History of Poetry

CENTURY: 14th century
PERIOD: Medieval
WRITER: Chaucer
GENRES: Poetic tales
THEMES: Courly love and religion using comedy, irony and satire


CENTURY: 15th century
WRITERS: Mainly anonymous, they're mainly clerics
GENRES: Ballads and folk songs
THEMES: History and religion

CENTURY: 16th century
PERIOD: Elizabethan era
WRITER: William Shakespeare
GENRES: Poetry and drama
THEMES: Idealized love, passion, beauty and virtue oftenly inspired from mythology

CENTURY: 17th century
PERIOD: Late Renaissance
WRITERS: John Donne and John Milton
GENRES: Metaphysical and smooth, rhytmic poetry
THEMES: Science, knowledge and humanity's relationship with God

CENTURY: 18th century
PERIOD: Age of Reason
WRITERS: Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray
GENRES: Novel and essays
THEMES: Rationality and philosophy