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UNIT 2 — POETRY 

From Medieval Origins to Contemporary Voices: Evolution, Poets, Works, Themes, Movements & Terms

Poetry has always been the most expressive, flexible, and aesthetically rich form in English literature. Across centuries, it has evolved in response to cultural changes, political transformations, philosophical revolutions, and shifts in artistic values. To understand English poetry holistically, one must trace its development from Medieval allegory to Postmodern experimentation, noting how each era reacts to or builds upon the previous one. This unit explores the major poets prescribed in the syllabus, their works, stylistic features, and the poetic terms essential to UGC NET and MA English examinations.

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🔵 I. MEDIEVAL & EARLY RENAISSANCE POETRY

(Chaucer → Spenser)

Medieval poetry in England was profoundly shaped by Christianity, feudal values, courtly love, and allegorical traditions. Language was still stabilizing, and poetry often served religious or didactic purposes. However, by the 14th century, poets like Chaucer elevated English to a literary language capable of psychological complexity and social insight. The early Renaissance brought classical influences, humanism, and a conscious reshaping of poetic forms.

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1. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)

Chaucer is often called the Father of English Poetry because he established English as a sophisticated medium for literature. His masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, presents a vivid cross-section of medieval society through its diverse pilgrims—knights, merchants, clerics, wives, students—each speaking in a distinct voice that reflects their personality, class, and worldview.

Major Works

• The Canterbury Tales

• Troilus and Criseyde (a tragic love poem blending romance and philosophy)

• The Book of the Duchess

• The House of Fame

• Parliament of Fowls

• Legend of Good Women

Features

Chaucer’s poetry is characterized by narrative realism, humour, irony, and acute psychological observation. He uses iambic pentameter and rhyme royal innovatively. His humanistic interest in individual experience anticipates Renaissance concerns.

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2. William Langland

Langland’s Piers Plowman is a monumental religious allegory, written in alliterative verse. Structured as a series of dream visions, the poem critiques church corruption and examines the moral responsibilities of individuals in society. Unlike Chaucer’s realism, Langland’s poetry is didactic, symbolic, and theological in its concerns.

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3. John Skelton

A transitional poet between medieval and Renaissance periods, Skelton is known for Skeltonics, a rapid short-lined rhyming style that creates energetic, satirical effects. His major works, such as Speke, Parrot and Colin Clout, attack corruption and moral decay.

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4. Sir Thomas Wyatt & Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

These early Renaissance poets introduced the sonnet tradition into English. They translated and adapted Petrarch, bringing themes of unrequited love, emotional introspection, and the inner conflicts of the lover.

Wyatt’s Major Works

• “Whoso List to Hunt”

• Songs and Sonnets

Surrey’s Major Works

• Translations of Virgil

• Development of the English (Shakespearean) sonnet form

• Introduction of blank verse into English literature

Together, they transformed English lyric poetry, preparing the ground for Shakespeare and the Elizabethan sonneteers.

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5. Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)

Spenser represents the height of Renaissance poetic ambition. His work synthesizes medieval allegory, classical motifs, and Elizabethan nationalism.

Major Works

• The Faerie Queene

• Amoretti

• Epithalamion and Prothalamion

• The Shepherd’s Calendar

Features

Spenser invented the Spenserian stanza and employed rich imagery, archaic diction, and complex allegory. His poetry celebrates virtue, love, chastity, and moral ideals, making him one of the most influential poets of the English Renaissance.

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🔵 II. METAPHYSICAL & CAVALIER POETRY (17th Century)

(Donne → Herrick)

The 17th century witnessed immense turmoil: religious conflict, civil war, and intellectual upheaval. Poets responded in radically different ways. The Metaphysical poets explored philosophical and spiritual questions with wit and conceits, while the Cavalier poets celebrated elegance, courtly love, and loyalty to the monarchy.

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A. Metaphysical Poets

1. John Donne (1572–1631)

Donne revolutionized English poetry through his intellectual and emotional intensity. His metaphysical conceits—unexpected, elaborate comparisons—blend the spiritual with the physical.

