The Best Poetry of all Time

Selected by piero scaruffi
Best novels | Best poetry | Best theater | Timelines of literatures

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Unknown (Sanskrit): "Rig-Veda" ( 1500 BC)
Maharshi Valmiki (Sanskrit, ##): "Ramayana" ( 1## BC)
Krishna-Dvaipayana Vyasa (Sanskrit, 3##): "Mahabarata" ( 3##)
Kalidasa (Sanskrit, 353): "Meghadhuta" ( 3##)
Unknown (English, 9##): "Beowulf" (9##)
Unknown (Iceland): "Poetic Edda" (11##)
Chretien de Troyes (11##): "Perceval" (1175)
Nezami Ganjawi/ Nizam ad-Din Abu- Muhammad Ilyas ibn-Yusuf ibn-Zaki ibn-Mu'ayyid Nizami (1141): "Haft Peykar/ The Seven Beauties" (1196)
Unknown (France): "Chanson de Roland" (120#)
Wolfram Von Eschenbach (117#): "Parzival" (1210)
Guillaume de Lorris (11##): "Roman de la Rose" (123#)
Dante Alighieri (Italy, 1265): "Commedia" (1321)
Francesco Petrarca (1304): "Canti" (1374)
Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad Hafez Shirazi/ Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez/ Hafiz (1326): "Divan" (1389)
Geoffrey Chaucer (134#): "Canterbury Tales" (1400)
Francois Villon (1432): "Testament" (1461)
Jorge Manrique (Spain, 144#): "Coplas a la Muerte de Su Padre/ Stanzas on the Death of His Father" (1476)
Ludovico Ariosto (1474): "Orlando Furioso" (1532)
Luis-Vaz de Camoes (Portugal, 1524): "Os Lusiadas" (1572)
Torquato Tasso (1544): "Gerusalemme Liberata" (1575)
Pierre de Ronsard (1524): "Sonnets pour Helene" (1578)
Juan de Yepes y Alvarez 'Juan de la Cruz' (Spain, 1542): "Cantico Espiritual entre el Alma y Cristo su Esposo" (158#)
Luis de Gongora y Argote (Spain, 1561): "Soledades" (1613)
John Donne (1572): "Holy Sonnets" (1618)
John Milton (1608): "Paradise Lost" (1667)
Friedrich Hoelderlin (1770): "Der Archipelagus" (1800)
William Wordsworth (Britain, 1770): "Prelude" (1805)
John Keats (Britain, 1795): "Odes" (1820)
William Blake (Britain, 1757): "Jerusalem" (1820)
Heinrich Heine (1797): "Das Buch der Lieder" (1827)
Aleksandr Pushkin (Russia, 1799): "Evgeny Onegin/ Eugene Onegin" (1831)
Johann-Wolfgang von Goethe (Germany, 1749): "Faust" (1832)
Giacomo Leopardi (1798): "Canti" (1835)
Friedrich Hoelderlin (1770): "Gedichte" (1843)
Sandor Petofi (1823): "Janos Vitez" (1844)
Janos Arany (1817): "Toldi" (1846)
Charles Baudelaire (France, 1821): "Les Fleurs du Mal" (1857)
Imre Madach (1823): "Az Ember Tragediaja/ The Tragedy of Mankind" (1861)
Cyprjan Norwid (1821): "Vade-Mecum" (1866)
Isidore de Lautreamont (1846): "Les Chants de Maldoror" (1868)
Robert Browning (Britain, 1812): "The Ring and the Book" (1869)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854): "Le Bateau Ivre" (1871)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854): "Une Saison en Enfer" (1873)
Stephane Mallarme' (1842): "Apres-midi d'un Faune" (1876)
Ruben Dario (Nicaragua, 1867): "Azul" (1888)
Vaclav Jebavy "Otokar Brezina" (1868): "Tajemne Dalky/ Mysterious Distances" (1895)
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali, 1861): "Gitanjali/ Song Offerings" (1910)
Antonio Machado-y-Ruiz (Spain, 1875): "Campos de Castilla" (1912)
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880): "Alcools" (1913)
Fernando Pessoa (Portugal, 1888): "Ode Triunfal" (1914)
Fernando Pessoa (Portugal, 1888): "Ode Maritima" (1915)
Paul Valery (France, 1871): "Le Jeune Parque" (1917)
