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10 MOST FAMOUS POEMS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

By Anirudh -

August 7, 2018

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The earliest surviving English poetry may have been composed in the 7th century. It is written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English. The highest poetic achievement in Old English literature is Beowulf, a 3182 line epic by an unknown author. Following the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century, Anglo-Saxon rapidly diminished as a written literary language and it was not until the 14th century that major works of English literature began to appear once again. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400) is credited with legitimizing the literary use of the Middle English vernacular at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin. Due to this, Chaucer is referred to as the Father of English literature. With the discovery of the New World and the rise of Great Britain as an international superpower, English spread to other parts of the world. Hence, many of the best known English poems are written by authors who don’t belong to England. Here are the 10 most famous English poems of all time.

#10 STILL I RISE

Poet: Maya Angelou

Published: 1978

Maya Angelou was an African American writer who is most famous for her poems and seven autobiographies. She was a prolific poet who explored numerous themes in her poems including those of women, love, loss, music, struggle, discrimination and racism. Still I Rise directly addresses the white oppressors of black people and responds to centuries of oppression and mistreatment they have suffered. It talks about various means of oppression, like writing, which the narrator addresses in the first stanza of the poem. Still I Rise hails the indomitable spirit of Black people; and expresses faith that they will triumph despite adversity and racism. It is the most famous poem of Maya Angelou and it was also her favorite. In 1994, Nelson Mandela recited this poem at his presidential inauguration. Still I Rise is perhaps the most famous poem written by an African American and it has been called a “proud, even defiant statement on behalf of all Black people”.

Excerpt:-

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.