Unit of Inquiry project Poetry

Index:

1. Introduction to Poetry

2. First Poems

3. Poems In different Time periods

4. Poetry types

5. Famous Poets

6. Best Poems

1

1. Introduction to Poetry:

The word Poetry comes from the Greek word “poiesis” which means making or creating. Poetry is a form of art and writing. Poetry has existed since the 3rd. Millennium before Christ. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the first known poems in history. It is from ancient Mesopotamia. It is written on stone and is a collection of myths about the big king Gilgamesh. There were poets and poems in almost every time period from the Epic of Gilgamesh until today, and over time different types of poetry were developed. There are tons of different types of poems, for example there are the ABC poems that have a series of lines that make up a kind of picture for the reader. The lines are made up of phrases and words. They came to their name because the first word of the first line starts with an A the second one with a B and the third one with a C etc. There is also a Ballad, which tells a historical story, something out of the life of someone. It is rhyming and normally pretty long. Famous poets like Schiller, Edgar Allen Poe, and Shakespeare also write long poems like the very famous one from Schiller “Ode to Joy” (Ode an die Freude) or “Dreamland” by Mr. Poe or “Venus and Adonis” from Shakespeare. Maybe one of them wrote the best poem ever but it is very difficult to decide which poem is the best one because this depends very much on the taste of the reader.

2

2. First Poems

The oldest surviving poem is the Epic of Gilgamesh from the 3rd. Millennium before Christ. It was written in Sumer a City in Ancient Mesopotamia first on Clay tablets and then later on papyrus. It was based on the big Historical King Gilgamesh. Scholars believe that it is based on Sumerian legends and poems that were gathered into a much longer “Akkadian Poem”. Akkadian is an old Mesopotamian language. The oldest love poem ever is named Istanbul number 2461 it was also a Sumerian poem and a bride of the Sumerian King sang it. The king ruled from 2037-2029 before Christ. There is also very old Greek epic poetry like the Odyssey, which was written by Homer in the end of the 8th. Century BC. Another Greek poet is Plato the Student of Socrates. He lived from 427 to 348 BC. He was a philosopher and a comic poet. Unfortunately none of his plays survived but we do know names of about 30 of them. Like: Hyperbolus, Victories, and Cleophon. From the titles we know that his themes were political.

3

3. Poems In different Time periods

Now I will give you a list of different poets and their works in the different ages.

First after The Greek there was the roman poetry. The poets in that time wrote about what they observed in nature and the world surrounding them. A famous poet from this time is Ovidius Naso.

Then there was the middle age’s were the people wrote love songs to impress the princesses. Two famous poets from this time are William Shakespeare and William Blake.

Then it was the renaissance, in the renaissance the main theme was the rebirth of the ancient arts. The main poet is an Italian guy named Dante Alighieri he wrote about 90 lyrical poems mostly about love.

After this the german Barock came up. The main poet from this time is a german. His name is Andreas Gryphius. He wrote several poems one is named “Morning Sonnet”. The theme, which the poets of this time wrote about, is the death and historical themes.

Then came the enlightenment. The theme of it is being tolerant, human rights etc. An important poet of this time was Lessing he wrote about 10 poems one is named “Me” (Ich)

So then after this there came the Classic. The themes of the classic are mythology, nothing daily, no routine. The main poets from this age are: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and

4

Friedrich Schiller both wrote very famous and very good poems like the “Erlkönig” or “The Bell” (Die Klocke).

Romantic was the next age in the literature timeline. The idea of it was to make everything much better and nicer then it was. The representative of it is Joseph von Eichendorf he wrote a very romantic poem named “Death desire” (Todeslust).

Then came the age of the Naturalism. It’s theme is that everything becomes ugly again - the total opposite of the romantic age. The perfect example for this is Georg Trakl and his poem “To a early passed away” (An einen Frühverstorbenen).

The main representative of the expressionism is Erich Kaestner and his poem “The Blind man in front of the wall”. It exactly follows the theme of this age, which was the cruel truth. At the other hand there were authors like Joachim Ringelnatz who wrote funny and ironic poems.

And now we come to the modern age, which is now. There is not really a fixed theme yet. A famous contemporary german poet was Robert Gernhardt. Unfortunately he died two years ago.

5

4. Poetry Types

There are 51 different types of poems in the world of poetry and literature. We will explain some to you.

The first one we will introduce is the ballad poem. The ballad poem type is a type of poem that tells a story in a lyrical form of writing. Most of the time it is pretty long.

Then there is the ode type that we mentioned earlier. It is also long like the ballad poem but it is very serious and not so happy and romantic.

Another type of poem is the ABC poem it is a very creative type of poem because the poet not only writes a poem but he or she needs to start with an A in the first word of the first line and a B in the first word of the second line etc. There are examples of poems with 26 lines.

The next form of poem is also the first type of poem; we are talking about the epic poems. Epic poems are long and serious and tell the story of heroic people or kings. Homer, a Greek poet that we talked about before, was a famous epic poem writer.

Imagery poems are our next poem type. They are written in a way that when the reader reads them, he or she can picture the topic in his or her mind.

6

5. Famous Poets

There are tons and tons of poets so we think that almost everybody wrote a poem in his life. But not much poets can get famous and use poetry as their job. Here are some examples of those that used it for paying their bills.

William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He was a playwright and a poet. We would like to focus on the works of poetry that he wrote. His works of poetry were written in sonnets, a specific type of poetry that means little song. Shakespeare wrote 154 of these little songs. Shakespeare only wrote sonnets and no other type of poetry. Shakespeare made his own version of the sonnet by changing the rhyme scheme. In a poem written by Shakespeare the rhyme would be; ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Edgar Allen PoeEdgar Allen Poe was born in Massachusetts, a city in the USA in 1809. He was a poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic. We will focus on his works of poetry. He wrote over 50 pieces of poetry. These poems were written in different forms and not in one specific form, like Shakespeare did. He died in Baltimore in the USA when he was only 40 years old.

7

Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller was born in Marbach am Neckar, in Germany. He was a poet and a dramatist. During his life he made a friendship with Goethe, they both wrote a series of poems that were meant to offend their enemies. He died in 1805 in Weimar, Germany.

6. Best Poems

We did not decide on THE best poem because it is too difficult. Because some scholars say that this one is the best, but others say that one is best. So we thought that we should put one poem that we like.

The one is:

(Source: Wikipedia)

8

Conclusion

We have learned very much in writing this essay about poetry. And we now know that it is not as boring as we thought. We hope that you also learned something by reading our essay.

By Benedict Berkel and

By Dan Whiting

Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gravestone_poem_arp.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry

http://www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller

http://www.sternenfall.de/epochen--Naturalismus.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=welt+literatur+epochen&ie=UTF- 8&oe=UTF-8

http://www.bundeskunsthalle.de/ausstellungen/xian/symposium_ma.pdf

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

http://classicpoetry.about.com/cs/middleages/index.htm%E2%88%9A %C3%B9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

http://www.crystalinks.com/romeliterature.html

http://www.timelineindex.com/content/select/1401

9

10