William Shakespeare
England's national poet William Shakespeare is rightfully considered the world's greatest playwright. His works have been translated into almost all languages of the world. Therefore, many believe that he is the most famous poet in the world.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His career began in 1585, when he moved to London. He became a successful actor and playwright, and eventually co-owner of a theater company.
His early plays were comedies and chronicles. He raised these genres to the pinnacle of sophistication. Then came a series of tragedies such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. At the end of his life, Shakespeare wrote several tragicomedies.
This English playwright gained real popularity only in the 19th century. He was especially revered by the Victorians and representatives of romanticism. But be that as it may, Shakespeare played a big role in the development of drama (before his Romeo and Juliet, no one had written a tragedy about love).
The most famous of the ancient Greek poets in the world
Homer is one of the very first poets. This ancient Greek storyteller is still popular today. Everyone knows his works “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. Homer lived in the 8th century BC. His place of birth is unknown. He died on the island of Ios (Cyclades archipelago).
Traditionally, this poet is portrayed as blind, although in real life he might not have been so (it’s just that all the singers and soothsayers of that time were blind). Also, contemporaries have doubts about the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, because in the time of Homer there was no writing yet and these works could only be transmitted orally. But, be that as it may, Homer is the most ancient poet in the world known to us.
The most famous Russian poet in the world
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was born in 1799 in Moscow. He descended from the ancient noble family of the Pushkins, whose family tree begins with Ratmir, a warrior of Alexander Nevsky. Ratmir is mentioned in “The Tale of the Life of Alexander Nevsky” as one of the six main heroes of the legendary battle. On the other hand, his maternal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Hannibal, a servant and pupil of Peter I, later an engineer and general. Pushkin repeatedly described his ancestry and mentioned his family as true aristocrats who honestly served their fatherland, but did not gain favor.
He himself was also not loved by the Russian emperor, although during his lifetime he was very popular in Russia.
This is what the greatest writers and critics wrote about him.
100 great poets of the world from different eras
A list of the most famous poets in the world and the years of their life, presented by century and historical era.
Ancient world
Homer (c. 8th century BC)
David (X Century BC)
Solomon (c.965 – c.928 BC)
Hesiod (late 8th – early 7th century BC)
Archilochus (VII Century BC)
Sappho (c.612 BC – c.572 BC)
Valmiki (between 5th-4th centuries BC)
Gaius Valerius Catullus (87 or 84-54 BC)
Publius Virgil Maro (70-19 BC)
Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC)
Publius Ovid Naso (43 BC – 17 or 18 BC)
Qu Yuan (c.340 – c.278 BC)
Middle Ages
Kalidasa (around 5th century)
Li Bo (701-762)
Du Fu (712-770)
Abu Abdallah Jafar Rudaki (c.860-941)
Abulqasim Ferdowsi (between 932 and 941-1020 or 1030)
Omar Khayyam (1048-1123)
Li Qing-Zhao (1084-1151)
Peter Borislavich (XII Century)
Shota Rustaveli (XII Century)
Chrétien De Troyes (c.1130 – c.1191)
Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209)
Saadi Muslihiddin Shirazi (between 1203 and 1210-1292)
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)
Hafiz Shamsiddin (1325-1389 or 1390)
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340? -1400)
Renaissance
Francois Villon (1431 or 1432-1463)
Alisher Navoi (1441-1501)
Sebastian Brant (c.1458-1521)
Ludo vico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Luis Vaja Di Camoes (1524 or 1525-1580)
Pierre De Ronsard (1524-1585)
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)
Francois De Malherbe (c.1555-1628)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
17th century
John Milton (1608-1674)
Savignen Cyrano De Bergerac (1619-1655)
Jean La Fontaine (1621-1695)
Nicola Boileau-Depreaux (1636-1711)
Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
XVIII century
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803)
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)
James Macpherson (1736-1796)
Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1746-1832)
Evariste Guys (1753-1814)
William Blake (1757-1827)
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)
André Marie Chenier (1762-1794)
19th century
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Pierre Jean Beranger (1780-1857)
Adelbert Von Chamisso (1781-1838)
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852)
George Gordo n Byron (1788-1824)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
John Keats (1795-1821)
Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837)
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803-1873)
Henry Longfellow (1807-1882)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Alfred De Musset (1810-1857)
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (1814-1841)
Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko (1814-1861)
Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892)
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (1821-1877/1878)
Apollon Nikolaevich Maikov (1821-1897)
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Stephane Mallarmé (1842-1898)
