poll: the greatest era for English poetry

[busker]

Just for fun....which was the greatest area for English poetry?

[RiverNotch]

The internet era, since I'm currently living in it.

But no, I really do think it's the internet era, just because so much good poetry from all over the world is available now, compared to every era beforehand. Perhaps poetry was more "respected" before the Romantics (not that it prevented bad poets of the time from getting published -- bad poets laymen don't hear about due to history's funny way of working), but if I were born where I am now during that time, even in the same socioeconomic class, I would never have heard of Shakespeare, or even Dante and Virgil. Modernity is a double-edged sword which I wouldn't even be cognizant of if, compared to previous eras, one of its edges were not so strongly in my favor.

That said, for me most of the prettiest stuff came from before the Romantics. I suspect it's a consequence of the way the culture changed radically during that time. Linguistically, the Great Vowel Shift occurred from around 1400 to 1700, and English hasn't changed as radically since, so the principles behind people saying this or that sounds prettiest just stuck, while culturally, English really started to spread during the Romantic era, which meant much more homogenous standards of beauty before that. The best version of the Bible is still the Authorized Version, and Shakespeare is to us what Virgil and Ovid were to him. But Troilus and Cressida isn't even in bookstores here, while Wikimedia Commons has Dr. Samuel Johnson's editions of the plays in the First Folio for free. God bless the internet.

[Magpie]

When you say English, you mean language or country because that makes a big difference?

It's probably a stupid question but I thought I'd check, although I've already voted for post WW2. However if it was specifically English poets, which it probably isn't then I would have voted for the Romantics simply based on Blake and Wordsworth.

[busker]

When you say English, you mean language or country because that makes a big difference?

It's probably a stupid question but I thought I'd check, although I've already voted for post WW2. However if it was specifically English poets, which it probably isn't then I would have voted for the Romantics simply based on Blake and Wordsworth.

Poetry written in English, so you votes right 
Wordsworth is an enigma….the greatest of the romantics in his time, unread today.

[Magpie]

I've loved Wordsworth since I was about 17 when I first read 'Lines Composed on Westminster Bridge' and then when I heard about his 'Intimations Ode' I knew it would be the poem for me, it blew me away. I suppose that its ideas and thoughts appealed to a younger me more than the cynic that I've become but it's still a beautiful poem in every way. And although Wordsworth was technically brilliant he wasn't as mystically brilliant as Blake. As for Blake, he's up there with his fellow artists/poet Michelangelo as one of the all time great creators. He was single minded, mystic and somewhat mad and this all contributed to his unbelievable genius. I've read the story about how he looked out the window one day and God was looking back at him or how he saw Angels in trees. He chose the best characters for his poems and art, characters that in the hands of most poets would be terrible cliches, you can't get better leads than God and the Devil, it's just what you do with them. I just so happened to buy another Blake book from the second hand shop the other day so am currently lost in his beautiful mythology at the moment.

However that all said I voted for post WW2 poetry and that is mostly down to Ginsburg, Hughes and Plath, they changed my views on poetry forever.