Poets
Poets from across the world and across eras — English, American, European, Persian, Urdu, Arabic and East Asian traditions. Select a name for their style, birth and death years, and a full profile.
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Practise MCQsPoets from across the world and across eras — English, American, European, Persian, Urdu, Arabic and East Asian traditions. Select a name for their style, birth and death years, and a full profile.
Ready to test yourself?
Practise MCQsPractice modes
Languages & Literature
Pakistan
World & History
42 of 42 poets
| Poet | Born – Died | Country / Language | Tradition | Type | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homer | c. 8th century BC – unknown | Ancient Greece · Greek | Western | Epic poet (Ancient Greek) | The Iliad, The Odyssey, founder of Western epic poetry |
| Li Bai | 701 – 762 | China · Chinese | Other | Classical Chinese poet (Tang dynasty) | Tang dynasty poetry, romantic and nature-themed verse |
| Al-Mutanabbi | 915 – 965 | Abbasid Caliphate (Iraq/Syria) · Arabic | Muslim | Classical Arabic poet | Classical Arabic panegyric and self-praise poetry |
| Ferdowsi | 940 – 1020 | Persia · Persian | Muslim | Epic poet (Shahnameh) | Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), epic of Persian national identity |
| Omar Khayyam | 1048 – 1131 | Persia · Persian | Muslim | Poet-mathematician (Rubai) | The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam |
| Jalaluddin Rumi | 1207 – 1273 | Persia / Anatolia · Persian | Muslim | Sufi mystic poet | Masnavi, Sufi mystical love poetry, one of the best-selling poets in the modern West |
| Saadi Shirazi | c. 1210 – 1291 | Persia · Persian | Muslim | Didactic/Sufi poet | The Rose Garden (Gulistan) and The Orchard (Bustan), Persian didactic poetry |
| Dante Alighieri | 1265 – 1321 | Italy · Italian | Western | Epic poet (Medieval) | The Divine Comedy, father of the Italian language |
| Hafez | c. 1315 – 1390 | Persia · Persian | Muslim | Lyric/Sufi poet (Ghazal) | Diwan of Hafez, mastery of the Persian ghazal |
| William Shakespeare | 1564 – 1616 | England · English | Western | Playwright-poet (Elizabethan) | Sonnets, blank verse, tragedies and comedies that shaped the English language |
| John Milton | 1608 – 1674 | England · English | Western | Epic poet (Puritan) | Paradise Lost, blank-verse epic on the Fall of Man |
| Matsuo Bashō | 1644 – 1694 | Japan · Japanese | Other | Haiku master | Master of haiku, The Narrow Road to the Deep North |
| Mir Taqi Mir | 1723 – 1810 | India · Urdu | Muslim | Ghazal poet (Classical Urdu) | Classical Urdu ghazal, pathos (dard) in Urdu poetry |
| Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | 1749 – 1832 | Germany · German | Western | Romantic/Classical poet | Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther |
| William Wordsworth | 1770 – 1850 | England · English | Western | Romantic poet | Lyrical Ballads, nature poetry, "emotion recollected in tranquillity" |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge | 1772 – 1834 | England · English | Western | Romantic poet | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, supernatural and imaginative Romanticism |
| Lord Byron | 1788 – 1824 | England · English | Western | Romantic poet | The "Byronic hero", satirical and narrative verse |
| Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1792 – 1822 | England · English | Western | Romantic poet | Ode to the West Wind, Ozymandias, radical Romantic idealism |
| John Keats | 1795 – 1821 | England · English | Western | Romantic poet | Odes (To Autumn, Ode to a Nightingale), sensuous Romantic imagery |
| Mirza Ghalib | 1797 – 1869 | India · Urdu | Muslim | Ghazal poet (Classical Urdu) | Urdu ghazal at its most philosophical and complex |
| Alexander Pushkin | 1799 – 1837 | Russia · Russian | Western | Romantic poet (father of Russian literature) | Eugene Onegin, father of modern Russian literature |
| Victor Hugo | 1802 – 1885 | France · French | Western | Romantic poet | Les Misérables, French Romantic poetry |
| Alfred, Lord Tennyson | 1809 – 1892 | England · English | Western | Victorian poet | In Memoriam A.H.H., The Charge of the Light Brigade |
| Walt Whitman | 1819 – 1892 | United States · English | Western | Free verse / Transcendentalist poet | Leaves of Grass, free verse, "Song of Myself" |
| Charles Baudelaire | 1821 – 1867 | France · French | Western | Symbolist poet | Les Fleurs du mal, Symbolism, urban modernity in verse |
| Emily Dickinson | 1830 – 1886 | United States · English | Western | Lyric poet | Short, slant-rhymed lyric poems on death, nature and the inner self |
| Arthur Rimbaud | 1854 – 1891 | France · French | Western | Symbolist poet | A Season in Hell, Symbolist and Surrealist precursor |
| Rabindranath Tagore | 1861 – 1941 | India · Bengali | Other | Poet-philosopher (Nobel laureate) | Gitanjali, Bengali Renaissance literature |
| W. B. Yeats | 1865 – 1939 | Ireland · English | Western | Symbolist/Modernist poet | The Second Coming, Irish mythology and symbolism |
| Robert Frost | 1874 – 1963 | United States · English | Western | Pastoral/Modern poet | The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening |
| Rainer Maria Rilke | 1875 – 1926 | Austria · German | Western | Modernist/Lyric poet | Duino Elegies, Letters to a Young Poet |
| Allama Muhammad Iqbal | 1877 – 1938 | British India / Pakistan · Urdu & Persian | Muslim | Philosopher-poet | Urdu and Persian poetry on selfhood (Khudi) and Muslim revival |
| Kahlil Gibran | 1883 – 1931 | Lebanon · Arabic & English | Other | Mystic/Prose poet | The Prophet, mystic prose poetry |
| T. S. Eliot | 1888 – 1965 | England (US-born) · English | Western | Modernist poet | The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, literary modernism |
| Anna Akhmatova | 1889 – 1966 | Russia · Russian | Western | Modernist poet | Requiem, chronicling Stalinist-era suffering |
| Langston Hughes | 1901 – 1967 | United States · English | Western | Harlem Renaissance poet | Harlem Renaissance poetry, jazz-inflected verse |
| Pablo Neruda | 1904 – 1973 | Chile · Spanish | Western | Surrealist/Political poet | Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Canto General |
| Faiz Ahmed Faiz | 1911 – 1984 | Pakistan · Urdu | Muslim | Progressive/Revolutionary poet | Progressive Urdu poetry blending romance and revolution |
| Maya Angelou | 1928 – 2014 | United States · English | Western | Contemporary poet | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Still I Rise |
| Ahmad Faraz | 1931 – 2008 | Pakistan · Urdu | Muslim | Romantic/Progressive poet | Popular modern Urdu ghazal and nazm |
| Sylvia Plath | 1932 – 1963 | United States · English | Western | Confessional poet | Confessional poetry, Ariel, The Bell Jar |
| Parveen Shakir | 1952 – 1994 | Pakistan · Urdu | Muslim | Feminist/Romantic poet | Feminine voice and imagery in modern Urdu poetry |