Imagine a time without YouTube videos, without movies, film, and TV shows; before the days of blogs, magazines and newspaper articles. How were people supposed to express their emotions and thoughts on the world, around the world? It wasn’t like people didn’t have feelings before the internet age…
Enter the Renaissance, a time of poetry, songs, and stage plays.
It is true that all those forms of media above have existed long before the Renaissance period. Dating way back to ancient Greek and peak Roman empire days, stage plays and songs were the main ways people entertained themselves, with poetry being the primary skill to prove your intelligence.
However, it was the greatly improved education, better economy, more advanced society and the general standard of living during the Renaissance period which led to poetry, songs and stage plays becomeing most prevalent. It also helps that there were just much more ways for artists to record and save their creations, as opposed to people back in 500 BCE, like Homer, orally presenting his stories, hoping future generations continue to pass it on.
One of the most obvious examples of a Renaissance playwright is of course the nightmare of literature students across the globe, William Shakespeare.
Widely considered to be “the greatest and most influential writer of all time”. However, some do have to question how this came to be. The fact that Shakespeare was a playwright for the biggest empire ever in the history of the world was definitely not a coincidence when considering how his name has become so popular internationally.
Whatever the case, there is no denying that Shakespeare had written some great works in his years. With “Romeo and Juliet” in 1594, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1595, “Hamlet” in 1600 and “Macbeth” in 1606 all being some of his classics, my personal favourites and literature students’ archnemeses.
Staying in England. In front of a desk sometime around 1509, John Donne was writing his tenth holy sonnet, “Holy Sonnet 10: Death be not proud”.
“Death, thou shalt die.” Some of the greatest words written in poetry history. Directly addressing Death, mocking its personified figure with a brilliant use of paradox; and all the while enlightening audiences that death is not something to fear, it is just another natural occurrence. While as we live, we should enjoy every minute we are given and still have left.
At the same time, some 8,000 kilometers away. China was entering the later period of its Ming dynasty.
Although very close timewise to the mess of the Qing Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty made China one of the most culturally advanced nations in the world at the time, with historians dubbing the Ming as “One of the major periods for Chinese poetry”.
Following directly behind the famous Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, Ming has the benefit of taking inspiration from its predecessors, while having much better techniques to record and preserve their written poems. With over 1 million pieces of Ming poetry being found to date, the Ming Dynasty stands as the most populous dynasty in terms of Chinese poetry in the lives of the general public.
Moving east by another 3,000 kilometers, we find ourselves in the island nation of Japan, where their culture was inspired by the Chinese and rivals the Chinese. The famed “5-7-5” structure of Haikus was inseparable from the Samurai lifestyle in Japan at the time.
Moving 200 years forward in time and across the Pacific Ocean, we see that poetry is just as popular as ever. With many 1800s American poets rising to the top of the charts.
The likes of Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman were prime examples of 19th century American Poetry, ccompanied by their predominant works, “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Raven”, respectively, and making their mark in the history of poetry.
Now, bringing ourselves back to the 21st century. Let’s ask ourselves this; When was the last time you saw anyone write and publish a poem?
As prevalent as poetry was in the Renaissance days, they just aren’t as popular as they once were. Their primetime has passed, and time was as unforgiving to this form of media as it was to anything else on this planet. Like Nokia phones, poetry is about to fade away into history, to become something that humans simply had once done.
The same cannot be said for poetry’s partners in crime. Songs are as popular as ever and the music industry is more advanced than ever.
Plays are a curious case; people are still writing plays, but they definitely aren’t what they used to be. However, some can argue that musicals and modern films are just improved versions of the classical plays. In that case, the play has adapted itself in a way poetry couldn’t do, it has evolved to flow with the advancement of technology. While the practice of writing poetry is just slowly being washed away in the tides of time.
With all that said though, it is unfair to not acknowledge how many songs, more specifically the lyrics of those songs are essentially a form of poetry.
Therefore, modern songs today are continuing to carry on the legacy of poems to this day.
Well, what can we as the public do? Start by writing some poems! It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. Just have fun with it. At the end of the day, poetry is another form of human culture, a part of our culture that we as human beings cannot afford to lose.
Hey, and who knows, maybe years down the line the poem you wrote one insignificant afternoon turns out to be the new greatest nightmare of literature students across the world.
