Authors
Authors
A body of work enters the public domain by a date, not by an opinion. Here is each author's.
Archilochus
Greece (Paros), c. 680–645 BC. The earliest Greek lyric poet whose work survives, a mercenary soldier and the father of iambos and of personal poetry; his sharp, direct verse broke with the heroic tone of epic. His work is in the public domain.
Mimnermus
Greece (Colophon/Smyrna), c. 670–600 BC. An elegiac poet, the first to make the elegy a song of love and pleasure; his verse laments the brevity of youth and the horror of old age. His work is in the public domain.
Sappho
Greece, c. 630–570 BC. The greatest lyric poet of antiquity, from the island of Lesbos; almost all her work is lost. The «Ode to Aphrodite» is her only complete poem. Her work is in the public domain.
Alcaeus
Greece (Mytilene, Lesbos), c. 625–580 BC. A lyric poet, compatriot and contemporary of Sappho and inventor of the Alcaic stanza; he sang of wine, politics and war in a passionate voice. His work is in the public domain.
Anacreon
Greece (Teos), c. 582–485 BC. The poet of wine, love and pleasure par excellence of archaic Greece, one of the nine lyric poets of the Alexandrian canon; his name gave rise to a whole tradition of festive verse. His work is in the public domain.
Theognis
Greece (Megara), 6th c. BC. An elegiac poet, author of a vast collection of gnomic couplets addressed to the youth Cyrnus: counsel on friendship, nobility, loyalty and how to deal with men. His work is in the public domain.
Simonides
Greece (Ceos), c. 556–468 BC. One of the great lyric poets of antiquity, a master of the epigram and the dirge; his is the most famous epitaph in history, for the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae. His work is in the public domain.
Pindar
Greece (Thebes), c. 518–438 BC. The greatest of the Greek lyric poets and master of the victory ode (epinikion); his dense, sublime verse celebrates the winners of the games as images of human excellence. His work is in the public domain.
Plato
Greece (Athens), c. 428–348 BC. The most influential philosopher of the West; the Greek Anthology also credits him with a handful of love epigrams of rare beauty, such as the couplet to Aster ('Star'). His work is in the public domain.
Catullus
Rome, c. 84–54 BC. The greatest lyric poet of ancient Rome; his «Odi et amo» sums up love's contradiction in two lines. His work is in the public domain.
Horace
Rome, 65–8 BC. One of the greatest Latin poets; his Odes set the ideal of «carpe diem» and the measured, serene life. His work is in the public domain.
Ovid
Rome, 43 BC – AD 17. One of the great Latin poets, master of the love elegy and author of the Metamorphoses; at the height of his fame Augustus banished him to the shores of the Black Sea, where he died. The Amores sing of his mistress Corinna. His work is in the public domain.
Li Bai
China (Tang dynasty), 701–762. The most celebrated of the Chinese poets, the 'banished immortal'; his verse joins wine, the moon and homesickness with a legendary freedom. 'Quiet Night Thought' is the poem every Chinese child learns by heart. His work is in the public domain.
Wang Wei
China (Tang dynasty), 701–761. A Buddhist poet, painter and musician, master of landscape and Zen stillness; his Wang River cycle captures nature in a few strokes. 'Deer Enclosure' is famous for its serenity. His work is in the public domain.
Du Fu
China (Tang dynasty), 712–770. With Li Bai, the greatest poet of China, called the 'sage of poetry'; his grave, compassionate verse portrays war, famine and the suffering of the people. He wrote 'Spring View' during the An Lushan rebellion. His work is in the public domain.
Al-Shafi'i
Arab world (Gaza–Egypt), 767–820. One of the great jurists of Islam and founder of one of its schools of law, he was also a poet; his diwan is credited with short poems of wisdom on patience, fate and dignity. His work is in the public domain.
Omar Khayyam
Persia (Nishapur), 1048–1131. Mathematician, astronomer and philosopher as well as poet; his rubaiyat (quatrains) on wine, time and transience won worldwide fame after Edward FitzGerald's English version. His work is in the public domain.
