Greatest Poets of All Time
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. I love how he made so many inspiring poems and how it was a calming thing for him to do. I wrote a paper about him, and it was fun to research all about the famous poet William Shakespeare.
He is the most successful poet I have ever loved and read about. He is, of course, the best.
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American... read more I literally laughed out loud when I saw Tupac on this list - let alone being at number one! Edgar Allan Poe's style may be too much for some people to comprehend, but if you can understand it, the reward is amazing. He must have put a ton of effort into getting you to sympathize with his characters. He never asked you to feel any sympathy. You just did.
Very sadly underrated. An outstanding poet of great fascination and great poetry.
He is so underrated. His poems are dark, mysterious, and so interesting.
Persian poetry rules impose horrendously difficult constraints on the Persian poet. Yet, Sa'di and other Persian poets manage to overcome them. He, Hafez, Mowlavi (AKA Rumi in the West), and a few others so masterfully overcome these constraints in the most magnificent way that Shakespeare himself would have bowed to their talent and thoughts, just as Goethe did with respect to Hafez.
By the way, I'm amazed that Hafez is not in the top ten of this list! It is such a pity that so much is lost in translation of these poets' and thinkers' writings into other languages. Only then could one realize the extent of their mastery over their language and what amazing thinkers they were, given how long before the Western poets on this list they lived. Only then could one make a fair comparison of poets from different mother tongues and different eras.
Maya Angelou has reached inside of me from a very young age. Her poems aren't a random mass of words. Instead, they are art with a purpose. I hope everyone has a chance to read one of her poems.
You can sense her strength and passion in her poems. Definitely a source of inspiration and motivation!
William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). Arguably the best poet that came out of the Romantic Era. Tintern Abbey is fantastic. If you haven't read it, please stop what you're doing and enjoy a masterpiece.
A true poetry composer. He deserves to be in the top three on here.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet . Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts .Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation .
While Dickinson was a prolific... read more
Emily Dickinson is AMAZING. Not only was she completely unknown during her time and published posthumously, but her poetry resonates deeper than anything I've ever read. While some poems (these are in Life) talk about the angels and heaven, others explore emotional insecurity and fear of society and the outside world. READ EMILY DICKINSON!
I really admire Emily Dickinson. She is one of the greatest poets. I love her poems. She is a true genius.
She is, without a doubt, the most insightful poet ever!
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri... read more
Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante (c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. Dante should be considered the best poet in the world. He is definitely the greatest poet of all Italy. T. S. Eliot called him second only to Shakespeare. Although he is not recognized today as a huge poet, his writings are still heavily studied and used by scholars. His poems have flourished for eight hundred years - longer than those of Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer.
They were all moderately influenced by Dante, the influencer of the greatest poets. He was the Florentine who was exiled in one of the most brutal times in Florentine history and the poet who exposed the wrongs of humanity and the beauty of Paradise. He wrote in new ways and challenged the meaning of love and what people will do to find it.
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was one of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the 20th century, he was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
Ferdowsi was as great or even greater than Homer. The sad fact is that even if you translate his Shahnameh, you might get the stories and epics right, but the beauty and music of the words and poetry will be lost. This is true of all Persian poets like Saadi and Hafez.
Ferdowsi is a poet with an epic story called Shahnameh, which is superior to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It's such a pity that such great poets are unknown just because they are not European.
He saved the Persian language. Otherwise, the Iranians would speak Arabic like Egyptians who became Arabized.
The Newcomers
Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, is an American rapper, actor and music producer born on October 17, 1972 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Eminem has sold over 300 million records making him the bestselling hip-hop artist of all time. In addition to his solo career, he is a member of D12 and (with Royce... read more I love Slim Shady. He is THE real Slim Shady.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616), was a Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists.
The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their alleged author. In my mind, he is the greatest poet of all time, not only because of the rhythm of every line and the hexameter that he so skillfully uses, but also because of when it was written in history. He created his masterpiece in the Greek Dark Ages, an age when no one, not even the poets, knew how to write or read. This implies not only that Homer had to memorize the whole thing but that he had to compose it in his head.
Another thing is that he had to compose in Greek, which is a much more complex language than, let's say, English. He wasn't only a poet but a genius. Oh, and did I mention he was blind?
Rumi, one of the best poets of all time, brings the definition of LOVE as the best remedy for humans to reach the highest level of security, happiness, and cure.
He is "LOVE," and that's the only truth in this life! There has never been any poet like him at any time! He is by far the best! He is the "REAL DEAL"!
He is a great Persian poet and one of the greatest in the world. His poems move both your heart and your mind.
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in... read more Men that see are blind. Blind men do see.
On His Blindness is a masterpiece.
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death. I really admire John Keats. He is a true genius.
One of the greatest minds of his time, way ahead of his era, his beautiful work has been translated into almost all languages. HAFEZ, the famous lyric poet of Persia in the fourteenth century, is sometimes called the Persian Anacreon.
His love poems in the Persian language are exceptional. No one could bring love into literature like him.
He has the most complete poems in history. He teaches you the best thinking style.
Rabindranath Tagore FRAS, also written Ravīndranātha Thākura, sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rabindranath, the poet of poets, can't be described! If you don't go through his scintillating works, you will never be able to understand and realize him. His most famous works have been translated, but translation can never be well understood because the essence dies.
Poet, lyricist, music composer, novelist, dramatist, painter, et al.
Is there anyone else who has straddled the art world so completely?
The greatest! Europeans were never able to understand his philosophy. They can't because when they translate his work into English, it dies.
George Gordon Byron (later Noel), 6th Baron Byron, FRS, (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an Anglo-Scottish poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement.
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. He was a great man. He was a reference to Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe... read more
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973), he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and... read more One of the greatest German poets of all time - if not THE greatest.
Anatole France, born François-Anatole Thibault (16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924), was a French poet, journalist, and novelist.He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters.
He was a member... read more
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Best poet of all time. He should be number one.