History of English Poetry

Like all other literature of the world, English literature began with poetry. It started back in the fifth century. It is believed that the earliest poems in English were written long ago the time known as the Anglo-Saxon period. and discuss on the brief history of English poetry . In those days there was no printing press and no system of keeping records. As a result, it is impossible now to trace out who the first poet was. The earliest English poems so far found are anonymous. Among those poems the best known is "Beowulf", which is considered as the first epic in English. Some of the other anonymous poems of the period are " Widsith", "Deor's Lament", " The Seafarer", "The Husband's Message", and " The Wanderer". 

The common subjects of these poems are either religious faith or heroic deeds. Some of the poems are written on pagan myths and the rest are on the subjects taken from the Bible. The heroic stories are mostly based on the Germanic folklore. These poems are written in alliterative old English which is not used in our time. The lines of these poems are generally long and unrhymed.In the beginning of the seventeenth century, a new school of poetry started surfacing in reaction to the Elizabethan poetic convention. This kind of poetry is known as the Metaphysical School of Poetry. It emerged in the periods known as Jacobean Age and Caro-line Age. The metaphysical poetry deals with philosophical ideas. In dealing with abstract ideas or concepts, metaphysical poetry uses logic as it is done in philosophy. It mainly deals with the concept of love, faith, soul, death and God, which do not have concrete existence. 

It profusely uses logical arguments instead of only emotion or passion. Even in using passion, metaphysical poets used arguments. In addition, these poets used wit and conceits very frequently in their poems, with the effect of surprise and stun. They preferred conversational tone to the formal one, and they often ignored the formal use of metres and rhymes. The major poets of this school of poetry were Donne, Andrew Marvel, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Richard Crashaw.With the beginning of the First World War in 1914, another trend became obvious. It continued till 1939 when the Second World War began. The First World War caused massive destruction to the European belief, tradition and values. 

After the War, the capacity of Christianity and traditional values was questioned as they utterly failed to uphold peace. old, established rules. A visible change in the selection of subject, form and style became evident. Literary experiments and movements marked the age. Symbolism, imagism, exis-tentialism, expressionism, surrealism, stream of consciousness theory and psycho-analysis, were some of the new trends that gave shape to the literature of this period. Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas and W. H. Auden were the leading poets of this age. The poets of modern period ignored everything that was mechanical and conventional. As much as possible, they tried to go near to real life. They neglected all set rules of metres, stanza forms or genres. As a result mod-ern poetry is almost formless just like modern paintings.