Judah Halevi
Sepharad (Tudela–Toledo), c. 1075–1141. The greatest Hebrew poet of the Golden Age of al-Andalus, a physician and philosopher (author of the Kuzari); his 'songs of Zion' voice the longing for Jerusalem. He died on the way to the Holy Land. His work is in the public domain.
Rumi
Persia/Anatolia (Balkh–Konya), 1207–1273. A Sufi poet and mystic, among the most-read poets in the world; his Masnavi and his Divan of Shams of Tabriz sing of divine love and the longing for union. He inspired the order of the whirling dervishes. His work is in the public domain.
Saadi
Persia (Shiraz), c. 1210–1291. One of the greatest Persian poets, author of the Gulistan and the Bustan; his verses on love, ethics and our shared humanity ('the children of Adam are limbs of one body') are quoted across the Persian world. His work is in the public domain.
Cecco Angiolieri
Italy (Siena), c. 1260 – c. 1312. A comic and burlesque poet, a contemporary and rival of Dante; his sharp, desperate verse sings of wine, money, women and hatred of his parents. 'S'i' fosse foco' is his most famous sonnet. His work is in the public domain.
Dante Alighieri
Italy, 1265–1321. The father of the Italian language and author of the Divine Comedy. This sonnet from the Vita Nuova sings the appearance of Beatrice. His work is in the public domain.
Francesco Petrarca
Italy, 1304–1374. The father of humanism and of the modern sonnet; his Canzoniere, dedicated to Laura, set the form Europe would imitate for centuries. His work is in the public domain.
Hafez
Persia (Shiraz), c. 1315–1390. The best-loved of the Persian poets and a master of the ghazal; his Divan is a household book and an oracle across the Persian world. 'Hafez' ('one who has memorised the Quran') was his pen name. His work is in the public domain.
François Villon
France, c. 1431–1463. The greatest poet of the French Middle Ages; a thief, a vagabond and a genius, he vanished without trace. «Where are the snows of yesteryear?» is his most famous line. His work is in the public domain.
Garcilaso de la Vega
Spain, 1501–1536. Soldier and Renaissance poet; he naturalised the Italian hendecasyllable and sonnet into Spanish and set their music for centuries. He died on campaign at thirty-five. His work is in the public domain.
Santa Teresa de Ávila
Spain, 1515–1582. Carmelite nun, reformer, mystic and writer; her prose and verse are a peak of the Spanish Renaissance. She drove the reform of the Carmel alongside San Juan de la Cruz. Her work is in the public domain.
Luís de Camões
Portugal, 1524–1580. The greatest Portuguese poet, author of the epic Os Lusíadas. This sonnet on the paradoxes of love is among the most famous in the language. His work is in the public domain.
Pierre de Ronsard
France, 1524–1585. The 'prince of poets' of the French Renaissance and leader of the Pléiade; he gave French the ambition of the classical ode and the sonnet. 'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose' is his most famous carpe diem. His work is in the public domain.
Fray Luis de León
Spain, 1527–1591. Augustinian friar, humanist and Renaissance poet; a professor at Salamanca, the Inquisition held him prisoner for nearly five years. A master of the ode and of the serene line. His work is in the public domain.
San Juan de la Cruz
Spain, 1542–1591. Carmelite friar, mystic, and one of the peaks of Spanish lyric poetry. He reformed his order alongside Teresa of Ávila, was imprisoned for it, and composed part of his work in jail. His work is in the public domain.
Edmund Spenser
England, 1552–1599. One of the great poets of the English Renaissance, author of The Faerie Queene. His sonnet cycle Amoretti records a real courtship, that of his second wife. His work is in the public domain.
Luis de Góngora
Spain, 1561–1627. Córdoban poet of the Spanish Golden Age and head of culteranismo, the densest and most sumptuous style of the Spanish baroque. Quevedo's rival, he split the poetry of his time in two. His work is in the public domain.
Lope de Vega
Spain, 1562–1635. The 'Phoenix of Wits' and father of the Spanish theatre; he wrote hundreds of plays and thousands of verses. 'Un soneto me manda hacer Violante' is his most famous jest. His work is in the public domain.
William Shakespeare
England, 1564–1616. The most influential playwright and poet in the English language; besides his plays he left 154 sonnets. His work has been in the public domain worldwide for centuries.
