Poet's Corner
Poetry Timeline 1850 - 1899
700-1699 | 1700-1799 | 1800-1849 | 1850-1899 | 1900-1924 | 1925-1949 | 1950-1974| 1975+
c. 1850s
The anonymous spiritual "Follow the Drinking Gourd" is probably composed around this time.
1850s
1851
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Eagle: A Fragment" is published in the 7th edition of his collection Poems.
1855
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is published in his collection Maud, and Other Poems.
1858
Oliver Wendell Holmes's "The Chambered Nautilus" is published in his collection Poems from the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.
c. 1859
Emily Dickinson's "Success Is Counted Sweetest" is written around this time.
1859
A. E. Housman is born.
1860
Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" is published in the 1860 edition of his collection Leaves of Grass.
1861
- The anonymous spiritual "Go Down, Moses" is published in the December 21 issue of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies.
1862
Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday" and "Sonnet (Remember me when I am gone away)" is published in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems.
1863
- Henry W. Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" is published in his collection Tales of a Wayside Inn.
- Ernest Lawrence Thayer is born.
c. 1863
Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" is written around this time (first published posthumously in her collection Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, 1890).
1864
Robert Browning's "Prospice" is published in his collection Dramatis Personae.
1865
1867
- Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" is published in his collection New Poems.
- Slave Songs of the United States, the first collection of African American spirituals, is published.
1868
- W. E. B. Dubois is born.
- Edgar Lee Masters is born.
1869
Edwin Arlington Robinson is born.
1871
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Silent Noon" is published in his collection The House of Life.
- James Weldon Johnson is born.
1872
- Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" is published in his in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
- Paul Lawrence Dunbar is born.
1873
Walter de la Mare is born.
1874
1875
- (-1899) Aestheticism becomes a significant artistic and literary philosophy in the latter part of the 19th century.
- (-1899) Decadence becomes an important poetic force late in the 19th century.
- (-1925)Expressionism is a significant artistic and literary influence through the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
- (-1925) The Irish Literary Renaissance begins late in the 19th century and continues for the next several decades.
- (-1925) The Symbolist Movement flourishes in the closing decades of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th century.
- (-1950) Realism as an approach to literature gains importance in the 19th century and remains influential well into the 20th century.
1877
- Gerard Manly Hopkins's "God's Grandeur" and "Pied Beauty" are written in this year, and published posthumously in his collection Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins, 1918.
- Sidney Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee" is published in Scott's Magazine; later included in The Poems of Sidney Lanier, edited by His Wife, 1891.
1878
- William Cullen Bryant dies.
- John Masefield is born.
- Carl Sandburg is born.
1879
- Vachel Lindsay is born.
- Wallace Stevens is born.
1880
- Gerard Manly Hopkins's "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" is written in this year, and published posthumously in his collection Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins, 1918.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" is published in his collection Ultima Thule.
- Alfred Noyes is born.
1880-early 20th century
Naturalism as a literary theory emerges in 1880 and continues to be influential well into the 20th century.
1881
Sidney Lanier dies.
1882
- Ralph Waldo Emerson dies.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow dies.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti dies.
1883
William Carlos Williams is born.
1885
- D. H. Lawrence is born.
- Ezra Pound is born.
- Elinor Wylie is born.
1886
1887
Marianne Moore is born.
1888
- Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" is published in the June 3 issue of the San Francisco Daily Examiner.
- Matthew Arnold dies.
- T. S. Eliot is born.
- John Crowe Ransom is born.
1889
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" is published in his collection Demeter and Other Poems.
1889
1890s
The decade of the 1890s, noted for the mood of weariness and pessimism in its art and literature, is known as the Fin de Siécle ("end of the century") period.
1892
Archibald Macleish is born.
1893
- William Butler Yeats's "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is published in his collection The Rose.
- Wilfred Owen is born.
- Dorothy Parker is born.
1894
- E. E. Cummings is born.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes dies.
- Christina Rossetti dies.
- Jean Toomer is born.
1896
- A. E. Housman's "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now," "To an Athlete Dying Young," "With Rue My Heart Is Laden" and "When I Was One-and-Twenty" are published in his collection A Shropshire Lad.
- Alfred Austin is named Poet Laureate of England.
1897
Edwin A. Robinson's "Richard Cory" is published in his collection The Children of the Night.
1898
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) dies.
1899
Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy" is published in his collection Lyrics of the Hearthside.
Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.