Love is the language of the heart and the greatest love poems written by renowned poets like William Shakespeare, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Emily Dickinson, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats and contemporary poets have encapsulated in metrical and rhyme schemes what the heart wishes to express.
Many poets have written their greatest love poems in difficult tongues but with one message for a special person. The meanings may have been lost in modern times and languages, but for two people who are in love, love poems are still the language of the heart.
Sixteenth Century Love Poets
William Shakespeare is the most renowned of all poets in the 16th century. Wiki.answers.com reported that Shakespeare wrote five long narrative poems and 154 shorter poems or sonnets.
Other love poets also include John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, Ben Johnson and Edmund Spenser.
First Generation Romantic Poets
William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge “Lyrical Ballads” published in 1798 was believed to be the advent of Romantic period. The work of these two poets were complied in the 1798 volume which included Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey.”
However, literary scholars contested that the Romantic period started earlier with Robert Burns’s Poems (1786) and William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” (1789).
Second Generation Romantic Poets
Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats ruled the era but these poets were immensely influenced by the first generation. Their work may be categorized as more passionate and emotional and influenced by Greek and Roman literature. Poems of this age are perceptive, mystical and exotic in thought.
Victorian Poets
Queen Victoria’s rule from 1837-1901 marked the emergence of Victorian poets influenced by great poets like Keats, Blake, Shelley and Wordsworth. Victorian era bridged the Romantic and modern movement of the twentieth century.
Renowned male poets of the Victorian era are Robert Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson and Oscar Wilde. Only few women poets like Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barret-Browning, and Christina Rosetti made their marks in this era.
Contemporary Love Poets
Pablo Neruda is probably the best contemporary love poet of the 2oth century. He has a large library of love poetry including love poetry collections of his youth, in his mature years, four poems of passionate love and his collection of melancholic love poems. Perhaps Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love Is Not All” is worth mentioning as modern or contemporary love poem.
However, the emergence of free verse and other styles in poem writing have encouraged love poets to explore, create and boldly express their deepest thoughts while inspiring and moving people’s emotion.
This site will be publishing love poems from poets who penned the greatest love poems of their era. The list may not be complete but we will try to include the most read and best-loved poems for your reference and pleasure reading. You may also comment and contribute your own choices of greatest love poems.