Boleslaw Lesmian (1878): "Laka/ Meadow/ Prateria" (1920)
Paul Valery (1871): "Charmes" (1922)
Thomas-Stearns Eliot (USA, 1888): "The Waste Land" (1922)
Maximilian Voloshin (Russia, 1877): "Putyami Kaina/ The Ways Of Cain" (1923)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875): "Duineser Elegien" (1923)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875): "Sonette an Orpheus" (1923)
Federico Garcia-Lorca (Spain, 1898): "Primer Romancero Gitano" (1927)
Marie Under (Estonia, 1883): "Haal Varjust/ Voice from the Shadows" (1927)
William-Butler Yeats (Ireland, 1865): "The Tower" (1928)
William-Butler Yeats (Ireland, 1865): "The Winding Stair" (1929)
Rafael Alberti (Spain, 1902): "Sobre Los Angeles" (1929)
Hart Crane (USA, 1899): "The Bridge" (1930)
Fernando Pessoa (Portugal, 1888): "Mensagem" (1933)
Gustaf Munch-Petersen (Denmark, 1912): "Det Underste Land/ The Lowest Country" (1933)
Martinus Nijhoff (1894): "Awater" (1934)
Pedro Salinas (Spain, 1892): "La Voz a Ti Debita" (1934)
Federico Garcia-Lorca (Spain, 1898): "Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" (1935)
George Seferis (1900): "Mythistorema/ Legend" (1935)
Marie Under (Estonia, 1883): "Kivi Sudamelt/ Stone Off the Heart/ Pietra nel Cuore" (1935)
Vicente Aleixandre (Spain, 1898): "La Destruccion o El Amor" (1935)
Czeslaw Milosz (1911): "Trzy Zimy/ Three Winters" (1936)
Juan-Ramon Jimenez (Spain, 1881): "La Estacion Total" (1936)
Jose Gorostiza (Mexico, 1901): "Muerte Sin Fin" (1939)
Wallace Stevens (USA, 1879): "Notes Towards A Supreme Fiction" (1942)
Thomas-Stearns Eliot (USA, 1888): "Four Quartets" (1943)
Cecilia Meireles (Brazil, 1901): "Retrato Natural" (1949)
Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1914): "Piedra de Sol" (1949)
Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1904): "Canto General" (1950)
Paul Celan (1920): "Mohn und Gedaechtnis" (1952)
David Jones (Britain, 1895): "The Anathemata" (1952)
Eugenio Montale (1896): "La Bufera" (1956)
Sandor Weores (1913): "A Hallgatas Tornya/ The Tower of Silence" (1956)
Vladimir Holan (1905): "Noc s Hamletem/ A Night with Hamlet" (1956)
Pierpaolo Pasolini (1922): "Le Ceneri di Gramsci" (1957)
William-Carlos Williams (USA, 1883): "Paterson" (1958)
Odysseus Elytis (1911): "Axion Esti" (1959)
Gunnar Ekeloef (Sweden, 1907): "En Moelna-elegi/ A Molna Elegy" (1960)
Tadeusz Rozewicz (1921): "Glos Anonima/ The Nameless Voice" (1961)
Zbigniew Herbert (1924): "Studium Przedmiotu/ Study of the Object" (1961)
Anna Akhmatova (Russia, 1889): "Poema Bez Geroia/ Poem Without A Hero" (1962)
Vittorio Sereni (1913): "Gli Strumenti Umani" (1965)
Seamus Heaney (Ireland, 1939): "Death of a Naturalist" (1966)
Andrea Zanzotto (1921): "La Belta`" (1968)
Ezra Pound (USA, 1885): "Cantos" (1970)
Attilio Bertolucci (1911): "Viaggio d'Inverno" (1971)
Mario Luzi (1914): "Su Fondamenti Invisibili" (1971)
Derek Walcott (Trinidad, 1930): "Another Life"" (1973)
Edward-Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados, 1930): "The Arrivants" (1973)
Giorgio Caproni (1912): "Il Muro della Terra" (1975)
John Ashbery (USA, 1927): "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: (1975)
Josif Brodsky (Russia, 1940): "Chast' Rechi/ A Part of Speech" (1977)
James Merrill (USA, 1926): "The Changing Light at Sandover (1982)
Elio Pagliarani (1927): "La Ballata di Rudy" (1993)