Paul Marie Verlaine (1844-1896)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
XX century
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953)
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873-1924)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880-1921)
Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)
Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922)
Thomas Eliot (1888-1965)
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960)
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891-1938)
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892-1941)
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930)
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (1895-1925)
Paul Eluard (1895-1952)
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky (1910-1971)
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky (1940 – 1996)
30 best poets of the world of all time
according to the editors of the Selection portal
When compiling the rating, the following factors were taken into account: the world fame of the poet, national popularity and significance, historical influence on world and national poetry, the number of publications of the poet’s works in all countries and over all time, places occupied in authoritative ratings and voting
1. William Shakespeare
2. Homer
3. Dante Alighieri
4. George Gordon Byron
5. Alexander Pushkin
6. Rabindranath Tagore
7. Virgil
8. Li Bo
9. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
10. William Wordsworth
11. Francesco Petrarca
12. Heinrich Heine
13. Ferdowsi
14. Matsuo Basho
15. Rainer Maria Rilke
16. Percy Bysshe Shelley
17. Mikhail Lermontov
18. John Keats
19. Robert Frost
20. Charles Baudelaire
21. William Blake
22. Horace
23. Du Fu
24. William Butler Yeats
25. Paul Verlaine
26. Friedrich Schiller
27. Federico Garcia Lorca
28. Saadi
29. Ovid
30. Emily Dickinson
100 Greatest Poets of All Time (Ranker List)
List 100 best poets of all times, compiled on the basis of voting by Internet users from around the world and ordered by the number of votes of participants.
Voting organized by a famous media company Ranker(USA). Ranker's media resources attract more than 50 million unique visitors per month. The company's ratings lists and online user opinion data are regularly cited in reputable media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter and USA Today, among many others.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is an English poet, playwright and actor, considered the greatest writer in the English language and the world's foremost playwright.
The legendary ancient Greek poet Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The ancient Greeks believed that he was the first and greatest of the poetic poets.
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante, is the greatest Italian poet of the late Middle Ages.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe - American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, representative of American romanticism
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His works include epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of meters and styles; prose and poetic drama; memoirs.
William Blake
William Blake was an English artist, poet and engraver. Largely unrecognized during his life, Blake is now considered a significant figure in the history of poetry and the visual arts
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century.
Walt Whitman
Walter Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism in American poetry.
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English writer, poet and novelist. He wrote stories and poems related to India and stories for children.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born into a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a largely sheltered life.
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Joseph Maria Rilke, known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist, one of the most recognized lyric poets in Europe
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theater director and poet. He is often called the "father of realism" and one of the founders of modernism
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was a Russian poet and writer of the Romantic era, considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet.
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pseudonym and later official name of the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes Basoalto
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore is an Indian writer, poet, composer, artist, and public figure. His work shaped the literature and music of Bengal.
George Gordon Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and lyricist.
He is considered Scotland's chief national poet, the most famous of the poets who wrote in Scots
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, friend of Petrarch, and an important humanist of the Renaissance. Author of poems based on ancient mythology, pastorals, sonnets, author of the famous book of short stories “The Decameron”
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian and playwright.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria and remains one of Britain's most popular poets.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the "Father of English Poetry", is considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and the author of the collection of short stories "The Canterbury Tales".
Thomas Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot, better known as T. S. Eliot, was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, exponent of modernism in poetry, and "one of the major poets of the twentieth century."
