Greatest English Language Poets
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 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!
My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. Best poem of its kind!
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). 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.
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 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.
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
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!
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.
Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called... 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!
Edmund Spenser (1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and is often considered one of the... read more Spenser is the most beautiful English poet. His Epithalamion is the loveliest poem in the language.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as epic, poets in the English language. 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.
Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM, (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was an American-born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the 20th century's major poets. "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.
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 – January 16, 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work... 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.
He should be higher on this great list.
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.
A great Canadian wartime poet.
"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!
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.Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature.
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 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.
But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? Browning draws characters and expresses complex human emotions so beautifully.