“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” — Allen Ginsberg, from Ginsberg, A Biography.

In our current blog post “5 Most Influential English Poets-Short Biography & Works

” let us briefly discuss the well-known poets who are behind the famous poetic works of all times.

W.B Yeats

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” 

In the mid-1880s, William Butler Yeats published his first works while a student at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) and such plays as Countess Cathleen (1892) and Deirdre are among his early achievements (1907). He was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 1923. He continued to compose more significant works, including The Tower (1928) and Words for Perhaps Music and Other Poems (1932). Yeats, who died in 1939, is remembered as one of the 20th century’s leading Western writers.

The eldest child of John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen, William Butler Yeats was born on June 13, 1865, in Dublin, Ireland. While John qualified as an attorney, soon after his first son was born, he abandoned the law for art. Yeats spent most of his early years in London, where his father studied architecture, but he also returned often to Ireland.

In the mid-1880s, as a student at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, Yeats explored his interest in art. He soon left art school for other pursuits after the publication of his poems in the Dublin University Review in 1885.

A few from his poetry

A poet to his beloved

The mountain tomb

The second coming

Sylvia Plath

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. 

Sylvia Plath was a novelist and poet from America. Plath met and married Ted Hughes, the British poet, but the two eventually broke up. In 1963, the suicidal Plath committed suicide, earning accolades for the novel The Bell Jar after her death, and the poetry collections The Colossus and Ariel. Plath became the first person to receive a posthumous Pulitzer Award in 1982.

Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. Plath was a gifted and troubled author, renowned for her work’s confessional tone. At an early age, her interest in writing developed, and she started by keeping a journal. Plath received a scholarship to Smith College in 1950, after writing a variety of works.

When she was a student, during the summer of 1953, Plath spent time in New York City working as a guest editor for Mademoiselle magazine. Soon after, by taking sleeping pills, Plath attempted to kill herself. Eventually, she recovered, having obtained therapy during a mental health facility stay. Plath returned to Smith and, in 1955, completed her degree.

A few from his poetry

Daddy 

Love Is a Parallex

Cinderella

Shakespeare

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” 

William Shakespeare is considered the greatest dramatist of all time, also called the national poet of England. All over the world, his works are cherished, but the personal life of Shakespeare is shrouded in mystery.

William Shakespeare was a Renaissance-era English author, playwright, and actor. He was an important member of the theatrical players’ company of the King’s Men from around 1594 onwards.

The writings of Shakespeare, known throughout the world, capture the range of human emotions and conflicts and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. And still, William Shakespeare’s personal life is something of a mystery.

Two primary sources provide an overview of his life for historians. One is his work, the plays, poems, and sonnets, and the other is official documents such as records of the church and court. These include only brief sketches of particular events in his life, however, and offer little insight into the man himself.

A few from his poetry

All the world a stage

Fear no more

A fairy song

Rudyard Kipling

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

Rudyard Kipling was an English author famous for several works such as ‘Only So Tales,’ If ‘and’ The Jungle Book.’ He was awarded the Literature Nobel Prize in 1907.

Born in India in 1865, Rudyard Kipling was educated in England but returned to India in 1882. Kipling married Caroline Balestier a decade later and settled in Brattleboro, Vermont, where, among a host of other works that made him highly famous, he wrote The Jungle Book (1894). The recipient of the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature was Kipling. In 1936, he died.

A few from his poetry

Mother O’Mine

A Child’s Garden

The Man Who Would Be King

Oscar Wild

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

Author Oscar Wilde was renowned for his celebrated works such as ‘The Image of Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ as well as his clever wit, flamboyant style, and notorious homosexuality imprisonment.

A prominent literary figure in late Victorian England, Oscar Wilde was an author, playwright, and poet. He lectured as a poet, an art critic, and a leading promoter of the ideals of aestheticism after graduating from Oxford University. He published The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1891, his only novel that was panned by Victorian critics as unethical but is now considered one of his most noteworthy works. Many of Wilde’s plays were well received as a playwright, including his satirical comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Value (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and his most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Wilde’s affair with a young man, unorthodox in his writing and life, led to his arrest on charges of “gross indecency” in 1895. He was jailed for two years and, three years after his release at the age of 46, died in poverty.

A few from his poetry

A lament

Flower of Love

Apologia

Let us close our blog post with the quote of P.B.Shelley, She said once,

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays.

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