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**THREAD: A HISTORY OF POETRY**
As an ongoing mini project I’m going to tweet the major literary milestones I encounter in this history of poetry so that by the end we have a THREAD that, at least according to Carey, covers a history of poetry from Gilgamesh to Heaney.
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As an ongoing mini project I’m going to tweet the major literary milestones I encounter in this history of poetry so that by the end we have a THREAD that, at least according to Carey, covers a history of poetry from Gilgamesh to Heaney.
/1
GILGAMESH
Composed nearly 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia and preserved on clay tablet. One of the earliest (if not THE earliest) epic
Engages with ideas such as love/tyranny/heroes and Gods/death
Introduces so many of the poetic ideas that will find future expression
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Composed nearly 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia and preserved on clay tablet. One of the earliest (if not THE earliest) epic
Engages with ideas such as love/tyranny/heroes and Gods/death
Introduces so many of the poetic ideas that will find future expression
/2
HOMER
700BC — Iliad and Odyssey. ‘Homer was uncannily attuned to humanity’s collective unconscious’. The poetry privileges ‘simplicity, speed and directness of narrative’.
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700BC — Iliad and Odyssey. ‘Homer was uncannily attuned to humanity’s collective unconscious’. The poetry privileges ‘simplicity, speed and directness of narrative’.
/3
SAPPHO
630 to 570 BC. Referred to as The Poetess. ‘Her poetry is clear, sensuous and passionate’. Most notable is Fragment 31, ‘the first description of the symptoms of passionate love by a woman in Western Literature’.
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630 to 570 BC. Referred to as The Poetess. ‘Her poetry is clear, sensuous and passionate’. Most notable is Fragment 31, ‘the first description of the symptoms of passionate love by a woman in Western Literature’.
/4
VIRGIL
70 to 19 BC. Effectively Augustus’ poet propagandist and his most famous poem, the epic Aeneid, was written to glorify Augustus and legitimise his dynasty.
/5
70 to 19 BC. Effectively Augustus’ poet propagandist and his most famous poem, the epic Aeneid, was written to glorify Augustus and legitimise his dynasty.
/5
HORACE
65 to 8 BC. Again lavishes praise on Augustus. Mostly remembered for his Odes, consisting of over 100 short lyric poems. ‘I have built a monument more permanent than bronze’ (Odes 3.30)
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65 to 8 BC. Again lavishes praise on Augustus. Mostly remembered for his Odes, consisting of over 100 short lyric poems. ‘I have built a monument more permanent than bronze’ (Odes 3.30)
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OVID
48 BC to 17 AD. Famous for Metamorphosis, a collection of tales united by their exploration of love and the fact they all contain an act of transformation from one thing to another, whether Gods to animals or animals to humans.
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48 BC to 17 AD. Famous for Metamorphosis, a collection of tales united by their exploration of love and the fact they all contain an act of transformation from one thing to another, whether Gods to animals or animals to humans.
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CATULLUS
84 to 54BC. His Carmina consists of 116 short poems mostly about a real life love affair with ‘Lesbia’ whose real name was Clodia.
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84 to 54BC. His Carmina consists of 116 short poems mostly about a real life love affair with ‘Lesbia’ whose real name was Clodia.
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JUVENAL
55 to 138AD. The great satirist whose works, what remains, constitute a scathing attack on Roman society.
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55 to 138AD. The great satirist whose works, what remains, constitute a scathing attack on Roman society.
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BEOWULF
700AD. 3000 lines and survives in a single manuscript written 200 years later. Exploration of the heroic code as well as registering the shift to a Christian society. Registers too a sense of a time passing.
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700AD. 3000 lines and survives in a single manuscript written 200 years later. Exploration of the heroic code as well as registering the shift to a Christian society. Registers too a sense of a time passing.
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THE SEAFARER, THE WANDERER, DREAM OF THE ROOD, THE RUIN
All tell of a sense of things being lost, an age passing by not to return, and register a certain unease with the shift from one to another.
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All tell of a sense of things being lost, an age passing by not to return, and register a certain unease with the shift from one to another.
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RIDDLE POEMS
Anglo Saxon poems, over a hundred of them all in the same manuscript, where the reader is expected to guess who the speaker is, for example an object or animal. This kind of playful imagination anticipates much of Chaucer.
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Anglo Saxon poems, over a hundred of them all in the same manuscript, where the reader is expected to guess who the speaker is, for example an object or animal. This kind of playful imagination anticipates much of Chaucer.
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DANTE
1265 to 1321. Most famous work is Divine Comedy (1320), which depicts brutally graphic instances of torment and suffering, including of those Dante disliked in real life!
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1265 to 1321. Most famous work is Divine Comedy (1320), which depicts brutally graphic instances of torment and suffering, including of those Dante disliked in real life!
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PETRARCH
1304 to 1374. Wrote 366 love poems, now known as the Songbook, to a woman he named Laura. The poems ‘validate human love as a subject for serious poetry’.
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1304 to 1374. Wrote 366 love poems, now known as the Songbook, to a woman he named Laura. The poems ‘validate human love as a subject for serious poetry’.
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VILLON
1430 to 1462. Wrote 20 poems that, atypically, dealt with speakers such as criminals, hawkers, lamplighters as well as topics such as poverty, sex, crime, drinking. Explores transience throughout: ‘where are the snows of yesteryear’.
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1430 to 1462. Wrote 20 poems that, atypically, dealt with speakers such as criminals, hawkers, lamplighters as well as topics such as poverty, sex, crime, drinking. Explores transience throughout: ‘where are the snows of yesteryear’.
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CHAUCER
1343 to 1400. The ‘epoch making’ Canterbury Tales explores medieval society and now different aspects of it interact and intersect, creating characters like the Wife of Bath never seen before.
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1343 to 1400. The ‘epoch making’ Canterbury Tales explores medieval society and now different aspects of it interact and intersect, creating characters like the Wife of Bath never seen before.
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GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
A poem exploring Arthurian legend in which Gawain accepts the rather unique challenge of a green giant, complete with startling description and moral lessons about medieval manners.
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A poem exploring Arthurian legend in which Gawain accepts the rather unique challenge of a green giant, complete with startling description and moral lessons about medieval manners.
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HAFEZ
1315 to 1390, the great Persian poet. His short poems, called ghazals, ‘express the ecstasy of divine inspiration’.
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1315 to 1390, the great Persian poet. His short poems, called ghazals, ‘express the ecstasy of divine inspiration’.
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WILLIAM LANGLAND
Piers Plowman (1370s) is an explicitly political and social poem, something different to the moralising Gawain. It explores poverty and divisions between rich and poor via an allegorical mode.
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Piers Plowman (1370s) is an explicitly political and social poem, something different to the moralising Gawain. It explores poverty and divisions between rich and poor via an allegorical mode.
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