The Development of

English Poetry in English

Literature
STBA LIA Yogyakarta
2020
 Major Eras of British/American
Poetry
• Anglo-Saxon Poetry
• Middle English
Poetry
• Elizabethan
• Romantic
• Victorian
• Modernist
• Post-Modernist
 The Earliest English Poetry
• Old English English (Anglo-Saxon Poetry)

As we know it, English descends from the language spoken

by the north Germanic tribes who settled in England from
the 5th century A.D. onwards.
They had no writing (except runes, used as charms) until
they learned the Latin alphabet from Roman missionaries.
The earliest written works in Old English (as their language is
now known to scholars) were probably composed orally at
first, and may have been passed on from speaker to
speaker before being written.
We know the names of some of the later writers (Cædmon,
Ælfric and King Alfred) but most writing is anonymous. Old
English literature is mostly chronicle and poetry - lyric,
descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic.
 Some significant works
• Beowulf
• Bede
• The Wanderer
• The Wife’s Lament
 Facts
• Originally oral, not written
• Employs alliteration (repetition of
initial consonant sounds)
• Employs kennings (descriptive,
metaphorical phrases of 2-4 words)
Beowulf
The Poetry in Beowulf
1. Alliterative verse
a.Repetition of initial sounds
of words (occurs in
b. every line) four feet/beats per
Generally,
line
c. A caesura, or pause,
between beats
two
d. Noand four
rhyme
The Poetry in Beowulf
A few things to watch
out for
Alliterative verse – an example
from Beowulf:
Oft Scyld Scefing sceapena
praetum,
Monegum maegpum meodo-setla
ofteah;
Egsode Eorle, syddan aerest
weard.
The Poetry in Beowulf
2. Kennings
a. Compound metaphor (usually
two words)
b. Most were probably used over
and over
For instance:
hronade literally
means “whale-
road,” but can be
translated as
More Kennings
Other kennings from Beowulf:
“bone-house” = body

“gold-friend of men” = generous

prince
“ring-giver” = lord
“flashing light” = sword
epic
Beowulf is an epic
poem.
This means it has a
larger-than life hero
and the conflict is of
universal
importance. There’s
a certain serious
 Middle English Period
• With the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1066, French is spoken more
and it became the standard language. The new aristocracy spoke French, and this
became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the
invaders integrated, their language and that of the natives mingled: the French
dialect of the upper classes became Anglo-Norman, and Anglo-Saxon underwent a
gradual transition into Middle English.

• While Anglo-Norman was thus preferred for high culture, English literature by no
means died out, and a number of important works illustrate the development of the
language. Around the turn of the thirteenth century, 

• Layamon wrote his Brut, based on Wace's twelfth century Anglo-Norman epic of the
same name; Layamon's language is recognisably Middle English, though his prosody
shows a strong Anglo-Saxon influence remaining. Other transitional works were
preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics.
With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French
and Latin in Parliament and courts of law.
 Significant Works
In the fourteenth century that major works of English literature began
once again to appear;

These include the so-called Pearl Poet's Pearl, Patience, Cleanness,

and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Langland's political and
religious allegory Piers Plowman; Gower's Confessio Amantis; and, of
course, the works of Chaucer, the most highly regarded English poet
of the middle ages, who was seen by his contemporaries as a
successor to the great tradition of Virgil and Dante.

The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis
Quair by James I of Scotland. The main poets of this Scottish group
were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. Henryson
and Douglas introduced a note of almost savage satire, which may
have owed something to the Gaelic bards, while Douglas' version of
Virgil's Aeneid is one of the early monuments of Renaissance literary
humanism in English.

Some of Chaucer's work is prose and some is lyric poetry, but his
greatest work is mostly narrative poetry, which we find in Troilus and
Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales.
The Renaissance in England
It started around 1509. The English Renaissance extended until the
Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared
the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this
start date. A number of medieval poets had, as already noted,
shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle and the writings of
European Renaissance precursors such as Dante. Dante’s most
famous work was Divine Comedy.