John Keats
John Keats was an English romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley
Novalis is the pseudonym of Baron Friedrich von Hardenberg, a philosopher, writer and poet of early German romanticism.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth is a major English romantic poet, the main author of the collection “Lyrical Ballads”, conventionally classified as so-called. "Lake School"
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who is also known as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet associated with the Romanticism movement.
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marley Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer whose best-known works include the poems "And Death Remains Without Power" and "Do Not Go Meekly into the Twilight of Eternal Darkness."
Vazha-Pshavela
Vazha-Pshavela is the pseudonym of the 19th century Georgian poet and writer Luka Razikashvili, a recognized classic of Georgian literature.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is considered by some critics to be the finest lyric poet in the English language.
Wysten Hugh Auden
W. Hugh Auden was an Anglo-American poet born in Great Britain, then a US citizen, and is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flagherty Wills Wilde was an Irish author, playwright and poet. One of the most famous playwrights of the late Victorian period, one of the key figures of aestheticism and European modernism.
Francesco Petrarca
Francesco Petrarca - Italian poet, head of the older generation of humanists, one of the greatest figures of the Italian Proto-Renaissance
Joseph von Eichendorff
Baron Joseph Carl Benedikt von Eichendorff (Eichendorff) was a German poet and novelist of the late German Romantic school. Eichendorff is considered one of the most important German romantics, his lyric works have been set to music some 5,000 times
Annette von Droste-Hulshoff
Annette von Droste-Hulshoff was a 19th-century German poet and short story writer.
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben was a German Germanist and songwriter. He is best known for writing the lyrics to the “Song of the Germans” (“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”) in August 1841.
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski is an American writer, poet, novelist and journalist of German origin. Representative of the so-called “dirty realism”
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky was a Russian singer-songwriter, poet and actor, whose work had a huge influence on Soviet and Russian culture.
Virgil
Publius Virgil Maro was a famous Roman poet during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Nicknamed the "Mantuan swan". He is known for three major works of Latin literature - Bucolics, Georgics, Aeneid.
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, thinker, author of political pamphlets and religious treatises, and a politician during the time of Oliver Cromwell.
Luis de Camões
Luis Vaz de Camões (Luís de Camões) is a Portuguese poet, the largest representative of Renaissance literature in Portugal in the 16th century, the author of the national epic poem “The Lusiads”, one of the founders of the modern Portuguese language.
Edward Estlin Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings is an American poet, writer, artist, and essayist. It is generally accepted that Cummings preferred to write his last name and initials in small letters (as e.e.cummings).
Jalaluddin Rumi
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, commonly known as Rumi or Mevlana, was a prominent 13th-century Persian Sufi poet and jurist.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher, one of the founders of the Romantic movement in England and an outstanding representative of the "Lake School"
Quintus Horace Flaccus, better known simply as Horace, is the great ancient Roman poet of the “golden age” of Roman literature.
Hans Sachs
Hans Sachs was a German poet, Meistersinger and playwright, an important representative of the burgher urban culture of the Renaissance.
Pindar, one of the most significant lyric poets of Ancient Greece, was included in the canonical list of the Nine Lyricists by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria.
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath is an American poet and writer, considered one of the founders of the genre of “confessional poetry” in English literature.
Ulrich von Lichtenstein
Ulrich von Lichtenstein is a medieval German poet of the late Minnesang period, captain (head of the land) of Styria.
Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyam Nishapuri - famous Persian philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist and lecturing poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope is an English poet of the 18th century, one of the largest authors of British classicism. He is known for his satirical poems as well as his translations of Homer.
Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Leopardi was an Italian poet, philosopher, essayist and philologist who lived in the 19th century.
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov is a Russian poet and writer, one of the most important Russian poets after the death of Alexander Pushkin in 1837, and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott is a world-famous Scottish prose writer, poet, historian, and collector of antiquities. He is considered the founder of the historical novel genre.
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was a German poet, journalist, essayist and literary critic. Heine is considered the last poet of the “romantic era” and at the same time its head.
