Greatest English Language Poets

1. William Shakespeare

   

   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. He wrote approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and numerous poems. His works are still widely studied, performed, and celebrated globally... read more

   I just know he said the most reliable, deepest, and truthful things I've ever heard. Truth such as written in poems is a beautiful thing, you know? Shakespeare sublimized that idea with his poems and stories that are touching, strong, and hit home almost always from back then to these days. Talk about the greatest genius of all time.

   He was a walking example of pure genius. He is the king of poems and the best poet. His poems make us realize a fresh feeling of nature or the theme of the poem. Really the king of poems!

2. Robert Burns

   

   My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. Best poem of its kind!

3. William Wordsworth

   

   William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 - April 23, 1850) was a major English Romantic poet. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth later served as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1843... read more

   Great poet. I have read several poems written by him, including The Daffodils and The Solitary Reaper.

   A truly beautiful and immortal poet.

   He is the greatest poet of nature.

4. Emily Dickinson

   

   Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) was an American poet born in Amherst, Massachusetts. She came from a prominent New England family but spent most of her life in quiet reclusion, writing poetry largely in private. Her reclusive lifestyle and personal letters have intrigued... read more

   Amazing concision. Cognitively complex and methodologically innovative. Her work remains fresh. Just reading the poems, with no other information, it would be difficult to place them in a particular time. Most of the poems are not difficult. Many that are difficult will usually reward the additional effort.

   Best poet ever! She should be in the top five!

5. John Milton

   

   John Milton (December 9, 1608 to November 8, 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote during a period of intense religious and political change. Milton is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, published... read more

   My wife and I had an outstanding Milton scholar as a professor in college. He started out the course by acknowledging that most people consider Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer the greatest writers in the English language. By the end of the course, he said he hoped we might consider Milton THE greatest of the three. By the end of Paradise Lost, we were convinced.

   Milton is unrivaled not only in English literature but also in world literature from time immemorial. Milton hath surpassed Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and many other poets mankind has ever encountered. Milton's name rings in the minds of the greatest scholars of the world, while Shakespeare's in the minds of the general public and also scholars.

6. Walt Whitman

   

   Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he bridged transcendentalism and realism in his work, blending both perspectives.

   Whitman is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and is often regarded... read more

   I experience as deep a spiritual connection reading Whitman aloud as I have with any poet I've encountered so far.

   The last of the ecstatics. No one like him before or since.

   Free verse, say what's on your mind!

7. Edmund Spenser

   

   Edmund Spenser was an English poet born in 1552 or 1553 and died on January 13, 1599. He is best known for writing The Faerie Queene, an epic allegorical poem that celebrates the Tudor dynasty and Queen Elizabeth I. Spenser played a major role in the development of early Modern English poetry. He is... read more

   Spenser is the most beautiful English poet. His Epithalamion is the loveliest poem in the language.

8. Percy Bysshe Shelley

   

   Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 - July 8, 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. He is regarded as one of the finest lyric and epic poets in the English language. His notable works include Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, and Prometheus Unbound.

   While most poets on this list are astounding, I don't think anyone could ever outdo Shelley. There was something divine in his words, something no one else could achieve.

   I think the English still have not forgiven Shelley for his anti-patriotic antics. He should be in the top three.

   I loved his poems as a teenager, and their music has never really left me. Another one who died too young.

9. Alfred Tennyson

   

   Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (August 6, 1809 - October 6, 1892) served as Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign. He remains one of the most widely read and popular British poets.... read more

   A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw," "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all," "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die," "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure," "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers," and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new." He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

   On the list of the top five poets. He is a bridge between Romantic poetry and the poetry of the newly industrialized world. He single handedly steered poetry from one to the other.

10. Gerard Manley Hopkins

    I think Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the top three poets in the English language. His "Terrible Sonnets" do a better job describing depression than any psychologist can.

    His poetry is almost incomparable. I haven't met another who uses words and sound to their fullest possibility as this man does.

The Newcomers
11. ?

    Gwendolyn Brooks

12. ?

    Carl Sandburg

The Contenders

13. T. S. Eliot

    

    Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965), was an American-born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the 20th century's major poets. He is best known for works such as The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Four Quartets... read more

    "As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written. He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."