Early Renaissance Period

With a small number of exceptions, the early years of the 16th

century are not particularly notable.
The Douglas Aeneid was completed in 1513 and John Skelton wrote
poems that were transitional between the late Medieval and
Renaissance styles.
The new king, Henry VIII, was something of a poet himself. The most
significant English poet of this period was Thomas Wyatt, who was
among the first poets to write sonnets in English.
 Poets and Significant Works
Modern lyric poetry in English begins in the early 16th century
with the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). (Tudor Lyric Poetry)
Wyatt, who is greatly influenced by the Italian, Francesco
Petrarca (Petrarch) introduces the sonnet and a range of
short lyrics to English,
Surrey (as he is known) develops unrhymed pentameters (or
blank verse) thus inventing the verse form which will be of
great use to contemporary dramatists.
A flowering of lyric poetry in the reign of Elizabeth comes with
such writers as Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Edmund
Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618),
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) and William Shakespeare
(1564-1616). The major works of the time are Spenser's
Faerie Queene, Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and
Shakespeare's sonnets.
 Blank Verse
Blank verse is a literary device defined as un-rhyming verse written in iambic 
pentameter. In poetry and prose, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in
each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed
ones and five of which are stressed but do not rhyme. It is also known as un-
rhymed iambic pentameter.

• Example #2
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must…..
(Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

Hamlet is a perfect example of a typical blank verse. It is written in iambic

pentameter. Shakespeare employed the deliberate effort to use the syllables in
a particular way. Shakespeare brought variation by using caesuras (pause) in
the middle of the line, as in the third line. Shakespeare has other literary pieces
that are also good sources of blank verse examples.
 1558-1603

ELIZABETHAN PERIOD
Elizabethan Age
• The reign of Elizabeth I was also a
turbulent period, but she successfully
coped with all the difficulties.
• England was threatened by the
superpowers of the age – France and
Spain. Elizabeth was excommunicated
by the Pope in 1570. She was in
constant fear for her life.
• Nevertheless, English ships beat the
Spanish Armada in 1588. Elizabeth
managed to maintain a relative peace
between the protestants and the
Catholics. She tried to unite her
people, instilling a sense of national
pride.
The Best Elizabethan Poetry
• At the time, the writing of poetry was part of the
education of a gentleman. Sonnets were very
popular among the upper classes, and collections
of sonnets and lyrics were often published.
Aristocrats who did not write poetry themselves
were usually patrons to other poets, giving them
financial support.
Shakespea • W. Shakespeare was
one of these poets
re • Collection of sonnets
(1609) is dedicated to
his patron
• Scholars are not certain
when each of the 154
sonnets was composed,
but evidence suggests
that Shakespeare wrote
sonnets throughout his
career for a private
readership.
• Metaphysical Poetry
The greatest of Elizabethan lyric poets is
John Donne (1572-1631), whose short
love poems are characterized by wit
and irony, as he seeks to wrest
meaning from experience. The
preoccupation with the big questions
of love, death and religious faith marks
out Donne and his successors who are
often called metaphysical poets.
• Epic Poetry
Long narrative poems on heroic subjects mark the best work of classical
Greek (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey) and Roman (Virgil's Æneid) poetry.

John Milton (1608-1674) who was Cromwell's secretary, set out to write a
great biblical epic, unsure whether to write in Latin or English, but settling
for the latter in Paradise Lost.

John Dryden (1631-1700) also wrote epic poetry, on classical and biblical
subjects. Though Dryden's work is little read today it leads to a comic
parody of the epic form, or mock-heroic.

The best poetry of the mid 18th century is the comic 2 writing of Alexander
Pope (1688-1744). Pope is the best-regarded comic writer and satirist of
English poetry.

Among his many masterpieces, one of the more accessible is The Rape of
the Lock (seekers of sensation should note that “rape” here has its archaic
sense of “removal by force”; the “lock” is a curl of the heroine's hair).

Serious poetry of the period is well represented by the neo-classical

Thomas Gray (1716-1771) whose Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
virtually perfects the elegant style favored at the time.
 The Restoration and 18th
Century
On the death of Oliver Cromwell (in 1658) plays were no
longer prohibited.
A new kind of comic drama, dealing with issues of sexual
politics among the wealthy and the bourgeois, arose.
This is Restoration Comedy, and the style developed
well beyond the restoration period into the mid 18th
century almost.
The total number of plays performed is vast, and many
lack real merit, but the best drama uses the restoration
conventions for a serious examination of contemporary
morality. A play which exemplifies this well is The
Country Wife by William Wycherley (1640-1716).
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), wrote satires in
verse and prose. He is best-known for the
extended prose work Gulliver's Travels, in
which a fantastic account of a series of travels
is the vehicle for satirizing familiar English
institutions, such as religion, politics and law.
Another writer who uses prose fiction, this time
much more naturalistic, to explore other
questions of politics or economics is Daniel
Defoe (1661-1731), author of Robinson
Crusoe and Moll Flanders
What Is Romanticism?
• Use creative imagination