John Donne
John Donne is an English poet and preacher, rector of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He is considered an outstanding representative of English Baroque literature ("metaphysical school").
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens is an American modernist poet of German-Dutch descent.
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso - Italian poet of the 16th century, author of the poem “Jerusalem Liberated” (1575).
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the neotic style of poetry. His surviving works are still widely read and continue to influence the poetry of other authors.
Victor Hugo
Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and one of the main figures of French romanticism. He is considered one of the greatest and most famous French writers.
David Herbert Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence is one of the key English writers of the early 20th century. In addition to novels, he also wrote essays, poems, plays, notes on his travels and short stories.
Paul Verlaine
Paul Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest exponents of fin de siècle ("end of the century") in international and French poetry.
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous works are "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass"
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder - German philosopher, theologian, poet and literary critic. One of the leading figures of the late Enlightenment
Nikoloz Baratashvili
Prince Nikoloz Baratashvili is a famous Georgian romantic poet. He is called “a classic of Georgian literature”
Thomas Murner
Thomas Murner - German satirist, Franciscan monk, doctor of theology and law
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin is a British poet, writer and jazz critic who lived in the 20th century.
Ana Kalandadze
Ana Kalandadze is a Georgian Soviet poetess, one of the most influential women in modern Georgian literature.
Ferenc Kazinczy
Ferenc Kazinczy is a Hungarian writer, public figure, ideologist of the Hungarian Enlightenment and reformer of Hungarian literature and the Hungarian language.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, artist, liberal activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Author of translations, fiction, theater, art criticism
Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick was an English lyric poet and cleric of the 17th century. Representative of the group so-called "Cavalier Poets", supporters of King Charles I.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor. In 1913-1917 was considered one of the leaders of the Russian futurist movement
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound is an American poet, translator, and literary critic. One of the founders of English-language modernist literature.
Sappho was a Greek lyric poet born on the island of Lesbos. She was included in the Alexandrian canonical list of Nine lyric poets.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John Ronald Ruel Tolkien is an English writer and poet, translator, linguist, and philologist. Author of famous books about hobbits.
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams is one of the largest poets in the United States, closely associated with modernism.
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Edmund Spencer
Edmund Spenser was an English poet of the Elizabethan era, an older contemporary of Shakespeare, who was the first to instill sweetness and musicality in English verse. In England he was called the "Prince of Poets."
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and teacher, and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Li Bai, also known as Li Bo, is a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, known as the "immortal of poetry" and is among the most revered poets in the history of Chinese literature.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Father Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose posthumous fame placed him among the leading Victorian poets.
Francois Villon
François Villon is the first French lyricist of the late Middle Ages.
Du Fu was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Po, he is often called the greatest of Chinese poets.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an American writer and poet. She has published seven autobiographies, five books of essays, and several collections of poetry.
Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell was an English poet and Member of Parliament at various times between 1659 and 1678. One of the last representatives of the school of metaphysicians and one of the first masters of English classicism poetry.
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the pioneers of a new form of literary art called jazz poetry.
Alfred Edward Houseman
Alfred Edward Housman, commonly known as AE Housman, is one of the most popular Edwardian poets, the author of the collection of poems A Shropshire Lad, which became widely known during the First World War.
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlow. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold is an English poet and cultural critic, one of the most authoritative literary critics and essayists of the Victorian period. He stood at the origins of the movement for the renewal of the Anglican Church.
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti is an English poet, sister of the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She wrote many romantic and children's poems.
George Herbert
George Herbert was a 16th-century Welsh and English poet, orator and Anglican clergyman. Herbert's poetry is associated with the works of metaphysical poets.
Jan Kochanowski
Jan Kochanowski was a poet of the Polish Renaissance who created poetic expressions that would become an integral part of the Polish literary language. Considered the first great national poet of Poland.
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak is a Russian poet, writer, and literary translator. One of the greatest poets of the 20th century.
Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Polish origin. Apollinaire is considered one of the most influential figures of the European avant-garde of the early 20th century.
John Dryden
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright.
His influence on his contemporaries was so comprehensive that the period from 1660 to 1700 in the history of English literature is usually called the “age of Dryden.”
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, known simply as Cervantes, was a Spanish writer, poet and playwright. First of all, he is known as the author of one of the greatest works of world literature - the novel “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha,” which is considered the first modern European novel.
Wang Wei was a Chinese poet, musician, artist and statesman. Along with Li Bo and Du Fu, he is the most famous representative of Chinese poetry of the Tang era.
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Car - Roman poet and philosopher. He is considered one of the brightest adherents of atomistic materialism, a follower of the teachings of Epicurus. Author of the famous epic philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things” (Latin: De rerum natura)
PoetrySoup's list of the 100 best famous poets in history
A list of the best poets of all time, as chosen by PoetrySoup members.
PoetrySoup is a huge international community of more than 30,000 poets. PoetrySoup contains over 500,000 poems written by a wide variety of amateur, professional, and famous poets. PoetrySoup offers many services through its website, and its members promote and organize frequent poetry competitions.
At the same time, the organizers of the vote. note that the use of the term "top poets" is probably not entirely correct for this list because the list was determined by visitors to a website with a Western slant. In addition, there was probably more preference for contemporary poets.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
List of all the world's poets on Wikipedia (in English)
Russian literature is a truly large-scale and grandiose phenomenon. Dozens of cult novels are revered both at home and in other countries. Wonderful Russian poetry deserves special attention, incorporating all the best that was created in Europe. But, despite the obvious continuity, Russian poetry managed to create something unique and extremely national. And, of course, among the many cult poets there are those who are especially loved by readers and whose contribution to the development of Russian culture is difficult to overestimate.
One of the most outstanding representatives of Russian history. Perhaps the most versatile person in Russia, M.V. Lomonosov was also a magnificent poet, whose innovative inventions in the field of versification influenced an entire generation of Russian poets of the 19th century. In essence, Lomonosov was the one who popularized poetic creativity, made poetic language simpler and more understandable for the reader, that is, gave it true beauty, because before Lomonosov’s experiments in this area, versification in Russia was crude and difficult to understand.
Having carried out truly titanic work in developing the theory of Russian versification, in practice Lomonosov was a master of the solemn ode, a genre that, even after his experiments, would be in great demand among Russian poets. Among the works of this genre is the iconic ode to Empress Catherine the Great. Its style and rhythm very well characterize the entire poetic work of the genius - typical phrases and grandiose pathos like the stanzas “Come, Russian joy - Come, the desire of hearts...”.
There is one remarkable historical fact - when Nicholas I received Pushkin in the imperial palace and had a many-hour conversation with him, the sovereign said: “Now I have met the smartest man in the history of Russia.” This phrase from the emperor very accurately characterizes Pushkin’s personality - the poet’s passionate and sometimes mischievous disposition was in harmony with a very subtly thinking mind, developed beyond his years. Pushkin’s wisdom, his ability to subtly notice details and very successfully describe the emotional impulses of the human soul did their job - to this day Pushkin is considered the “sun of Russian poetry.” His poems, inspired by Byron's style and romanticism in general, conveyed all the deepest feelings - love, compassion, mercy, patriotism.
A reverent attitude towards the patriarchy of Russian tradition and culture was mixed with the frivolity of social balls, cheerful friendly conversations and serious conversations about the future of the Fatherland. Pushkin's many years of work, the pinnacle of his creativity - the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" - is not for nothing called the "encyclopedia of Russian life." The style of poetry, its airy, harmonious harmony will become the standard of versification for decades to come and, despite the large number of brilliant poets, only a few managed to even come close to what Pushkin created.