Major Works

• “The Flea”

• “The Good Morrow”

• Holy Sonnets (“Death Be Not Proud,” “Batter My Heart”)

• “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

Features

• Dramatic openings

• Argumentative structure

• Paradox, irony, and theological reflection

• Fusion of sensual and divine love

Donne’s poetry demands intellectual engagement, making him a central figure in NET questions.

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2. George Herbert

Herbert’s devotional poetry reflects a life of faith and humility. His collection The Temple includes pattern poems that visually reflect meaning.

Works

• “The Altar”

• “Easter Wings”

• “Love (III)”

Themes include submission to God, spiritual conflict, and divine grace.

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3. Andrew Marvell

Marvell blends metaphysical wit with political insight.

Major Works

• “To His Coy Mistress”

• “The Garden”

• “Bermudas”

His poetry shifts between sensuous delight, spiritual meditation, and political allegory.

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4. Abraham Cowley

Though less read today, Cowley was influential for his Pindarique Odes and meditative style.

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B. Cavalier Poets

These poets valued elegance, music, pleasure, loyalty, and clarity. They opposed Puritan austerity.

Major Poets & Works

• Robert Herrick — Hesperides (“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”)

• Richard Lovelace (“To Althea, From Prison,” “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars”)

• Thomas Carew (refined love lyrics)

Cavalier poetry often expresses carpe diem themes and graceful celebration of beauty and loyalty.

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🔵 III. RESTORATION & AUGUSTAN POETRY (18th Century)

(Dryden → Thomson)

With the Restoration and Enlightenment came an emphasis on reason, order, balance, clarity, and the imitation of classical models. Poetry became satirical and moralistic.

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1. John Dryden

Dryden dominated Restoration literature.

Major Works

• Absalom and Achitophel (political allegory)

• Mac Flecknoe (mock-heroic satire)

• Annus Mirabilis

Features

• Heroic couplets

• Rationality and clarity

• Satirical tone

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2. Alexander Pope

The greatest poet of the Augustan Age.

Major Works

• The Rape of the Lock

• Essay on Man

• Essay on Criticism

• The Dunciad

Features

• Perfection of heroic couplet

• Witty social satire

• Balance and harmony

• Classical imitation

Pope is frequently cited in questions on neoclassical aesthetics.

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3. Samuel Johnson

A major critic and lexicographer.

Poetic Works

• “The Vanity of Human Wishes”

• London

Other Contributions

• Lives of the Poets

Johnson’s poetry combines moral reflection with classical restraint.

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4. James Thomson

Pre-Romantic nature poet.

Major Works

• The Seasons

• “Rule, Britannia!”

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🔵 IV. ROMANTIC POETRY (1798–1830)

(Blake → Keats)

Romanticism transformed poetry by emphasizing emotion, imagination, nature, the individual, revolution, and the supernatural.

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1. William Blake

A visionary poet and artist.

Major Works

• Songs of Innocence and Experience

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Themes include innocence, corruption, oppression, and spiritual awakening.

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2. William Wordsworth

Central figure of Romanticism.

Major Works

• Lyrical Ballads

• The Prelude

• “Tintern Abbey”

• “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”

Wordsworth emphasized simplicity, rustic life, childhood, and nature’s spiritual power.

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3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poet of mystical imagination.

Major Works

• “Kubla Khan”

• “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

• “Christabel”

His poetry explores the supernatural and psychological depth.

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4. Lord Byron

Known for the Byronic hero.

Major Works

• Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

• Don Juan

Byron’s style is dramatic, ironic, and rebellious.

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5. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Idealistic and revolutionary.

Major Works

• “Ode to the West Wind”

• “Adonais”

• Prometheus Unbound

Themes include liberty, reform, and imaginative transcendence.

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6. John Keats

Poet of sensuous imagery and reflective beauty.

Major Works

• “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

• “Ode to a Nightingale”

• “To Autumn”

Keats’s ideas like negative capability deeply influence modern criticism.