Christopher Marlowe
England, 1564–1593. A playwright and poet of the English Renaissance, Shakespeare's rival; he died at twenty-nine in a brawl. 'The Passionate Shepherd to His Love' is his most famous lyric. His work is in the public domain.
John Donne
England, 1572–1631. The greatest of the English metaphysical poets; in youth the author of daring love poetry, in maturity Dean of St Paul's and a religious poet. His Holy Sonnets were published in 1633, after his death. His work is in the public domain.
Francisco de Quevedo
Spain, 1580–1645. Poet, satirist and prose writer of the Spanish Golden Age, and the great master of conceptismo. Góngora's rival, courtier and exile, he wrote both the gravest sonnet in Spanish and its most ferocious mockery. His work is in the public domain.
Robert Herrick
England, 1591–1674. A Cavalier poet and cleric, the most musical of the 17th-century English lyricists; his Hesperides celebrate love, flowers and the passing of time. 'Gather ye rosebuds' is the English carpe diem par excellence. His work is in the public domain.
John Milton
England, 1608–1674. The author of Paradise Lost and one of the summits of English poetry. He wrote 'On His Blindness' after going blind, on faith and waiting. His work is in the public domain.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Mexico, 1648–1695. Hieronymite nun, poet, and the sharpest mind of the Spanish American baroque. She argued theology with bishops and lost her library for it. Her work has been in the public domain worldwide for centuries.
Carl Michael Bellman
Sweden, 1740–1795. The best-loved of Swedish poets, a bard and composer; his Fredman's Epistles and Songs — Bacchic, rococo scenes of 18th-century Stockholm — join revelry and melancholy. His work is in the public domain.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Germany, 1749–1832. The central figure of German letters — poet, playwright, novelist, scientist — the author of Faust. 'Über allen Gipfeln', written on a hut wall, is among his shortest and most perfect poems. His work is in the public domain.
William Blake
England, 1757–1827. Poet, painter and printmaker; he printed his own books, uniting verse and image on a single plate. Almost unknown in his lifetime, he is now one of the giants of English Romanticism. His work is in the public domain.
William Wordsworth
England, 1770–1850. A father of English Romanticism; with Coleridge he launched the Lyrical Ballads. He sang nature and memory in a deliberately plain language. 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' is among his best-loved poems. His work is in the public domain.
Friedrich Hölderlin
Germany, 1770–1843. One of the greatest German lyric poets, between classicism and romanticism; he sang of ancient Greece and of nature before sinking into a madness he lived out for thirty-six years in a tower on the Neckar. 'Half of Life' is his most perfect poem. His work is in the public domain.
Ugo Foscolo
Italy, 1778–1827. A poet of Italian pre-Romanticism, author of the Sepolcri; he died in exile in London. «To Evening» is among his best-loved sonnets. His work is in the public domain.
Steen Steensen Blicher
Denmark, 1782–1848. Poet and novelist of the Danish Golden Age, a master of the regional tale and of Jutland's nature verse. His work is in the public domain.
Lord Byron
England, 1788–1824. The most famous and scandalous of the English Romantics; traveller, rebel and a legend in his lifetime. He died at thirty-six supporting Greek independence. His work is in the public domain.
Joseph von Eichendorff
Germany (Silesia), 1788–1857. One of the great lyric poets of German Romanticism; his poetry of the forest, the night and longing (Sehnsucht) was set to music by Schumann and others. 'Mondnacht' is his best-loved poem. His work is in the public domain.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
England, 1792–1822. Poet of the second generation of English Romantics, radical and defiant, drowned in a shipwreck at twenty-nine. His work is in the public domain.
Prince Dechadison
Thailand (Siam), 1793–1859. Prince and poet, compiler of the classic recension of the “Khlong Lokanit”, the verse maxims inscribed at Wat Pho. His work is in the public domain.
John Keats
England, 1795–1821. One of the great English Romantics; he died of tuberculosis in Rome at twenty-five, leaving a dazzling body of work in only a few years. 'Bright star' was his last sonnet. His work is in the public domain.
Heinrich Heine
Germany, 1797–1856. The last great German Romantic and the most ironic; many of his verses from the Buch der Lieder became songs. 'Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam' is among his most famous poems. His work is in the public domain.
Adam Mickiewicz
Poland, 1798–1855. Poland's national poet and one of the great voices of European Romanticism. «The Akkerman Steppes» opens his Crimean Sonnets. His work is in the public domain.
Giacomo Leopardi
Italy, 1798–1837. The greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the deepest thinkers of pessimism. 'L'infinito', written at twenty-one, is his most famous poem. His work is in the public domain.
Alexander Pushkin
Russia, 1799–1837. The founder of modern Russian literature; he died at thirty-seven in a duel. 'I loved you' is among his most famous love poems. His work is in the public domain.
France Prešeren
Slovenia, 1800–1849. The greatest Slovene poet, who raised his language to literary standing; a lawyer whose life was unhappy, he died at forty-eight. The seventh stanza of 'Zdravljica' is today Slovenia's national anthem. His work is in the public domain.
Victor Hugo
France, 1802–1885. A giant of French letters — poet, novelist, playwright — and the conscience of his century. 'Demain, dès l'aube' is an elegy for his daughter Léopoldine, drowned at nineteen. His work is in the public domain.
Fyodor Tyutchev
Russia, 1803–1873. A poet and diplomat, master of Russian philosophical lyric; his brief, deep verse meditates on nature, chaos and the limits of speech. 'Silentium!' is one of the summits of Russian poetry. His work is in the public domain.
Eduard Mörike
Germany, 1804–1875. Poet and Lutheran pastor of the Swabian school, a master of the short German Romantic lyric. His work is in the public domain.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
England, 1806–1861. One of the major voices of Victorian poetry. Her Sonnets from the Portuguese, written for her husband Robert Browning, are her best-loved work. Her work is in the public domain.
Gérard de Nerval
France, 1808–1855. A poet of French Romanticism and a forerunner of Symbolism; his life and madness fed his work. «El Desdichado» is his most famous sonnet. His work is in the public domain.
Henrik Wergeland
Norway, 1808–1845. Norway's greatest Romantic poet and father of its national literature; he wrote this poem on his deathbed. His work is in the public domain.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
England, 1809–1892. The most widely read poet of Victorian England and its Poet Laureate for over forty years. A master of the music of the English line. His work is in the public domain.
Edgar Allan Poe
United States, 1809–1849. He invented the detective story and much of modern horror, and wrote poems built like clockwork. He lived and died poor at forty. His work is in the public domain.
Taras Shevchenko
Ukraine, 1814–1861. Born a serf and freed at twenty-four, he is Ukraine's national poet and the father of its modern literature; also a painter, and a martyr to the Ukrainian cause, exiled by the tsar and forbidden to write. 'Zapovit' ('Testament') is his most-recited poem. His work is in the public domain.
Mikhail Lermontov
Russia, 1814–1841. Pushkin's heir and a major voice of Russian Romanticism; he died at twenty-six in a duel. «The Sail» is among his best-loved poems. His work is in the public domain.
Theodor Storm
Germany, 1817–1888. Poet and novelist of German poetic realism, born in Husum on the North Sea. His work is in the public domain.
Walt Whitman
United States, 1819–1892. He rewrote a single book, Leaves of Grass, his whole life, and with it gave English a free verse as wide as a country. A nurse in the Civil War, he sang the body and democracy without shame. His work is in the public domain.
José María Iparragirre
Basque Country (Spain), 1820–1881. A bard, bertsolari and wandering troubadour; a soldier in the Carlist wars and then an exile, he roamed Europe and America singing and came home to die poor. 'Gernikako Arbola' (1853), which he improvised, became the Basques' unofficial anthem. His work is in the public domain.
Charles Baudelaire
France, 1821–1867. The poet who opened modernity with Les Fleurs du mal; his gaze joined the beautiful and the terrible. «The Enemy» is Time, which devours life. His work is in the public domain.
Sándor Petőfi
Hungary, 1823–1849. Hungary's national poet and a hero of the 1848 revolution, in which he died at twenty-six. «At the End of September» is among his most famous love poems. His work is in the public domain.
Henrik Ibsen
Norway, 1828–1906. The greatest Scandinavian dramatist and the father of modern theatre; before his plays he was a poet. 'En svane' ('A Swan'), on the silent love that sings only in death, is his best-loved lyric. His work is in the public domain.
Emily Dickinson
United States, 1830–1886. Fewer than a dozen poems published in her lifetime; nearly eighteen hundred left hand-sewn into little booklets. Her work is in the public domain worldwide.
Christina Rossetti
England, 1830–1894. A Victorian poet of devout, melancholy voice, sister of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 'Remember' appeared in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Her work is in the public domain.
Đura Jakšić
Serbia, 1832–1878. Poet, painter and playwright, the great figure of Serbian Romanticism; bohemian and turbulent, he died poor at forty-six. His lyric verse joins nocturnal landscape and patriotic feeling. His work is in the public domain.
Narmad
India, 1833–1886. Poet and reformer, regarded as the father of modern Gujarati prose; his “Jai Jai Garvi Gujarat” is Gujarat's unofficial anthem. His work is in the public domain.
Jan Neruda
Czechia (Bohemia), 1834–1891. Poet and journalist, a central figure of 19th-century Czech literature and of the “Máj” group. His work is in the public domain.
Giosuè Carducci
Italy, 1835–1907. Poet and critic, the first Italian Nobel laureate in Literature (1906); a civic, classical voice of Risorgimento Italy. His work is in the public domain.
Nguyễn Khuyến
Vietnam, 1835–1909. Poet and Confucian mandarin, a master of classical Vietnamese poetry, famed for his three autumn poems. His work is in the public domain.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Spain, 1836–1870. The poet who made the language of Spanish Romanticism intimate and bare. He wrote little and died poor at thirty-four; his Rimas, published by friends after his death, opened modern Spanish poetry. His work is in the public domain.
Rosalía de Castro
Spain, 1837–1885. A central figure of the Galician Rexurdimento; she wrote a deep, desolate poetry in both Galician and Castilian. 'Las campanas' belongs to En las orillas del Sar (1884). Her work is in the public domain.
Akaki Tsereteli
Georgia, 1840–1915. Georgian national Romantic poet, author of the celebrated “Suliko”. His work is in the public domain.
Antero de Quental
Portugal, 1842–1891. A poet and thinker, the deepest voice of Portugal's «Generation of 1870»; his Sonnets carry doubt and death into verse. His work is in the public domain.
Lydia Koidula
Estonia, 1843–1886. The first major poet in the Estonian language and a voice of the national awakening; daughter of the journalist Johann Voldemar Jannsen, she signed herself 'Koidula' ('of the dawn'). 'Mu isamaa on minu arm' is sung at every Estonian Song Festival. Her work is in the public domain.
Paul Verlaine
France, 1844–1896. A master of musicality in French verse and a key figure of Symbolism. 'Chanson d'automne', with its short lines, is pure sound. His work is in the public domain.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
England, 1844–1889. Poet and Jesuit priest; his innovative “sprung rhythm”, published posthumously, made him a key figure of modern poetry. His work is in the public domain.
Hristo Botev
Bulgaria, 1848–1876. Poet and revolutionary, Bulgaria's national hero, killed in battle at 28; his handful of poems founded modern Bulgarian lyric. His work is in the public domain.
Mihai Eminescu
Romania, 1850–1889. Romania's national poet and the summit of Romantic poetry in his language; he died young, in madness. His work is in the public domain.
José Martí
Cuba, 1853–1895. Poet, essayist and hero of Cuban independence, he died in battle at forty-two. His Versos sencillos foreshadowed modernismo with a clear, direct voice; some of its stanzas live on today in the song Guantanamera. His work is in the public domain.
Arthur Rimbaud
France, 1854–1891. The prodigy and rebel of French poetry; he wrote almost all his work before the age of twenty and then abandoned it entirely. 'Le Dormeur du val' is among his most celebrated sonnets. His work is in the public domain.
Giovanni Pascoli
Italy, 1855–1912. One of the great Italian poets between the 19th and 20th centuries, a master of suggestion and symbol; the unpunished murder of his father marked his work. 'X Agosto', on the night of San Lorenzo and its shooting stars, is his best-loved poem. His work is in the public domain.
Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera
Mexico, 1859–1895. A chronicler and poet, one of the initiators of Spanish-American modernismo; he signed as 'El Duque Job'. 'Para entonces' is among his most remembered poems. His work is in the public domain.
A. E. Housman
England, 1859–1936. A poet and great Cambridge Latinist; his A Shropshire Lad sings, with simplicity, of youth, death and the English countryside. His work is in the public domain.
Joan Maragall
Spain (Catalonia), 1860–1911. The leading voice of Catalan Modernisme; his poetry joins nature, the living word and a deep spirituality. «The Blind Cow» is among his best-loved poems. His work is in the public domain.
Gustaf Fröding
Sweden, 1860–1911. One of Sweden's best-loved poets, of unmatched musicality; his verse, between folk joy and melancholy, sang of his Värmland province. He spent his last years in a sanatorium. 'Säv, säv, susa' is his most famous ballad. His work is in the public domain.
Rabindranath Tagore
India (Bengal), 1861–1941. A Bengali poet, composer and polymath, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1913) for Gitanjali; he wrote the national anthems of India and Bangladesh. 'Where the mind is without fear' is his most quoted poem. His work is in the public domain.
Gangadhar Meher
India, 1862–1924. Self-taught Odia poet, a weaver by trade, called “Svabhava Kavi” (the poet of nature); one of the classic voices of the Odia language. His work is in the public domain.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Greece, 1863–1933. The most influential modern Greek poet, Alexandrian in tongue and gaze. 'Thermopylae' honours those who guard their duty even knowing it lost. His work is in the public domain.
Erik Axel Karlfeldt
Sweden, 1864–1931. A poet of the Dalecarlia province, of a language rich in folk tradition and images of nature; he received a posthumous Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931 after declining it in life. His work is in the public domain.
W. B. Yeats
Ireland, 1865–1939. The greatest Irish poet in the English language and one of the central voices of the twentieth century. He moved from the Celtic Twilight of his youth to a hard, modern poetry; he received the Nobel Prize in 1923. His work is in the public domain.
José Asunción Silva
Colombia, 1865–1896. A forerunner of Spanish-American modernismo; his 'Nocturno', an elegy for his sister Elvira, renewed the metre of Spanish verse. He died at thirty. His work is in the public domain.
Rubén Darío
Nicaragua, 1867–1916. The poet who changed the ear of the Spanish language. Founder of modernismo, tireless traveller, dead at forty-nine. His work is in the public domain.
Tevfik Fikret
Turkey (Ottoman Empire), 1867–1915. Innovative poet of the Servet-i Fünun school and a voice of humanism and secularism. His work is in the public domain.
Amado Nervo
Mexico, 1870–1919. Poet and diplomat, one of the most widely read voices of modernismo. His late poetry, serene and almost religious, traded the glitter of his beginnings for the clarity of a reckoning. He died while serving as minister in Montevideo. His work is in the public domain.
Shimazaki Tōson
Japan, 1872–1943. Poet and novelist, a figure of Japanese Romanticism (romanshugi) and later Naturalism. His work is in the public domain.
Kumaran Asan
India, 1873–1924. Malayalam poet, a figure of Kerala's poetic renaissance and of social reform, a disciple of Narayana Guru. His work is in the public domain.
Leopoldo Lugones
Argentina, 1874–1938. The great figure of Argentine modernismo and one of its boldest technicians of verse. Poet, storyteller and polemicist. His work is in the public domain.
Manuel Machado
Spain, 1874–1947. Modernista poet, elder brother of Antonio Machado; he brought the air and the song of Andalusia into verse. His is a modernismo of grace, weariness and colour. His work is in the public domain.
Antonio Machado
Spain, 1875–1939. The major voice of the Generation of 98: a spare, deep, Castilian-toned poetry, attentive to time and memory. He died in exile, days after crossing the border at the end of the civil war. His work is in the public domain.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Austria/Bohemia (Prague), 1875–1926. One of the greatest 20th-century poets in German; his work seeks the intensity of seeing and inner transformation. 'Der Panther', born before a cage in the Jardin des Plantes, is his most famous 'thing-poem'. His work is in the public domain.
