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Introduction to Poetry’s Evolution
Poetry has a long history of varying forms on a wide variety of topics, starting as early as 2000 BCE. Even though the form of poetry has evolved across time, consistently throughout the centuries poets have written on common themes such as love, loss, regret, and many more.
Just because poetry is always evolving doesn’t mean that older poetry forms never reappear in a later century. There will always be an appreciation for poetic forms such as the sonnet, free verse, ballads, or haikus. From ancient love poems to free verse poetry, let’s explore the evolution of poetry over time.
The Roots of Poetry: Ancient Love Poems and Epic Poems
To best understand poetry is to know its roots in both ancient love poems and epic tales. The oldest known ancient love poem is The Love Song for Shu-Sin. It was created in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and parts of surrounding countries) in 2000 BCE and performed annually as part of a sacred fertility rite to ensure prosperity for the people. Later, around 900 BCE, the Song of Solomon, a love poem from the Bible, was written.
In addition to these ancient love poems, epic poems arose, also in the Mesopotamian era, namely, the Epic of Gilgamesh. This epic was written around 2000 BC. The story centers on a part-human, part-god who overcomes exciting challenges in his pursuit of eternal life. Later, around 700 BCE, Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems about two different periods of the hero Odysseus’s life. Many stories today resemble these epics and the “quests” that different heroes are tasked to complete.
Although these early poetic forms are very different from one another, both ancient love poems and epic tales show the cultural importance of poetry throughout time.
Renaissance Poetry
Hundreds of years later across the world, the English Renaissance ushered in an era of Renaissance poetry. The English Renaissance had many famous poets such as William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, and Maragaret Cavendish (to name a few). Many considered The English Renaissance a “rebirth” of society. People became fascinated with studying ancient languages and texts as well as returning to Classical ideas. Therefore, poetry in the English Renaissance was often inspired by Greek and Roman texts.
Writing poetry was not really a professional career at this time. Asa. result, many poets either displayed their talents with royal courts or public theaters. The topics of love, death, time, and humanism were popular amongst Renaissance poets. Poets used various forms to explore these topics. These poems addressed love using the sonnet form. However, many poets also wrote epyllions (mini-epics), odes, satires, dramatic monologues, lyric poems, satirical poems, and many more.
Poetry in Romanticism: The Celebration of Emotion
Moving forward to the late 18th century, poetry in Romanticism was much more forward-focused than Renaissance poetry. While Renaissance poetry looked into the past and found inspiration in classical works, Romanticism explored about the individual, the imaginative, and the transcendental.
Romantic poets valued both the natural world and humanity. John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy B. Shelley are all notable poets from this time period, and these poets primarily wrote poetry in the forms of odes, lyrical ballads, and sonnets.
The Rise of Free Verse: Breaking Traditional Bonds in Modernism
By the 1900s, Modernism actively fought against these strict poetic structures. Modern poets introduced various new forms such as free verse poetry, stream-of-consciousness, and inverted syntax. Free Verse poems are “Nonmetrical, non rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech.”
Modern poetry focuses heavily on images. Additionally, modern poets use as few words as possible to make a statement not just about personal experience but about the surrounding world. Some famous modern poets include T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore.
An example of Modernist poetry is “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams. This simplistic poem is highly image-driven. Williams intended for it to be relatable to everyone, not just intellectuals. Written in free verse, this poem consists of only 28 words within three stanzas:
“I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold”
Williams, William Carlos. “This Is Just To Say.” Poetry Foundation, 1 Jan. 1991, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56159/this-is-just-to-say. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.
Beat Poetry and the Counterculture Movement
In the 1940s and 1950s, Beat Poetry rebelled even further against traditional poetry forms. This group of beatnik poets, consisting of writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Jack Kerouac, took inspiration from diverse sources such as Zen poetry, jazz musicians, and Eastern religion. They also found inspiration in wilder, more questionable sources such as hallucinogenic drugs.
Beat poets hoped that their authentic, spur of the moment poetry would help to criticize American commercialism and blind conformity during the 1940s and 1950s. Even though their poetry clashed heavily with political ideas and even got some of them arrested, Beat Poets were successful in laying the foundation for the 1960s Counterculture Movement. This movement included major milestones in the history of America, including the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement, the rise of environmental awareness, and many more.
The Digital Age: AI Poem Generators and Contemporary Forms
In the 21st century, anyone can use an AI Poem generator online to create a rhyming poem within seconds. However, as you can well imagine, AI-generated poems cannot fully replace human-generated poems for a couple reasons.
First, truly beautiful poems are steeped in human experience. Each poet writes from a unique perspective and lifetime of memories. The combination of these creates a voice that cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence.
Secondly, AI poem generators are limited, while the human mind is limitless. AI cannot produce its own thoughts; rather, it has to pull from what is already accessible online. Human minds are not limited to a catalog of ideas published online: we can take our inspiration from anywhere and create something that no one has ever tried before.
Conclusion: The Timeless Impact of Poetry
Even though poetry has changed forms countless times throughout the generations, poetry still remains a key literary form for the artistic expression of ideas. Poetry continually serves as a window to not only the poet’s personal experience but also to the cultural setting in which they write.
Both processes of writing and reading poetry bring just enough challenge and reward for both the writer and reader. It is exciting to anticipate how poetry will continue to change in the generations to come.
If you want to explore poems from each of these eras, check out Albert’s Poetry course! Featuring famous works by poets from every age, our Poetry course will give you greater insight into the evolution of poetry.