    With a talent that could move the century, it's quite obvious that he had to be in the pantheon of great poets. A sublime genius.

    T.S. Eliot may not have published most of his poems, but he made sure that every poem he published was pure poetic heroin.

14. Keats

    

    John Keats (October 31, 1795 - February 23, 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the leading figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, alongside Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Despite a short career, with only four years of published work before his death, Keats left a lasting... read more

    When you consider that Keats died at age twenty-five, his genius is magnified. If you can write ten immortal poems in a long life, you have achieved quite a lot. Keats' odes are among the best poetry ever written. If you want to recommend one poet, he is the one who touched the pinnacle of grace and art.

    Keats could express the sublime. There are many examples of rather pedestrian verse, but his brave brilliance created, in many instances, the most thought-provoking and inspirational verse ever written.

15. Robert Frost

    

    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. Frost is best known for poems such as The Road Not Taken and Stopping... read more

    At the time of his death in January 1963, Frost had achieved a degree of fame unequaled by any modern American poet. He was not merely a celebrated writer but a public figure who seemed to embody a certain native national wisdom. In front of television cameras, radio microphones, or crowded lecture halls, Frost played with poised perfection the role of the philosophical farmer-poet. His appearance at John Kennedy's 1961 presidential inauguration still ranks as the most famous public appearance in the history of American literature.

    He is one of the best romantic poets of the world. Unfortunately, his life was really critical. His dad died of tuberculosis. An American poet.

    A great poet who received four Pulitzer Awards. On January 29, 1963, Frost died from complications related to prostate surgery.

16. Lord Byron

    

    George Gordon Byron (later Noel), 6th Baron Byron, FRS (January 22, 1788 - April 19, 1824), commonly known as Lord Byron, was an Anglo-Scottish poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is best known for works such as Don Juan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and the short lyric She Walks in... read more

    He is the most profound and original of all the English poets - a poet soaked to the marrow in the eternal and incurable pain of existence. England has failed to appreciate him.

    This is the best poet from England.

17. Rudyard Kipling

    

    Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 - January 18, 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which influenced much of his work. Kipling's notable works of fiction include The Jungle Book, Kim, and many short stories such as "The Man Who Would... read more

    I grew up with The Jungle Book and loved the Disney cartoon, and the poem If.

    His poems, especially "If," are very inspiring.

18. Philip Larkin

    He should be higher on this great list.

19. Yeats

    "I am incapable of saying a word about W.B. Yeats because, through no fault of his, he has become for me a symbol of my own devil of inauthenticity, of everything I must try to eliminate from my own poetry." - W.H. Auden

    To think that Yeats is below others shows he still has an audience that has yet to hear his magic.

    This guy is an absolute beast. He writes poems in his sleep and wins Nobel Prizes for the craic. What an animal. P.S. He likes his bacon!

20. John Dryden

21. W. H. Auden

    Greatest English poet of the twentieth century and still a massive influence. No one can use an adjectival phrase quite the same nowadays.

    He used to be thought lesser than Yeats and Eliot, but now he is emerging as the greatest.

    Yes, the greatest English poet of the 20th century, and very entertaining.

22. Chaucer

    

    Geoffrey Chaucer, born around 1343 and died on October 25, 1400, is often called the Father of English literature. He is widely regarded as the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.

    Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature.

23. John McCrae

    A great Canadian wartime poet.

24. Edgar Allan Poe

    

    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's widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature... read more

    Edgar Allan Poe was and is personally very important to me as a reader and aspiring writer. I have been obsessed with his short stories and poems since sixth grade, and he is still one of my favorite literary figures. His was the first biography I read.

    ---Angela S.

    Shakespeare is way too overrated! Edgar is a poet who knew how to express his opinions by using such colorful language and text.

    The Raven is fantastic. Great rhyming and truly very intelligent.

25. John Keats

    

    John Keats (October 31, 1795 - February 23, 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the leading figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, alongside Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Despite a short career, with only four years of published work before his death, Keats left a lasting... read more

26. Edna St. Vincent Millay

27. Christina Rossetti

    

    Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 - December 29, 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is famous for writing Goblin Market and Remember. She also wrote the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter, which has become a seasonal... read more