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Andreas Gryphius writes his 'Schluss des 1648sten Jahres'
Gryphius (1616-1664) was a prominent German poet and dramatist of the mid-seventeenth century. His work was often very dismal, due to his experiences of the Thirty Years War. This poem, written at the end of the war, expresses a tentative hope that the treaties of 1648 would actually bring the peace they promised. -
Period: to
The Progression of Meter
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Charlotte Smith writes her 'On Being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland overlooking the Sea, because it was Frequented by a Lunatic'
Smith (1749-1806) is very important in the history of the sonnet. She was integral to its revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and supported her nine children primarily on the profits from her writing. This sonnet is an early example of Romantic tendencies such as the glorification of the natural and of the irrational. -
Percy Bysshe Shelley writes his 'England in 1819'
Shelley (1792-1822) is well known for his Romantic and political works, and this poem is a harsh attack on the state of English politics. Nevertheless, Shelley ends the poem with hope that the current state of affairs will bring about a revolution of sorts. They did not. -
Charles Baudelaire's 'La Mort des pauvres' is published
Baudelaire's (1821-1867) collection of poems 'Les Fleurs du Mal' is an exploration of the changing nature of beauty in the industrialized setting of the 19th century. His poems shocked audiences for both their content and their (lack of) form, and influenced many later poets including Rimbaud and Verlaine. This particular sonnet evokes the despair and alienation of urban life. -
Ezra Pound's 'In the Station of the Metro' is first published
Pound (1885-1972) would later become a very controversial figure, but this early Imagist poem – radically brief and unstructured – speaks to a feeling of detachment central to the Modernist movement. -
Bertolt Brecht writes his 'Sonnett in der Emigration'
Brecht (1898-1956), a committed Marxist until his death, wrote this poem while living in Hollywood during his exile from Nazi-run Germany. It expresses his the conflict he felt becuase of his dependence on this most capitalistic place for survival, at the expense of the rigour of his political ideals.
