History+of+Poetry

"Poetry as an art form that may have predated literacy. Some of the earliest poetry is believed to have been orally recited or sung. Following the development of writing, poetry has since developed into increasingly structured forms, though much poetry since the late 19th century has moved away from traditional forms towards the more vaguely defined free verse and prose poem formats."

"Poetry was employed as a way of remembering oral history, story (epic poetry), genealogy, and law. Poetry is often closely related to musical traditions, and much of it can be attributed to religious movements. Many of the poems surviving from the ancient world are a form of recorded cultural information about the people of the past, and their poems are prayers or stories about religious subject matter, histories about their politics and wars, and the important organizing myths of their societies."

"Poetry as an art form may predate literacy. Thus many ancient works, from the Vedas (1700 - 1200 BC) to the //Odyssey// (800 - 675 BC), appear to have been composed in poetic form to aid memorization and oral transmission, in prehistoric and ancient societies. Poetry appears among the earliest records of most literate cultures, with poetic fragments found on early monoliths, runestones and stelae." "The oldest surviving poem is the //Epic of Gilgamesh//, from the 3rd millennium BC in Sumer (in Iraq/Mesopotamia), which was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets and, later, papyrus. The //Epic of Gilgamesh// is based on the historical king Gilgamesh. The oldest love poem, found on a clay tablet now known as //Istanbul #2461//, was also a Sumerian poem. It was recited by a bride of the Sumerian king Shu-Sin, who ruled from 2037-2029 BC. The oldest epic poetry besides the //Epic of Gilgamesh// are the Greek epics //Iliad// and //Odyssey// and the Indian Sanskrit epics //Ramayana// and //Mahabharata//. The longest epic poems ever written were the //Mahabharata// and the Tibetan //Epic of King Gesar//."

"Ancient thinkers sought to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulting in the development of "poetics", or the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as the Chinese through the Shi Jing, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance."