Pre-1550

Richard Rolle, also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, was born in Yorkshire in 1300 to a poor farming family. He was an English hermit, a writer, and a mystic and was a part of the golden age...

The “Gawain Poet” is the name used for the unknown author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The entirety of the Gawain Poet's known work exists in a single manuscript written in Middle English that dates...

Not much is known about Homer, or if he even existed, but he is culturally conjured as a blind Greek oral poet who lived in either 9th or 8th century BCE and is considered to be the author of the epic poems...

When John Lydgate died in the middle of the fifteenth century, he had long been the most important and most sought-after poet of his time. Geoffrey Chaucer had died in 1400, John Gower in 1408, and the only...

William Langland was the author of Piers Plowman, a quintessential example of Middle English alliterative poetry. Langland is believed to have been born around 1330 and have died around 1400. There is uncertainty...

Little is known with certainty about the life of Sappho, or Psappha in her native Aeolic dialect. She was born probably about 620 BCE to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos during a great cultural...

Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid, was born in Sulmo, Italy, on March 20, 43 BCE. Considered one of the most influential poets in the Western literary tradition, Ovid wrote works including Heroides (“Heroines...

Geoffrey Chaucer was born between the years 1340-1345, the son of John and Agnes (de Copton) Chaucer. Chaucer was descended from two generations of wealthy vintners who had everything but a title and in 1357...