Eino Leino
Finland, 1878–1926. Finland's national poet, a master of musical verse and late Romanticism, and a founding voice of modern Finnish lyric. His work is in the public domain.
Alexander Blok
Russia, 1880–1921. The great voice of Russian Symbolism and one of the summits of the Silver Age; his poetry moves from mystical love to the desolation of the revolution. 'Night, street, streetlamp, drugstore' is his most quoted poem, on the inescapable circularity of life. His work is in the public domain.
Guillaume Apollinaire
France (b. Rome), 1880–1918. A poet and critic, one of the essential voices of the European avant-garde; he invented the calligramme and coined the word 'surrealism'. Wounded in the Great War, he died of Spanish flu at thirty-eight. 'Le Pont Mirabeau' is his best-loved poem. His work is in the public domain.
Subramania Bharati
India, 1882–1921. The Tamil national poet, reformer and patriot whose fiery verse renewed modern Tamil poetry. His work is in the public domain.
Delmira Agustini
Uruguay, 1886–1914. One of the most intense and daring voices of modernismo; she brought to verse an eroticism and an inner depth unprecedented for a woman of her time. She was murdered at twenty-seven. Her work is in the public domain.
Fernando Pessoa
Portugal, 1888–1935. The greatest Portuguese poet of the 20th century, who wrote under many 'heteronyms'. 'Autopsicografia' sums up his art: the poet feigns so wholly that he feigns even the pain he truly feels. His work is in the public domain.
Jaishankar Prasad
India, 1889–1937. Poet, playwright and novelist, a major figure of Chhayavad (Hindi Romanticism) and author of the epic “Kamayani”. His work is in the public domain.
Alfonsina Storni
Argentina, 1892–1938. One of the major voices of Spanish-American poetry; she wrote about women and their place with a pioneering frankness. 'Peso ancestral' is among her most quoted poems. Her work is in the public domain.
César Vallejo
Peru, 1892–1938. One of the most original and anguished voices in Spanish-language poetry; his work broke the language open to speak of pain. 'Los heraldos negros' opens his first book. His work is in the public domain.
Edith Södergran
Finland, 1892–1923. Finnish poet writing in Swedish, a pioneer of Nordic modernism; her free, expressionist verse opened twentieth-century Scandinavian lyric. Her work is in the public domain.
Wilfred Owen
England, 1893–1918. The greatest poet of the Great War; he was killed in action a week before the Armistice, at twenty-five. His poetry indicts the horror of the trenches without rhetoric. His work is in the public domain.
Florbela Espanca
Portugal, 1894–1930. One of the most intense voices in Portuguese poetry and a master of the sonnet; her sensual, grieving work sings of love, desire and solitude. Marked by tragedy, she took her own life on her thirty-sixth birthday. Her work is in the public domain.
Sergei Yesenin
Russia, 1895–1925. Peasant-rooted lyric poet, one of the best-loved voices of early-20th-century Russia. His work is in the public domain.
Miyazawa Kenji
Japan, 1896–1933. Buddhist poet and storyteller, an agronomist from Iwate; his “雨ニモマケズ”, found in a notebook after his death, is Japan’s best-loved poem. His work is in the public domain.
Yeghishe Charents
Armenia, 1897–1937. The major Armenian poet of the 20th century, who died in the Stalinist repression. His work is in the public domain.
Federico García Lorca
Spain, 1898–1936. Poet and playwright of the Generation of '27, murdered at the start of the Civil War; one of the major voices of 20th-century Spanish poetry. His work is in the public domain.
Hendrik Marsman
Netherlands, 1899–1940. Poet, translator and critic, a leading voice of Dutch vitalism and expressionism and of the 'generation of 1925'. He died at forty when the ship carrying him to England was torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay. 'Herinnering aan Holland' was voted the Dutch poem of the century in 2000. His work is in the public domain.
Kim Sowol
Korea, 1902–1934. Pen name of Kim Jeong-sik, Korea’s most beloved modern lyric poet and a master of the min’yo folk-song style. His work is in the public domain.
Chairil Anwar
Indonesia, 1922–1949. Central poet of the “Generation of 45”, a radical renewer of modern Indonesian poetry, dead at 27. His work is in the public domain.