• Focus on nature 

• Importance of myth and symbolism

• Focus on feelings and intuition

• Freedom and spontaneity 

• Simple language 

• Personal experience, democracy and liberty

• Fascination with past
Revolt Against Neoclassicism
Neoclassic 
Trends
• Stressed reason and 
judgment 
• Valued society
• Followed authority Romantic Trends
• Maintained the  • Stressed imagination 
aristocracy and emotion
• Interested in science  • Valued individuals 
and technology • Strove for freedom
• Represented common 
people
• Interested in 
supernatural
Poets of the Romantic Era
• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• George Gordon, Lord 
Byron 
Blake Coleridge
• John Keats Wordsworth
• Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley
Keats
Byron
William Wordsworth 1770-1850

• Born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, 
England
• Mother died 1778
• Attended St. John’s College, Cambridge
• Had affair with Annette Vallon
• “Vaudracour and Julia” for lover and 
daughter
• Married Mary Hutchinson
• Five children
• Lived with sister Dorothy
• Brother John died at sea
• Lost friendship with Coleridge
• Two children died
• Granted honorary Doctor of Civil Law 
degrees
The Victorian Age (1832-
1901)
• Queen Victoria 1837-1901
• 1. Full of conflicts and
tensions
• Anxiety in Arnold’s
poetry→a strong sense of
loss.
• Existential concerns
• Tennyson→relies on
religion→the last Christian
Poet in English literary
history
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Alfred Tennyson was born
August 6th, 1809, at
Somersby, Lincolnshire:
– Parents: George and Elizabeth (Fytche)
Tennyson.
• fourth of twelve children
• Grandfather made his
younger uncle heir and
skipped over Tennyson’s
father
• Lifelong fear of mental
illness
• 1827 Tennyson he followed
his two older brothers to
Trinity College, Cambridge
• 1829 - The Apostles
– an undergraduate club
– Remained Tennyson's friends all his life
–
 Lewis Carrol
(27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898)
• Real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

• Wrote under pseudonym Lewis Carroll

• Author, mathematician, logician, photographer,

and Anglican deacon.

• Most famous writings are

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poem
"Jabberwocky",

• all examples of the genre of literary nonsense.

• Noted for his facility at word play, logic, and

fantasy,
 Carroll’s Alice Through
the Looking Glass

• the author's mathematical forays into

the realm of symbolic logic make his
work a natural precursor to modernism.
• His interest in the possibilities of
language look forward to Joyce
• His fascination with sign systems in the
Alice books makes him a forerunner to
contemporary approaches to the field of
semiotics (the study of meaning)
 Themes
• Tennyson is sceptical
about man's capacity to
have and keep faith:
– the destruction of an ideal
when men do not keep
faith:
• "The Passing of Arthur,“
– makes it quite clear how the
Round Table failed
– offers some cause for hope:
» presents the trials,
triumphs, and conversion
of the ordinary man:
» Sir Bedivere.
American Poetry during the
Victorian Age
*Victorian era applies
mostly to British writing
at the time
*Also known as Post-
Colonial
*While authors such as
Whitman and Dickenson
are writing, they have
little acclaim outside of
U.S.
 Edgar Allen Poe

• Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19,

1809
• Married cousin while editor in Richmond, VA
• Invented horror writing and detective fiction
• Precursor of “art for art’s sake” movement
• One of first American fiction authors to gain
worldwide acclaim
 Modern Poetry
• In modernism, we see
poets breaking the rules
of gentlemanly
Elizabethan poetry, and
forming new definitions
of what makes a poem
interesting. No longer
did poetry have to follow
rules about rhythm,
rhyme, and meter.
Poetry from this era
ranges from small
poems about an image
(see E.E. Cummings), to
long, sprawling epics
 T.S. Eliot: 1888-1965
• Was extremely studious- he studied in Harvard AND
the Sorbonne in Paris!
• Pioneer of “high modernism” (a.k.a. hard-to-
understand poetry)
• His poetry usually has a depressing tone.
• Liked to use Italian, Greek, Russian, French, and
German in his poems- because he spoke nearly all of
them!
 Langston
Hughes
• 1902-1967
• Is considered a
“Harlem
Renaissance” Poet-
he was an African
American that was
one of the first of
his race to be a
published and
respected poet.
• His poetry has
been set to jazz
music
Naomi Shihab Nye
• Contemporary poet
(still alive today)
• Literature Professor at
University of Texas
• Writes simple poetry
which documents the
day-to-day life of
modern America