Ancient and Medieval Bards – Surprising Facts About Some of History’s Greatest Poets

21. The Bureaucrat Bard

Chaucer was born into a prosperous family and attended school at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. There, he was influenced by the writings of Virgil and Ovid. As a teenager, his father secured him a position as a royal page – a stepping stone to knighthood and future advancement. He spent his adult life as a courtier, civil servant, and diplomat. In his teens, he participated in the Hundred Years’ War, was captured, and ransomed by the king for a considerable sum. His earliest major poem was The Dreame of Chaucer. Commonly referred to as The Book of the Duchess, it elegizes the deceased wife of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III and father of future King Henry IV. Written in the early 1370s, it earned Chaucer a comfortable annuity from the powerful widower.

20. A Civil Servant With a Gift for Verse

Chaucer was at his most productive as an author between 1374 and 1386, when he was comptroller of London. That job afforded him plenty of free time to pen works such as Parliament of Birds and The Legend of Good Women. It was during this period that he began his signature work, The Canterbury Tales. He became the towering literary figure of his day, and after his death in 1400, he was the first to be buried at what became known as “Poets’ Corner” in Westminster Abbey. There, literary luminaries such as Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy joined him over the succeeding centuries.

19. The Poet Who Kicked Off the Renaissance

I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion
that from her cruel side I would draw by force
a thousand sighs a day, kindling again
in her cold mind a thousand desires;

 
I’d see her lovely face transform quite often
her eyes grow wet and more compassionate,
like one who feels regret, when it is too late,
for causing someone’s suffering by mistake;
               Petrarch – excerpt from Sonnet 131

Petrarch (1304 – 1374) was a great poet who embodied romance. He composed sonnets that became models for lyrical poetry imitated throughout Europe, and his verse and prose became a foundation of the modern Italian language. Petrarch disdained the ignorance of preceding centuries, coined the term “Dark Ages” to describe them, and founded Humanism, or the study of classical antiquity. His rediscovery and publication of Cicero’s letters initiated the fourteenth century Renaissance, which makes Petrarch one of history’s most influential scholars.

18. Petrarch the Poet Could Have Been Petrarch the Lawyer

Petrarch’s father was a lawyer who made his son to study law at the universities of Montpellier and Bologna. However, Petrarch’s interests lay in writing and Latin literature, and he loathed the legal profession. After his parents’ death, he worked in clerical offices, which gave him time to devote to his true passion, writing. His first major work, an epic about the Roman general Scipio Africanus, won him acclaim. His poems to Laura, an idealized beloved who was beyond his reach, contributed to a flowering of lyrical poetry. Laura’s death during the Black Death led Petrarch to renounce sensual pleasure, but his love for her continued for the remainder of his life.

17. Chaste Love and Unconsummated Romance

That chaste love and unconsummated romance formed the basis of Petrarch’s most celebrated work, the Italian poems Rime, divided into rimes during Laura’s life, and rimes after her death. Even before he penned Rime, Petrarch’s poetry had earned him considerable praise such that, in 1341, he became only the second poet laureate crowned since antiquity. He became known as the “first tourist” because he liked to travel for pleasure – which was highly unusual in his era. While on the road, he visited monastic libraries to collect manuscripts from antiquity, and was prominent in the recovery and propagation of knowledge from Greco-Roman writers. That became his scholarly life mission, which lasted until his death in 1374.

16. The Poet Who Saved the Persian Language]

I’ve reached the end of this great history,
And all the land will fill with talk of me.
I shall not die, these seeds I’ve sown will save
My name and reputation from the grave,
And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim,
When I have gone, my praises and my fame.

            Ferdowsi – closing verses of the Shahnameh

Abu al Qasim Mansur Ferdowsi (940 – 1020) penned the world’s longest poem and Iran’s national epic, the Shahnameh. He is credited with saving the Persian language from extinction and reviving it after centuries of decline after the seventh century Arab conquest of Persia. As such, he is the most influential figure in Persian culture, as well as a giant of world literature.

15. A Truly Epic Poem

Ferdowsi toiled for decades to pen the Shahnameh’s nearly 60,000 couplets. The epic mixes myth and history to chronicle the lives of famous figures of the Persian Empire, which had been conquered first by the Arabs, then by Central Asian barbarians. The poem marches through centuries of history and myth, and narrates the lives and adventures of generations of warriors and kings as they fight, rebel, betray and are betrayed. It is rife with moving verse pervaded by a sense of loss and melancholy. The Shahnameh reversed a centuries-long decline in Persian culture, and preserved the Persian language, history, and folklore from erasure.

14. The Poet Who Ran and Hid Away From Wealth

The Shahnameh combines beauty and cruelty, breathtaking surroundings marred by the violence surrounding them. It juxtaposes the glorification of war and warriors, and a relentless fate that nearly always finds the actors to hold them accountable for their actions. After he completed the epic in 1010, Ferdowsi presented it to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, who accepted the poem, but stiffed Ferdowsi by paying him an insultingly small amount. Soon as he left the court, an angry Ferdowsi composed a satire of the chintzy Sultan, then fled. Legend has it that Ferdowsi spent the final decade of his life hiding from Mahmud’s wrath, unaware that the Sultan had reconsidered his shabby treatment of the poet and determined to make amends with a rich reward. Ferdowsi thus died in penury, unaware that he was now a wealthy man.