One of the most tragic poets in Russia, Mikhail Lermontov, rightfully became Pushkin’s successor. Having become famous thanks to the touching poem “The Death of a Poet,” where one can feel the agonizing and endless pain for the fate of a genius, Lermontov also continued the romantic tradition of Pushkin, embellishing it with darker tones. Lermontov showed readers his spiritual metamorphoses, feelings of extreme hopelessness and tragedy of a creative personality, the impossibility of his adaptation in the world of the 19th century. Being nominally a romanticist, in Lermontov’s work one can already discern the themes on which the trends of the Silver Age would be built. His poems “Mtsyri”, “Demon”, “Masquerade” and numerous poems have different plots, but touch on similar motives, namely the love of freedom, attempts to escape from the world of lies and cynicism and, of course, the inevitability of fate.
The tragic pathos of Lermontov’s lyrics seemed to materialize in his life, which ended so quickly, and which the poet almost accurately predicted a year before the fatal duel in the poem “Dream”: “A familiar corpse lay in that valley; There was a black wound in his chest, smoking; And the blood flowed in a cooling stream.”
A huge number of people, from different classes, gathered at Nekrasov’s funeral. One of the speeches was given by the great Russian writer F.M. Dostoevsky. In it, he said that Nekrasov is on the same level as Pushkin and Lermontov. The story goes about a man from the crowd who shouted that Nekrasov was even taller than them. Indeed, Nekrasov’s legacy, his touching and at the same time majestic poems and works had an undeniable influence on Russian literature. Taking from his two predecessors the theme of the peasantry and love for the Motherland, the Russian village, Nekrasov expanded it with civil, sometimes even revolutionary pathos.
Despite the fact that Nekrasov was often accused of a truly aristocratic lifestyle, the poet was still “folk”, he existed in the same reality with the peasants and the disadvantaged, transferring their feelings and thoughts to paper.
On top of that, many people forget one of Nekrasov’s main achievements – his editorial work. Being a brilliant poet, Nekrasov also perfectly managed the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski. Moreover, he discerned talent in such iconic writers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chernyshevsky, etc., elevating them to the horizon of Russian literature.
Tyutchev was one of those poets who contrasted rationalism and utilitarianism of art with the true nature of feelings and emotions. Such poets would later be called “poets of pure art.” And Tyutchev was rightfully the leader of this movement. Examination and description of the spirit and “melody” of the surrounding nature, the elements, as well as similar human feelings - these are the main and main motives of Tyutchev’s lyrics.
The 20th century was marked by the emergence of new trends in Russian literature. Subsequently, they all took shape in one big era called the “Silver Age”. One of the main figures of this era, namely the movement of symbolism, was the outstanding Russian poet
His work is a fine line between mysticism, something eternal, detached on the one hand, and everyday life, on the other. Blok looked for clues in the world around him that would help him understand the meaning of existence. Later, when the Bolshevik plague loomed over Russia, Blok’s pathos, directed into space and the unknown, would be replaced by some kind of sick despair and the realization that changes in the country would inevitably destroy the freedom that Blok was trying to find. The poem “The Twelve” stands apart in the poet’s work - a work that is still not fully understood, where symbolism rooted in the Gospel and the gloomy post-revolutionary atmosphere of Petrograd were mixed in a real cocktail.
A poet-nugget, who at the beginning of his creative career was fond of the imagist fashionable at that time, Yesenin subsequently became the main face of the new peasant poetry and, at the same time, one of the most iconic figures in the history of Russia. Boundless love for the homeland, its dense forests, deep lakes, a description of the patriarchal and spiritual atmosphere of a Russian village with a hut, a key element of Yesenin’s poetry - this is the foundation on which Yesenin’s work rests.
An undisputed innovator in versification, whose style, in appearance, resembled rhythmic knocking. Inside the lyrics is a loud howl about the fate of the homeland, its greatness, sounding like the uncontrollable roar of a crowd at a demonstration. Among other things, Mayakovsky was a truly touching lyricist who, in contrast to his “loud” poetry, knew how to show deep love experiences.
Also, do not forget that Mayakovsky made his contribution to the development of children's poetry, writing several poems specifically for children.
