poetry is the art of imitation. To him all types of poetry are the forms of emotion or representation. By imitation he means representation of truths take from life. poetry is concerned with universal truths. Horace say “poetry is an art or craft “.
It is very difficult to reach definition acceptable to all. It is because those, who started it, where not conscious of any theory of poetry. in other words, they did not start writing poetry after fixing up its definition. Poetry came to them naturally. then in the course of its development, poets and critics had tried to define it from there respective beliefs. consequently, in different ages poetry has been defined in different ways since the test and philosophy of all the a literary ages why not the same.
History of English Poetry
like all other literature of the world, English literature began with poetry. it started back in the 5th century . It is believed that the earliest poems in English where written between 450 A.D. and 1066 A.D., the time known as the Anglo-Saxon period. In those days there was no printing press and no system of keeping records. As a result, it is possible now to trace out who the first poet was. The earliest English poems found are anonymous. Among those poems the best known is ❝Beowulf.❞ which is considered as the first Epic in English. Some of the other anonymous poems of the period are ❝widsith❞ .The common subject of these poems are either religious faith or heroic deeds. Same of the poems are written on pagan myths and the rest are on the subjects taken from the Bible. the heroic stories are mostly based on the Germanic folklore. This poems are written in alliterative old English which is not use in our time. The lines of this poems are generally long and unrhymed.
After the Noman conquest in 1066,English poetry took a significant turn. Between 1066 and 1500, the period which is known as the middle ages, English language developed to a certain standard. However, the language used in this period was still not the of our time. The poets of this period stale use alliterative language. they introduced metres and rhyme in this verses lines. The subject chosen for poetry where liberal religious faith ,morality, chivalry and love. It was the result of various series of events that followed and accompanied one another from the 14th to the beginning of the 16th century. with the fall of the Constantinople in 1453, The Scholars living their fled to different parts of Europe. They took them the ancient Greek and Roman literature. Those Scholars had profound influence on the poets of this period. They came out of the religious bias and emphasized idealism from a more secular point of view. Geoffery Chaucer (1340-1400), known as the father of English Poetry, was the famous poet of this is age.