13. The Greatest Arab Bard

Strong resolves come in proportion to men of determination,
and noble deeds come in proportion to magnanimous men.
Little things are deemed great by little minds,
while grave calamities pale into insignificance in the eyes of the great.

            Al-Mutanabbi – excerpt from panegyric to a patron.

Abu al Tayib Ahmad ibn Hussayn, more commonly Al-Mutanabbi (915 – 965) is the most influential and prominent Arab poet, whose verse is widespread and proverbial throughout the Arab world. Most of his work was odes to patrons, but he was an egomaniac who transformed a significant portion of his panegyrics into odes to himself, his talent, and his courage. However, he crafted with such consummate skill and artistry that he is commonly deemed to have attained a pinnacle unequaled in the Arabic language before or since.

12. The False Prophet Poet

Al-Mutanabbi exhibited a precocious talent for verse that won him a free education. In his childhood, the Qarmatians, a heretical cult that combined Zoroastrianism and Islam, began to pillage the Middle East, Al-Mutanabbi joined them in his teens. He claimed to be a Nabi, or prophet, and at age seventeen, he led a Qarmatian revolt in Syria. The rebellion was suppressed and its teenage leader was captured and imprisoned until he recanted two years later. The Nabi claim earned him the derisory nickname Al-Mutanabbi, or “would-be prophet”, by which he is known to history.

11. A Bard Who Wanted To Govern

After his release in 935, Al-Mutanabbi became a wandering poet. He traveled around the region’s courts, and composed poems in praise of rulers in exchange for patronage. Such poetry has a long history that cuts across cultures. From ancient Sumer through ancient Greece and Persia, and among the Anglo Saxons, Arabs, Vikings and others, bards and poets sang and recited for their supper. But when they wanted richer fare, the surest ticket was to compose something that flattered a wealthy and powerful figure. Al-Mutanabbi did that, and was often handsomely rewarded with gifts of cash. However, his greatest hope was to get appointed a governor of some province. He impressed as an unequaled poet, but did not impress as a potential governor.

10. The Prickly Poet

Al-Mutanabbi’s personality was prickly, and he was excessively proud. Such traits, combined with the dramatics that frequently accompany creative genius, gave his patrons pause, and his ambitions to govern a province were never fulfilled. The flip side of Al-Mutanabbi’s praise was his propensity to compose devastating verse to insult those who rubbed him wrong. His targets were typically rival courtiers who competed for a patron’s attention, but sometimes included patrons who failed to reward Al-Mutanabbi as richly as he thought he deserved. One particularly misguided poetic diss got him killed in 965, when the victim of his verse ambushed him near Baghdad. Outnumbered, he sought to flee. So the pursuers derisively shouted some of Al-Mutanabbi’s bold lines, in which he boasted of his courage. Stung, he turned around in a misguided attempt to live up to his verse, and was slain in the ensuing fight.

9. China’s Greatest Poet

It was at a wine party –
I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.
The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.
When I arose, still drunken,
The birds had all gone to their nests,
And there remained by few of my comrades.
I went along the river – alone in the moonlight.
            Li Bo – The Solitude of Night

Li Bo (701 – 762), also pronounced Li Bai, lived during the “Golden Age of Chinese Poetry”, and has been China’s most revered poet from his lifetime to the present. His poems revolved around the depth of nature, solitude, friendship, and the joys of drinking. His poetry is considered one of the “Three Wonders” of Chinese culture, the other two being the calligraphy of Bogao and the swordsmanship of Pei Min.

8. A Poet Who Spent a Life Time Chasing a Government Gig

Li Bo claimed membership in the imperial family, but actually belonged to another family of the same name. He began composing poetry early in his youth, and left home at age twenty four for years of wandering. As he traveled, Li Bo showed his poetry to numerous officials in the hope of getting hired as a secretary – a job title more significant in that period and context than it is today. He had still not landed the desired job when he arrived at the Tang Dynasty’s capital at the age of forty one. Li Bo did not get hired then either. However, he did gain acceptance into a group of distinguished court poets.

7. The Poet Who Died Trying to Embrace the Moon

Li Bo stayed in the imperial capital for a few years, then resumed his wanderings at age forty three. He was still not gainfully employed by age fifty five, when he landed an unofficial position as the poet of a military expedition led by one of the emperor’s sons. Unfortunately, the prince was accused of treason and executed, and his hangers-on, including Li Bo, were arrested and imprisoned. In 758 he was banished to a remote province, but before he got there news arrived of a general amnesty, so he returned to eastern China. His wanderings came to an end in 762 when, drunk in a boat on a lake, he tried to hug the moon’s reflection on the water and drowned.

