, Milton may have begun to compose one or more of his mature works—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the 1640s, but they were completed and revised much later and not published until after the Restoration.

The English writer and Anglican cleric John Donne is considered now to be the preeminent metaphysical poet of his time. He was born in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents, when practicing that religion was illegal in England. His work is distinguished by its emotional and sonic intensity and its capacity to plumb the paradoxes of faith, human and divine love, and the possibility of salvation. Donne often employs conceits, or extended metaphors, to yoke together “heterogenous ideas,” in the words of Samuel Johnson, thus generating the powerful ambiguity for which his work is famous. After a resurgence in his popularity in the early 20th century, Donne’s standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured.

The history of Donne’s reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long. In Donne’s own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For some 30 years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the 18th century, and for much of the 19th century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. It was not until the end of the 1800s that Donne’s poetry was eagerly taken up by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His prose remained largely unnoticed until 1919.

In the first two decades of the 20th century Donne’s poetry was decisively rehabilitated. Its extraordinary appeal to modern readers throws light on the Modernist movement, as well as on our intuitive response to our own times. Donne may no longer be the cult figure he became in the 1920s and 1930s, when T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats, among others, discovered in his poetry the peculiar fusion of intellect and passion and the alert contemporariness which they aspired to in their own art. He is not a poet for all tastes and times; yet for many readers Donne remains what Ben Jonson judged him: “the first poet in the world in some things.” His poems continue to engage the attention and challenge the experience of readers who come to him afresh. His high place in the pantheon of the English poets now seems secure.

Donne’s love poetry was written nearly 400 years ago; yet one reason for its appeal is that it speaks to us as directly and urgently as if we overhear a present confidence.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46.

Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.

As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French while in Paris but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.

At the height of his fame and success, while The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with men. After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison, he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in 1905), a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On his release, he left immediately for France, and never returned to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath, who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932. Otto taught both German and biology, with a focus on apiology, the study of bees.

In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined Plath's relationships and her poems—most notably in her elegiac and infamous poem "Daddy."

Plath kept a journal from the age of eleven and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. Her first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950, just after graduating from high school.

In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1955.

After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.

Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957 and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England, where she gave birth to her children Frieda and Nicholas, in 1960 and 1962, respectively.

In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel.

In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. She died on February 11 of that year.

Plath’s poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement, and compared to the work of poets such as Lowell and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme.

John Keats was born in London on 31 October 1795, the eldest of Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats’s four children. Although he died at the age of twenty-five, Keats had perhaps the most remarkable career of any English poet. He published only fifty-four poems, in three slim volumes and a few magazines. But over his short development he took on the challenges of a wide range of poetic forms from the sonnet, to the Spenserian romance, to the Miltonic epic, defining anew their possibilities with his own distinctive fusion of earnest energy, control of conflicting perspectives and forces, poetic self-consciousness, and, occasionally, dry ironic wit.

Although he is now seen as part of the British Romantic literary tradition, in his own lifetime Keats would not have been associated with other major Romantic poets, and he himself was often uneasy among them. Outside his friend Leigh Hunt‘s circle of liberal intellectuals, the generally conservative reviewers of the day attacked his work as mawkish and bad-mannered, as the work of an upstart “vulgar Cockney poetaster” (John Gibson Lockhart), and as consisting of “the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language” (John Wilson Croker). Although Keats had a liberal education in the boy’s academy at Enfield and trained at Guy’s Hospital to become a surgeon, he had no formal literary education. Yet Keats today is seen as one of the canniest readers, interpreters, questioners, of the “modern” poetic project-which he saw as beginning with William Wordsworth—to create poetry in a world devoid of mythic grandeur, poetry that sought its wonder in the desires and sufferings of the human heart. Beyond his precise sense of the difficulties presented him in his own literary-historical moment, he developed with unparalleled rapidity, in a relative handful of extraordinary poems, a rich, powerful, and exactly controlled poetic style that ranks Keats, with the William Shakespeare of the sonnets, as one of the greatest lyric poets in English.

Blake was born on November 28, 1757. Unlike many well-known writers of his day, Blake was born into a family of moderate means. His father, James, was a hosier, and the family lived at 28 Broad Street in London in an unpretentious but “respectable” neighborhood. In all, seven children were born to James and Catherine Wright Blake, but only five survived infancy. Blake seems to have been closest to his youngest brother, Robert, who died young.

