Hmmm…I wanted to review the best writers/poets seeing the category today. When reviewing a few of the earlier ones, a few have actually mentioned all time classic writers like William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy & others with Sheldon, Crichton, Francis, Blyton, Wallace & James Hadley Chase - even in the same breath!
Imagine Shakespeare being compared to Sidney Sheldon! A dramatist being compared to a semi-porn sensationalist niche writer. I consider Sidney Sheldon a commercial writer catering to a wide niche. No offence, but if you check, it’s a disappointment. Especially, when a pioneer dramatist and sonnet writer is compared to people like Sidney Sheldon or Crichton! There just can’t be a comparison between a dramatist & a modern day fiction writer. Contemporary writing is more catering to a niche.
Coming to my all time list of English writers/ poets, here is a list. Keep in mind that the review I have is made on the following points.
a. The review is for writers/poets in English & the content must be readable across all age groups.
b. A sonnet is a 14 line poem & is always 14 lines. A poem can be a sonnet, but there are different definitions for it.(See the below link for differences in poetry)
https://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/w09.html
c. I have divided the category on modern day terms, Dramatist(or screenplay writer in modern day terms), Adventure, Suspense, thriller, action and of course the ones based on historical importance.
d. The importance to details presented in that period. Do note that no Epics are considered; otherwise the Mahabharata is my first choice!
e. The first review is about poets, the second to follow is on writers
Poetry is all about the rush of emotions or defining surreal things like beauty. Ever tried to define sugar? It’s sweet? But can you write a poem describing its sweetness and why it is sweet? A few did try, but none successful. Let your emotions run true when judging poetry!
I have left out sonnets; otherwise Shakespeare wins hands down here…
William Wordsworth – His description of beauty is amazing! He always saw the positives and beauty of life in whatever he saw.(Diver’s review) The sheer magnificence of his describing the initial words
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Those initial words have a special way of introducing you to the beauty of the flowers. The flower itself is just a drab flower. But would you have noticed it otherwise? Also he had a sweeping way of describing things. Like there was a sudden downpour of beauty as in a joyous burst of rain on a sunny day! Or the rush of soldiers across a valley! Just another example of his style from the Solitary Reaper.
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Would you have noticed the solitary reaper otherwise? As the reaper goes about her mundane task, he attempts to make it a special event to the viewer with his description. Now that’s poetry! *Converting a mundane Daffodil to a revered Daffodil!
Thomas Hardy had an unconventional often varied style & wrote more on his relationship with the article. It sometimes pictured him as a dark & brooding writer. The best part of his poetry - he had a natural flow without the rules. Being a Geminian, he was more subjective & natural as a writer. Here is a classic ex.,
Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less
Here, far away, than when I tarried near;
I even smile old smiles-with listlessness-
Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.
If you go through the complete poem you would understand why he had no conventional sense. The first two paras are 4 lines while the last is 6 lines. And yet, his poetry was always more philosophical. He followed no rhyme or reason –whether satirical, comedy, dark brooding or whatever the emotion he conveyed, it was specific –to the poem. Compare this poem with the ones - The convergence of the Twain(Brooding and each para conveys it’s own mood);Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?(Satire), the going of the battery & the wind and the rain. You will understand what I mean. He had his inimitable style in writing literature too.
Often ballads are inspirational, romance or intensify your moods. But there is one particular poem which stands out on describing inspiration alone. I don’t know if it is just this one poem or others. If you have seen inspiration speeches or a movie which inspires a surge - a positive mood of nothing can beat me. Yup, this poem says it all for us.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ’’Hold on!’’
The poem begins with a doubtful If, but just read the inspiration it conveys in the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. A positive feeling which begins if you can. The best part of the poem is it is not an inspirational speech to men attending a war, but he was speaking on behalf of us.(A father’s message to his son) For every situation. Like hold on, you are there…A mood well defined with clarity…
Robert Frost was another one. True to his name, his poems appear very frosty, cold, dark sometimes and mostly brooding. The best example is the road less taken. It’s all about the choices one makes in life & often regretting the decision not made. It’s like if I had only….
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The complete poem is the best example of a majority of his writings.
When I think of people who have experimented with various forms of poetry & yet presented readable content, it’s Keats. If you have read Ode to a Nightingale, then you would understand the description and variety.
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
Compare this with I stood tiptoe upon a little hill, I hope, Ode to melancholy and When I Have Fears That I May Ceast to Be, and you will notice how he rhymes with our fears.
Walter Scott’s Lochinvar, It was an English Lady’s Bright and a few other love stories in ballad form give him a recommendation along with others.
Leigh Hunt was a natural, probably because of his genes. Yet, he strove to be different, but ended up telling stories in lyrical form. The best examples would be Abou Ben Adhem and the glove and the lion.
RL Stevenson, Samuel Coleridge, William Blake, Yeats, Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe – can you forget them?