6. Ancient Rome’s Greatest Poet

And so, the night being over,
I returned to my companions where they were.
When I got there, I was amazed to see
How many others, women and men, had come,
Wretched survivors of the fall of the city,
To join us in exile and the journey,
A heartbreaking company, come from everywhere
Ready in their hearts and with their fortunes,
To follow me wherever I was going.
Virgil – excerpt from closing verses of Aeneid II

Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as Virgil (70 – 19 BC), penned Latin literature’s greatest poems. He is best known for three works: the Georgics, the Bucolics, and ancient Rome’s national epic, the Aeneid. His writings revolutionized Latin poetry and became the standard text from which all schoolchildren learned and with which all educated Romans were familiar. Born of peasant stock, Virgil’s love of the Italian countryside is reflected in his poetry, particularly the Bucolics. He received an early education in Cremona and Milan, then studied rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. He picked up Epicureanism from an instructor, and that tendency is reflected in his early works. Epicureanism then gradually gave way to Stoicism, which marked his poems for the bulk of his career.

5. A Poet Who Lived Through Chaos and Yearned for Stability

Virgil grew up amidst the Roman Republic’s death throes. At age twenty, he experienced the civil war that began with Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon. Then came the dislocation following Caesar’s assassination; a second round of civil war as Caesar’s nephew and adopted son Octavian, allied with Mark Antony, took vengeance on Caesar’s assassins; and another round of civil war when Octavian and Mark Antony fell out, before Augustus emerged as sole ruler of the Roman world and peace descended. Hatred and fear of civil strife is prominent in Virgil’s verse. Indeed, understanding the turmoil before the Augustan peace is necessary to understand Virgil, who enthusiastically embraced Augustus’s ideal Rome, reborn and promising a bright future. In the Aeneid, Virgil set out to pen an idealized past to match the present and hoped-for future.

4. In the Footsteps of Homer

Virgil modeled the Aeneid after Homer’s epics. He mixed history and myth to weave a tale of Rome’s origins, beginning with the Trojan prince Aeneas as he flees a burning Troy. The epic follows his wanderings, including an interlude in Carthage, whose queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas. She eventually curses him and swears everlasting enmity – presaging the Punic Wars – when he leaves her to pursue his destiny in Italy. There, his descendants Romulus and Remus found the city of Rome. In addition to rollicking adventures, the Aeneid proclaims Rome’s divine mission to conquer and civilize the world. However, it is no mere panegyric, but juxtaposes Rome’s divinely ordained mission with the individual cost and suffering endured in order to fulfill it. The Roman ideal of devotion to duty usually prevails, but often at significant cost to innocents.

3. Greece’s Greatest Poet

Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls,
Of heroes into Hades’ dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus’ will was done.
            Homer – opening verses of the Iliad

Homer (circa eighth century BC) is the name ascribed to the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, ancient Greece’s national epics and the centerpieces of their literature and culture. Those epics are arguably history’s most influential poems. They shaped not only ancient Greek culture, which viewed the epics as sources of moral and practical instruction, but exerted an outsize influence on Western culture in general.

2. Did Homer Actually Exist?

In Greek tradition, Homer was a wandering blind bard from Chios in Ionia, in the western coast of modern Turkey. However, it is unclear whether those were the poems of a single author, or the outcome of a process spread over generations, and to which numerous poets contributed. The poems were first composed during a centuries-long period of collapse known as the “Greek Dark Ages”. Literacy had vanished in that era, and the poems were likely transmitted orally for generations, until writing was rediscovered. Composed to be memorized and sung, the poems utilize a formulaic style and structure that relies heavily on stock phrases and repeated verses that lend themselves to memorization.

1.     Key Words are Key to the Iliad and Odyssey

Memorization was further eased by reliance on a number of fixed phrases to express ideas in similar parts of verse. For example, references to Odysseus with the single word “divine”, two worded “many counseled”, or three worded “much-enduring divine” depending on where “Odysseus” appears in a verse, and how much space is left that needs filling for that verse to come out in the desired hexameter. In essence, once a bard learned the limited number of stock phrases, he need not memorize the entire poem, such as the 16,000 verses of the Iliad, but only the key words. Once a particular word is mentioned, the singer need simply select from the limited number of appropriate stock phrases, depending on where in a verse the key word is mentioned.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Arab America – Al Mutanabbi: The Greatest Arab Poet

BBC – Li Bai and Du Fu: China’s Drunken Superstar Poets

Encyclopedia Britannica – Al Mutanabbi 

Encyclopedia Britannica – Petrarch

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge – Ferdowsi: The Poet and the Legend

Ford, Andrew Laughlin – Homer: The Poetry of the Past (1992)

Frank, Tenney – Vergil: A Biography (1965)

Guardian, the, November 15^th, 2003 – The Dead Poet’s Tale

Hollway-Calthrop, Henry – Petrarch, His Life and Times (1907)

Jones, Terry – Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery (2003)

Murray, Gilbert – The Rise of the Greek Epic (1907)

Paris Review, January 23^rd, 2019 – The Poet With Many Names, and Many Deaths

Shahbazi, A. Shapour – Ferdowsi: A Critical Biography (1991)

Suetonius – The Life of Virgil