Poet, painter, engraver, and visionary William Blake worked to bring about a change both in the social order and in the minds of men. Though in his lifetime his work was largely neglected or dismissed, he is now considered one of the leading lights of English poetry, and his work has only grown in popularity. In his Life of William Blake (1863) Alexander Gilchrist warned his readers that Blake “neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work’y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself ‘a divine child,’ whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens and the earth.” Yet Blake himself believed that his writings were of national importance and that they could be understood by a majority of his peers. Far from being an isolated mystic, Blake lived and worked in the teeming metropolis of London at a time of great social and political change that profoundly influenced his writing. In addition to being considered one of the most visionary of English poets and one of the great progenitors of English Romanticism, his visual artwork is highly regarded around the world.

William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His birthday is most commonly celebrated on 23 April (see When was Shakespeare born), which is also believed to be the date he died in 1616.

Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre (sometimes called the English Renaissance or the Early Modern Period). Shakespeare’s plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but they are not all he wrote. Shakespeare’s poems also remain popular to this day.

Altogether Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems. No original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays are known to exist today. It is actually thanks to a group of actors from Shakespeare's company that we have about half of the plays at all. They collected them for publication after Shakespeare died, preserving the plays. These writings were brought together in what is known as the First Folio ('Folio' refers to the size of the paper used). It contained 36 of his plays, but none of his poetry.

Shakespeare’s legacy is as rich and diverse as his work; his plays have spawned countless adaptations across multiple genres and cultures. His plays have had an enduring presence on stage and film. His writings have been compiled in various iterations of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which include all of his plays, sonnets, and other poems. William Shakespeare continues to be one of the most important literary figures of the English language.

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English History

Famous Poets from England and Around the World

Famous english poets, other famous poets, robert southey: a rebellious and influential poet.

Robert Southey was born in 1774, the son of a wealthy wine merchant. He was expelled from Westminster School for editing a magazine entitled the Flagellant and then went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford. There he became friendly with S.T. Coleridge; together they established their Pantisocratic Society, which preached Utopian ideals of social […]

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet appointed by a government or monarch to receive formal recognition for their work. The position can be traced back to Ancient Greece, and the first English poet laureate was appointed in 1668. Over the years, the role of poet laureate has evolved, and today it often includes other responsibilities […]

Romanticism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and […]

Charlotte Brontë

Born: April 21, 1816, Thornton, England Died: March 31, 1855 (aged 38), Haworth, England Years Active: 1845—1855 Notable Works: Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853), The Professor (1857) Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) is one of the most famous Victorian women writers and poets. She was the eldest of the […]

Emily Brontë

Born: July 30, 1818, Thornton, England Died: December 19, 1848 (aged 30), Haworth, England Years Active: 1845—1848 Notable Works: Wuthering Heights (1847) Emily Jane Brontë (30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet and one of the most famous women writers from the 19th century. She is best known for […]

Anne Brontë

Born: January 17, 1820, Thornton, England Died: May 28, 1849 (aged 29), Scarborough, England Years Active: 1836—1849 Notable Works: Agnes Grey (1847), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet, best known for her two novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of […]

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English author and poet, most known for his The Canterbury Tales. He is widely considered one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages and has been called the “father of English literature”. Chaucer had a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, […]

John Dryden

Born: August 19, 1631, Northamptonshire, England Died: May 12, 1700 (aged 68), London, England Notable Works: “Absalom and Achitophel”, “Marriage à-la-Mode”, “Mac Flecknoe”, “The Indian Queen”, “The Conquest of Granada of the Spaniards”, “King Arthur”, “Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen”, “Annus Mirabilis”, “The Hind and the Panther”, “Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay” John Dryden […]

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Born: August 14, 1792, Sussex, England Died: July 8, 1822 (aged 29), Gulf of La Spezia, Kingdom of Sardinia (now Italy) Notable Works: “Ode to the West Wind, “Ozymandias”, “Music, To a Skylark”, “The Cloud”, “The Mask of Anarchy”, “When Soft Voices Die” Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 — 8 July 1822) was a […]

Born: c. June 11, 1572, Westminster, England Died: c. August 16, 1637 (aged 65), London, England Notable Works: Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair (Benjamin) Ben Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 — c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet, best known for his satirical plays […]

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(1788-1824)

Who Was Lord Byron?

