Poet's Corner

Poetry Timeline

700-1799 | 1800-1899 | 1900-1924 | 1925-1949 | 1950-1974| 1975-

1800 (-1899)

The Gaelic Revival, a renewal of interest in Irish literature and language, takes place throughout much of the 19th century.

1802

William Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" and "My Heart Leaps Up" are written in this year, and later published in his collection Poems in Two Volumes, 1807.

1803

The anonymous ballad "Lord Randal" is published in the collection Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, edited by Walter Scott.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is born.

1804

William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is written in this year, and later published in his collection Poems in Two Volumes, 1807.

1806

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is born.

1807

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is born.

1809

Oliver Wendell Holmes is born.

Edgar Allan Poe is born.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson is born.

1809—1865

The Knickerbocker School, a group of American writers, flourishes between 1809 and 1865.

1812

Robert Browning is born.

1813

Robert Southey is named Poet Laureate of England.

1815

Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib" and "She Walks in Beauty" are published in his collection Hebrew Melodies.

1817

John Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is published in his collection Poems.

William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis" is published in the September issue of the North American Review; later included in his collection Poems, 1821.

1818

John Keats's "When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be" is written in this year, but not published until 1848, in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Moncton Milnes.

1819

John Keats's "Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art" is written in this year, but not published until the September 27, 1838 issue of the Plymouth and Davenport Weekly Journal; then in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Moncton Milnes.

Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" is published in his collection Rosalind and Helen: A Modern Eclogue, with Other Poems.

1819

Walt Whitman is born.

1820

John Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is published in the May 10 issue of the Indicator; later included in Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Moncton Milnes.

John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale" and "To Autumn" are published in his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.

Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and "To a Skylark" are published in his Prometheus Unbound. A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems.

1821

Lord Byron's "Stanzas Written on the Road between Florence and Pisa" is written in this year, but not published until 1830, in his collection Letters and Journals.

William Cullen Bryant's "To A Waterfowl" is published in his collection Poems.

John Keats dies.

1822

Percy Bysshe Shelley's "A Dirge" is written in this year and first published in Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1824.

Matthew Arnold is born.

Percy Bysshe Shelley dies.

1824

George Gordon, Lord Byron dies.

early to mid-19th century

The anonymous spiritual "Swing Low Sweet Chariot " is composed around this time.

1827

William Blake dies.

1828

Dante Gabriel Rossetti is born.

1830

Oliver Wendell Holmes's "Old Ironsides" is published in the Boston Daily Advertiser; then in his collection Earlier Poems, 1836.

Emily Dickinson is born.

Christina Rossetti is born.

1830s-1860s

The flowering of American literature known as the American Renaissance begins in the 1830s and continues through the Civil War period.

1830-1855

Transcendentalism, an American philosophical and literary movement, is at its height during this period.

1832

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" is published in his collection Poems; it is later revised for his collection The Lady of Shallot and Other Poems, 1842.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is born.

1833

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses" is written in this year, but not published until 1842, in his collection Poems.

1834

Samuel Taylor Coleridge dies.

1837 (-1901)

The Victorian Age begins with the coronation of Victoria as Queen of England, and continues until her death in 1901.

1839

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life" is published in his collection Voices of the Night.

1840

Thomas Hardy is born.

1842

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is published in his collection Dramatic Lyrics.

Sidney Lanier is born.

1843

William Wordsworth is named Poet Laureate of England.

1844

Gerard Manly Hopkins is born.

1845

Robert Browning's "Home-Thoughts from Abroad" is published in his collection Bells and Pomegranates, No. VII: Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is published in his collection The Raven and Other Poems.

1847

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" and "The Rhodora" are published in his collection Poems.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears" is published as part of the long poem The Princess: A Medley.

1848

Edgar Allan Poe's "To Helen" is published in the November issue of Union Magazine; later included in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Rufus W. Griswold, 1850.

1848—1858

The Pre-Raphaelites, an influential group of English painters, forms in 1858 and remains together for about ten years.

1849

Edgar Allan Poe dies. "Eldorado" is published in the April 21 issue of The Flag of Our Union;"Annabel Lee" is published in the October 9 edition of the New York Tribune; "The Bells" is published in the November issue of Sartain's Union Magazine; all were later included in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Rufus W. Griswold, 1850.

c. 1850s

The anonymous spiritual "Follow the Drinking Gourd" is probably composed around this time.

1850s

The poets of the so-called Spasmodic School are active in the 1850s.

1850

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 14 (If thou must love me)" and "Sonnet 43 (How do I love thee?)" are published in her collection Sonnets from the Portuguese.

William Wordsworth dies.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson is named Poet Laureate of England.

1851

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Eagle: A Fragment" is published in the 7th edition of his collection Poems.

1855

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is published in his collection Maud, and Other Poems.

1858

Oliver Wendell Holmes's "The Chambered Nautilus" is published in his collection Poems from the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.

c. 1859

Emily Dickinson's "Success Is Counted Sweetest" is written around this time.

1859

A. E. Housman is born.

1860

Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" is published in the 1860 edition of his collection Leaves of Grass.

1861

The anonymous spiritual "Go Down, Moses" is published in the December 21 issue of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies.

1862

Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday" and "Sonnet (Remember me when I am gone away)" is published in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems.

1863

Henry W. Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" is published in his collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer is born.

c. 1863

Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" is written around this time (first published posthumously in her collection Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, 1890).

1864

Robert Browning's "Prospice" is published in his collection Dramatis Personae.

1865

Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are published in his collection Sequel to Drum Taps; later included in the 1867 edition of his collection Leaves of Grass.

William Butler Yeats is born.

1867

Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" is published in his collection New Poems.

Slave Songs of the United States, the first collection of African American spirituals, is published.

1868

W. E. B. Dubois is born.

Edgar Lee Masters is born.

1869

Edwin Arlington Robinson is born.

1871

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Silent Noon" is published in his collection The House of Life.

James Weldon Johnson is born.

1872

Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" is published in his in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar is born.

1873

Walter de la Mare is born.

1874

Robert Frost is born.

Amy Lowell is born.

1875

• (-1899) Aestheticism becomes a significant artistic and literary philosophy in the latter part of the 19th century.
• (-1899) Decadence becomes an important poetic force late in the 19th century.
• (-1925)Expressionism is a significant artistic and literary influence through the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
• (-1925) The Irish Literary Renaissance begins late in the 19th century and continues for the next several decades.
• (-1925) The Symbolist Movement flourishes in the closing decades of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th century.
• (-1950) Realism as an approach to literature gains importance in the 19th century and remains influential well into the 20th century.

1877

Gerard Manly Hopkins's "God's Grandeur" and "Pied Beauty" are written in this year, and published posthumously in his collection Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins, 1918.

Sidney Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee" is published in Scott's Magazine; later included in The Poems of Sidney Lanier, edited by His Wife, 1891.

1878

William Cullen Bryant dies.

John Masefield is born.

Carl Sandburg is born.

1879

Vachel Lindsay is born.

Wallace Stevens is born.

1880

• Gerard Manly Hopkins's "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" is written in this year, and published posthumously in his collection Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins, 1918.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" is published in his collection Ultima Thule.
• Alfred Noyes is born.

1880-early 20th century

Naturalism as a literary theory emerges in 1880 and continues to be influential well into the 20th century.

1881

Sidney Lanier dies.

1882

• Ralph Waldo Emerson dies.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow dies.
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti dies.

1883

William Carlos Williams is born.

1885

• D. H. Lawrence is born.
• Ezra Pound is born.
• Elinor Wylie is born.

1886

Emily Dickinson dies.

Rupert Brooke is born.

1887

Marianne Moore is born.

1888

Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" is published in the June 3 issue of the San Francisco Daily Examiner.

Matthew Arnold dies.

T. S. Eliot is born.

John Crowe Ransom is born.

1889

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" is published in his collection Demeter and Other Poems.

1889

Robert Browning dies.

Gerard Manly Hopkins dies.

Claude McKay is born.

1890s

The decade of the 1890s, noted for the mood of weariness and pessimism in its art and literature, is known as the Fin de Siécle ("end of the century") period.

1892

Archibald Macleish is born.

Edna St. Vincent Millay is born.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson dies.

Walt Whitman dies.

1893

William Butler Yeats's "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is published in his collection The Rose.

Wilfred Owen is born.

Dorothy Parker is born.

1894

e. e. cummings is born.

Oliver Wendell Holmes dies.

Christina Rossetti dies.

Jean Toomer is born.

1896

A. E. Housman's "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now," "To an Athlete Dying Young," "With Rue My Heart Is Laden" and "When I Was One-and-Twenty" are published in his collection A Shropshire Lad.

Alfred Austin is named Poet Laureate of England.

1897

Edwin A. Robinson's "Richard Cory" is published in his collection The Children of the Night.

1898

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) dies.

1899

Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy" is published in his collection Lyrics of the Hearthside.

Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.

700-1799 | 1800-1899 | 1900-1924 | 1925-1949 | 1950-1974| 1975-