The earliest surviving English poetry was composed as early as the 7th century. It was written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English. Most Old English poems are recorded without authors, and very few names are known with any certainty. Geoffrey Chaucer is the most highly regarded English poet of the Middle Ages (5th to 15th century). The 16th century marked the beginning of the English Renaissance whose towering figure was undoubtedly William Shakespeare. The early 17th century saw the emergence of a group of writers known as the Metaphysical E, who were led by John Donne. The last quarter of the 18th century saw the emergence of the influential movement Romanticism. Some of the best known English poets, including Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron and Shelley, belong to the Romantic period. Romanticism was followed by the Victorian era, which was dominated by Alfred Tennyson. W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden are generally ranked as the three greatest 20th century British and Irish poets. Here are the 10 most famous poets from the United Kingdom and their best known works. The article doesn’t include poets from other countries E
English Poetry