Lord Byron was one of the leading figures of the Romantic Movement in early 19th century England. The notoriety of his sexual escapades is surpassed only by the beauty and brilliance of his writings. After leading an unconventional lifestyle and producing a massive amount of emotionally stirring literary works, Byron died at a young age in Greece pursuing romantic adventures of heroism.

Early Life & Early Poems

Born George Gordon Byron (he later added "Noel" to his name) on January 22, 1788, Lord Byron was the sixth Baron Byron of a rapidly fading aristocratic family. A clubfoot from birth left him self-conscious most of his life. As a boy, young George endured a father who abandoned him, a schizophrenic mother and a nurse who abused him. As a result he lacked discipline and a sense of moderation, traits he held on to his entire life.

In 1798, at age 10, George inherited the title of his great-uncle, William Byron, and was officially recognized as Lord Byron. Two years later, he attended Harrow School in London, where he experienced his first sexual encounters with males and females. In 1803, Byron fell deeply in love with his distant cousin, Mary Chaworth, and this unrequited passion found expression in several poems, including "Hills of Annesley" and "The Adieu."

From 1805 to 1808, Byron attended Trinity College intermittently, engaged in many sexual escapades and fell deep into debt. During this time, he found diversion from school and partying with boxing, horse riding and gambling. In June 1807, he formed an enduring friendship with John Cam Hobhouse and was initiated into liberal politics, joining the Cambridge Whig Club.

'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers'

After receiving a scathing review of his first volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness , in 1808, Byron retaliated with the satirical poem "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The poem attacked the literary community with wit and satire, and gained him his first literary recognition. Upon turning 21, Byron took his seat in the House of Lords. A year later, with John Hobhouse, he embarked on a grand tour through the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, visiting Portugal, Spain, Malta, Albania, Greece and Turkey.

'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

It was during his journey, filled with inspiration, he began writing "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a poem of a young man's reflections on travel in foreign lands.

Love Affairs & More Poems

In July 1811, Byron returned to London after the death of his mother, and in spite of all her failings, her passing plunged him into a deep mourning. High praise by London society pulled him out of his doldrums, as did a series of love affairs, first with the passionate and eccentric Lady Caroline Lamb, who described Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know," and then with Lady Oxford, who encouraged Byron's radicalism. Then, in the summer of 1813, Byron apparently entered into an intimate relationship with his half sister, Augusta, now married. The tumult and guilt he experienced as a result of these love affairs were reflected in a series of dark and repentant poems, "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos" and "The Corsair."

In April 1816, Byron left England, never to return. He traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, befriending Percy Bysshe Shelley , his wife Mary and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont. While in Geneva, Byron wrote the third canto to "Childe Harold," depicting his travels from Belgium up the Rhine to Switzerland. On a trip to the Bernese Oberland, Byron was inspired to write the Faustian poetic-drama Manfred . By the end of that summer the Shelleys departed for England, where Claire gave birth to Byron's daughter Allegra in January 1817.

In October 1816, Byron and John Hobhouse sailed for Italy. Along the way he continued his lustful ways with several women and portrayed these experiences in his greatest poem, "Don Juan." The poem was a witty and satirical change from the melancholy of "Childe Harold" and revealed other sides of Byron's personality. He would go on to write 16 cantos before his death and leave the poem unfinished.

By 1818, Byron's life of debauchery had aged him well beyond his 30 years. He then met 19-year-old Teresa Guiccioli, a married countess. The pair were immediately attracted to each other and carried on an unconsummated relationship until she separated from her husband. Byron soon won the admiration of Teresa's father, who had him initiated into the secret Carbonari society dedicated to freeing Italy from Austrian rule. Between 1821 and 1822, Byron edited the society's short-lived newspaper, The Liberal .

Last Heroic Adventure

In 1823 a restless Byron accepted an invitation to support Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. Byron spent 4,000 pounds of his own money to refit the Greek naval fleet and took personal command of a Greek unit of elite fighters. On February 15, 1824, he fell ill. Doctors bled him, which weakened his condition further and likely gave him an infection.