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🔵 V. VICTORIAN POETRY (1830–1900)

(Tennyson → Hopkins)

Victorian poetry reflects industrial progress, scientific discoveries, religious doubt, and moral responsibility, while maintaining classical forms.

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1. Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Victorian laureate.

Major Works

• In Memoriam

• Idylls of the King

• “Ulysses”

• “The Lady of Shalott”

Themes include loss, duty, mythic idealism, and faith.

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2. Robert Browning

Master of dramatic monologue.

Major Works

• “My Last Duchess”

• The Ring and the Book

• “Fra Lippo Lippi”

His speakers reveal complex psychological states, often unconsciously exposing moral flaws.

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3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• Sonnets from the Portuguese

• “Cry of the Children”

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4. Matthew Arnold

• “Dover Beach”

• “The Scholar-Gipsy”

Themes: doubt, alienation, moral earnestness.

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5. Christina Rossetti

• Goblin Market
  Themes: temptation, sisterhood, spiritual struggle.

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6. Dante Gabriel Rossetti

• The Blessed Damozel

• House of Life

Rich imagery, medievalism, sensuality.

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7. Gerard Manley Hopkins

A revolutionary poet ahead of his time.

Works

• “The Windhover”

• “God’s Grandeur”

• “Pied Beauty”

Features

• Sprung rhythm

• Inscape and instress

• Word-intensity and compression

Hopkins anticipates modern poetry.

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🔵 VI. MODERNIST POETRY (20th Century)

(Hardy → Auden)

Modernist poetry reflects the fragmented psychology and disillusionment of the 20th century. Urban life, war, industrial alienation, and philosophical anxieties reshape poetic expression.

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1. Thomas Hardy

• “The Darkling Thrush”

• Poems 1912–13

Hardy represents a transitional voice between Victorian melancholy and Modernist fatalism.

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2. W. B. Yeats

Works

• “The Second Coming”

• “Sailing to Byzantium”

• “Easter 1916”

Features

• Symbolism

• Mysticism

• Irish nationalism

• Archetypal imagery

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3. T. S. Eliot

Major Works

• The Waste Land

• Four Quartets

• “Prufrock”

Eliot’s ideas such as objective correlative, fragmentation, mythic method, and impersonality define Modernism.

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4. Ezra Pound

• Cantos

• “In a Station of the Metro”

Founder of Imagism: clarity, precision, economy of phrasing.

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5. Wilfred Owen

• “Dulce et Decorum Est”

• “Anthem for Doomed Youth”

Themes: pity of war, psychological trauma, pararhyme.

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6. D. H. Lawrence

• “Snake”

• Birds, Beasts and Flowers

Focus on instinct, human sexuality, and nature.

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7. W. H. Auden

• “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”

• “The Shield of Achilles”

Political consciousness and psychological insight make Auden central to exam questions.

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🔵 VII. POSTMODERN & CONTEMPORARY POETRY

Poetry becomes diverse, experimental, personal, feminist, ecological, and politically charged.

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1. Ted Hughes

• Crow

• “The Thought-Fox”

Violent natural imagery, myth, and primal instinct.

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2. Sylvia Plath

• Ariel

• “Daddy”

• “Lady Lazarus”

Confessional poetry exploring trauma, death, and identity.

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3. Allen Ginsberg

• Howl

• Kaddish

Key figure of the Beat Generation; free verse, rebellion, spiritual intensity.

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4. Margaret Atwood

• Power Politics

• Morning in the Burned House

Themes: feminism, ecology, oppression, political critique.

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🔵 VIII. ESSENTIAL POETIC TERMS (Integrated with Periods)

Sonnet (Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Shakespeare)

Blank Verse (Surrey, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson)

Heroic Couplet (Dryden, Pope)

Metaphysical Conceit (Donne)

Dramatic Monologue (Browning, Tennyson, Eliot)

Imagism (Pound, H.D.)

Sprung Rhythm (Hopkins)

Negative Capability (Keats)

Objective Correlative (Eliot)

Pastoral, Elegy, Ode, Ballad

Fragmentation (Modernists)

Confessional Poetry (Plath)