DEVELOPMENT OF POETRY

(Children and Adolescent Literature)

Poetry starts with oral stories. Story tellers travelled from place to place in order to recite Legends and Tales.
Most likely, stanzaic verse, began as a series of conscious pauses by the oral story tellers during their recitations.
Why the pauses? The narrator had to catch their breath and summon the next part of the tale.

1. ANCIENT POETRY (5000 B.C. to 400 A.D)

Many ancient cultures composed poetry. Both Ancient Greeks and Romans wrote epic poems. The Greek Epics
“The Iliad and the Odyssey” were written about 700 B.C. The ancient Hebrews wrote the lyrical poems that we
know as the Psalms and Songs of Solomon.
Major Poets: Homer, Virgil, King David, Ovid, Catullus and Juvenal.

2. MEDIEVAL POETRY (400- 1500 A.D.)

 In Europe, Epic poems such as “Beowulf”, were written until about 1000 A.D. When Lyrical Poetry began
to flourish and troubadours performed at court. Much of this poetry reflects the centrality of the church in
European life.
 Religious and written by clerics.
 Mostly used in church and religious events.
 Read by troubadours and minstrels.
 International than local.
 Latin was the most common and adopted language of the medieval period.

Examples:
 Carmina Burana a collection of 2534 poems and dramatic texts.
 Cambridge Songs
 The Songs of Roland
 Beowulf
 The Canterbury Tales.
Note: Medieval Songs were usually poems turned into songs.

Major Poets: Dane and Chaucer

3. RENAISSANCE POETRY (1460-1650)

 Europe experienced outstanding cultural achievement during this period and poetry flourished. New forms
were developed and poets began to write on their native languages instead of the more formal Latin.
 Poetry become one of the most valued forms of literature and was often accompanied by Music.
 Poetic forms commonly employed during this period were the lyric, tragedy and elegy or pastoral.
 The goal of each poet is to capture the essence of beauty in the modern world.
 To encapsulate beauty and truth in words.
 English poetry of the period is ostentatious, repetitious and often betrayed subtle wit.
 The development of poetry and drama are significant to the era as they added a new form of entertainment
and source of information to all of the classes.

Example:
Paradise Lost (John Milton)

Major Poets: Edmund Spencer, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Richard Lovelace, William Shakespeare, John
Milton.

4. NEOCLASSICAL POETRY (1660-1800)

 The poets of this period tried to recapture the ideals of Classicism in ancients. They translated many
of the classics and used elegant language in their own works.
  The rebirth and restoration of Classicism.
 A type of poetry which follows the pattern of poetry authored by the poets of the ancient times.

Characteristics of Neoclassical Poetry:

 Rationalism. Reason and intellect are dominant elements. Disregarding imaginations, emotions and
feelings while doing a poetry. Poetry is a unique outcome of intellect than fancy and imagination.
 Scholar Allusions. Using of indirect statement when referring into something.
 Didacticism. Designed or intended to teach people something. Endeavoured hard to fix the teething
troubles of humanity.
 Realism. Presented the true picture of the society.
 Adherence to classical rules.
 Heroic couplet.
 No passionate lyricism.
 Objectivity. Less of the poet’s lives and more of other people lives.
 Poetic Diction. Restrained, concrete and rigid.

Major Poets: John Dryden and Alexander Pope.

5. ROMANTIC PERIOD ( 1798-1850)

The poet of this period, to quote William Wordsworth, viewed poetry as the spontaneous overflow of
powerful emotions. They wrote about things they actually experienced using simple language, focusing on
everyday subjects (particularly the nature) and stressing the expression of personal emotions. They were
influenced by Charles Darwin’s work and expressed doubt about traditional religious values.

 Entirely the result of sentiments of the poet.

 Sentiments play a role in writing a poetry.
 Romantic poets loved to compose poetry for the sake of poetry.
 Romantic poets are escapist who turned their back to the harsh realities of life and tried to escape from
with them by the used of imaginations.
 Popular for lyrical quality.
 Subjective.
 The diction is flexible and easy to use.
 An emphasis is on the emotional and imaginative spontaneity.
 The importance of self-expression.
 An almost religious response to nature.

Major Poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy
Bysshe Shelle.

6. MODERN POETRY(1850- PRESENT)

In the midth 19th century, French symbolist, reacting to realistic and naturalistic poetic styles, wrote poems,
emphasized the importance of the sound of the verse creating music through words. Their poetry was
intense, complex and full of symbolic imagery. They had influenced on later poets who began to use varied
rhythms of everyday speech to make poetry more like a spoken language.

20th century English Poetry Characteristics:

 Diverse variety of themes. Any subjects.

 Realism. It tears the veil which romanticism badly hug.
 Love. The most common subject of modern poetry.
 Pessimism and disillusionment. Tragedy and suffering of a man.
 Romantic elements.
 Nature. Nature is not a mystic or doesn’t find a spiritual meaning in nature.hr feels jolly at the sight
of nature’s loveliness.
 Humanitarian and democratic note. Man and his sufferings.
 Religion and mysticism. Even in the modern age, religion and mysticism are also a good subject
for s modern poetry.
  Diction and style. Simple and direct emotion, free from the use of meter and verse rhythm replaced
by sense rhythm.

Major Poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, T.S Eliot, Dylan Thomas,
Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes.

REFERENCE:

 https://prezi.com
 www.google.com
 www.medievalchronicles.com
 en.m.wikipedia.org
 www.webexhibits.org
 credoreference.libguides.com
 www.timetoast.com
 www.preceden.com
 www.thehypertexts.com

Prepared by:
Lorie Ann C. Montes
Phillip M. Balmes
(BSED- ENGLISH2A)