Byron died on April 19, 1824, at age 36. He was deeply mourned in England and became a hero in Greece. His body was brought back to England, but the clergy refused to bury him at Westminster Abbey, as was the custom for individuals of great stature. Instead, he was buried in the family vault near Newstead. In 1969, a memorial to Byron was finally placed on the floor of Westminster Abbey.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1788
• Birth date: January 22, 1788
• Birth City: London, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Lord Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and is best known for his amorous lifestyle and his brilliant use of the English language.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• Interesting Facts
• Byron fell deeply in love with his distant cousin and wrote the "Hills of Annesley" and "The Adieu" about his unrequited passion.
• Lord Byron had an affair with his half-sister Augusta.
• Lord Byron died at the young age of 36.
• Death Year: 1824
• Death date: April 19, 1824
• Death City: Messolonghi
• Death Country: Greece

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Lord Byron Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/lord-byron
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• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: June 22, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.
• Absence—that common cure of love.
• There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
• Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.
• If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

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Dante Alighieri

The author of La Commedia ( The Divine Comedy ), considered a masterwork of world literature, Dante Alighieri was born Durante Alighieri in Florence, Italy in 1265 to a notable family of modest means. His mother died when he was seven years old, and his father remarried, having two more children.

At twelve years old, Dante was betrothed to Gemma di Manetto Donati, though he had already fallen in love with another girl, Beatrice Portinari, whom he continued to write about throughout his life, though his interaction with her was limited. The love poems to Beatrice are collected in Dante’s La Vita Nuova , or The New Life .

In his youth, Dante studied many subjects, including Tuscan poetry, painting, and music. He encountered both the Occitan poetry of the troubadours and the Latin poetry of classical antiquity, including Homer and Virgil . He read Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae and Cicero’s De amicitia . By the age of eighteen, Dante had met the poets Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, Cino da Pistoia, and others. Along with Brunetto Latini, these poets became the leaders of Dolce Stil Novo (“The Sweet New Style”), in which personal and political passions were the purpose of poetry. Dante later turned his attention to philosophy, which the character of Beatrice criticizes in Purgatorio . He also became a pharmacist, and, in his twenties and thirties, took an active part in local public affairs.

Like most Florentines during his lifetime, Dante was affected by the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict, a political division of loyalty between the Holy Roman Emperor and the papacy. On June 11, 1289, he fought in the ranks at the battle of Campaldino on the side of the Guelphs, helping to bring forth a reformation of the Florentine constitution. After defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs themselves divided into two factions: the White Guelphs, Dante’s party, who were wary of the Pope’s political influence; and the Black Guelphs, who remained loyal to Rome. Initially, the Whites were in power and kicked the Blacks out of Florence, but Pope Boniface VIII planned a military occupation of the city. A delegation of Florentines, with Dante among them, was sent to Rome to ascertain the Pope’s intentions.

While he was in Rome, the Black Guelphs destroyed much of the city, and established a new government. Dante received word that his assets had been seized and that he was considered an absconder, having left the city. Condemned to perpetual exile, Dante never returned to his beloved Florence. An outcast, Dante wandered Italy for several years, beginning to outline La Commedia , his great work.

In 1315, the military officer controlling Florence granted an amnesty to Florentines in exile, but the city government insisted that returning expatriates were required to pay a large fine and do public penance. Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile. Six years later, Dante died on September 13, 1321 in Ravenna, Italy, most likely of malarial fever.

Unlike the epic poems of Homer and Virgil, which told the great stories of their people’s history, Dante’s The Divine Comedy is a somewhat autobiographical work, set at the time in which he lived, and peopled with contemporary figures. It follows Dante’s own allegorical journey through Hell ( Inferno ), Purgatory ( Purgatorio ), and Paradise ( Paradiso ). Guided at first by the character of Virgil, and later by his beloved Beatrice, Dante wrote of his own path to salvation, offering philosophical and moral judgments along the way.

Dante is credited with inventing terza rima , composed of tercets woven into a linked rhyme scheme, and chose to end each canto of the The Divine Comedy with a single line that completes the rhyme scheme with the end-word of the second line of the preceding tercet. The tripartite stanza likely symbolizes the Holy Trinity, and early enthusiasts of terza rima, including Italian poets Boccaccio and Petrarch , were particularly interested in the unifying effects of the form.

Also unlike the epic works that came before, The Divine Comedy was written in the vernacular Italian, instead of the more acceptable Latin or Greek. This allowed the work to be published to a much broader audience, contributing substantially to world literacy. Due to the monumental influence the work has had on countless artists, Dante is considered among the greatest writers to have lived. As the poet T. S. Eliot wrote, “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third.”

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Mary Oliver

Ai generator.

Introduction of Mary Oliver (1935–2019) :

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was a profoundly influential American poet whose work resonates with themes of nature, spirituality, and the profound beauty found in the everyday. Over the course of her prolific career spanning several decades, Oliver garnered numerous accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 for her collection “American Primitive.” Her poetry is celebrated for its clarity, accessibility, and deep reverence for the natural world, often drawing inspiration from her observations of flora and fauna in the New England landscapes she called home. Oliver’s lyrical verse, characterized by its meditative and contemplative quality, invites readers to reconnect with the wonders of nature and to contemplate the mysteries of existence with a sense of wonder and gratitude.

Famous Poems By Mary Oliver

1. The Summer Day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? …….

2. Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. ……

3. When Death Comes

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse …..

4. The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you …..

Have you ever seen anything in your life …..

Mary Oliver Biography

Early life and education.

Mary Oliver was born on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio. Growing up in a semi-rural suburb, she found solace in the natural world, which would later become a central theme in her poetry. Oliver attended Ohio State University and Vassar College but did not graduate from either institution. Instead, she chose to immerse herself in poetry and the natural landscapes that inspired her work.

Career and Achievements

Mary Oliver published her first collection, No Voyage and Other Poems, in 1963. Over the years, she became one of America’s best-loved poets, renowned for her clear, direct language and deep connection to nature. Her collection American Primitive won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984, and she received the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems in 1992.

Personal Life

Mary Oliver lived much of her life in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she continued to draw inspiration from the coastal landscape. She had a long-term partnership with photographer Molly Malone Cook, who was also her literary agent and the subject of some of her later work.

Mary Oliver passed away on January 17, 2019, leaving behind a legacy of profound and poignant poetry that continues to inspire readers around the world. Her work encourages a deep appreciation for the natural world and a contemplative approach to life’s fundamental questions.

Mary Oliver Books

Mary Oliver, a celebrated poet known for her deep connection to nature and insightful reflections on life, authored numerous books throughout her career. Some of her most notable works include American Primitive, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984, and New and Selected Poems, which earned the National Book Award in 1992. Other significant collections include House of Light, A Thousand Mornings, and Felicity. Oliver’s writings, characterized by their clear language and vivid imagery, continue to inspire readers to appreciate the beauty of the natural world and ponder the deeper aspects of existence.

List of Mary Oliver’s Notable Books:

• No Voyage and Other Poems (1963)
• American Primitive (1983)
• House of Light (1990)
• New and Selected Poems (1992)
• The Leaf and the Cloud (2000)

Mary Oliver Poems about Life

Mary Oliver’s poems about life beautifully capture the essence of existence, reflecting on the simple yet profound moments that make up our days. Her poem “The Summer Day” asks the reader, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This line encourages us to contemplate the fleeting nature of time and the importance of living fully and intentionally. Oliver’s clear, evocative language and vivid imagery invite us to pause and appreciate the small wonders around us, such as a grasshopper on a summer day or the intricate patterns of a leaf.

Another notable poem, “When Death Comes,” explores the inevitable end of life and the desire to embrace every moment. Oliver writes about living with curiosity and passion, wanting to step through life’s door “full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?” Her reflections remind us to live with a sense of wonder and to approach each day with an open heart. Oliver’s poetry serves as a gentle guide, urging us to find meaning and joy in our daily lives and to embrace the world with gratitude and awe.

Did Mary Oliver ever get married?

Mary Oliver never got married, but she had a long-term partnership with Molly Malone Cook, a photographer who was also her literary agent. Their relationship, spanning over four decades, was a significant and cherished part of Oliver’s life. Cook’s influence and support were deeply intertwined with Oliver’s work and personal happiness, making her a central figure in the poet’s life and career.

How did Mary Oliver Die

Mary Oliver passed away on January 17, 2019, at the age of 83, in her home in Hobe Sound, Florida. The cause of death was lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. Despite her battle with the illness, Oliver’s work continued to inspire and resonate with readers worldwide, leaving a lasting legacy in the world of poetry.

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