Who do we know wrote the world's first poem? What is it and what makes it a poem?
Dave Todd, Ottawa, Canada
See Also
Persian LiteratureClassical Persian Poetry - A Thousand Years of the Persian Book9 Countries Whose Traditional Forms of Poetry You Didn't Know About - The Yellow SparrowRūdakī | Classical Poet, Persian Language, 9th Century- The oldest known "poems" are anonymous - such as the Rig Vedas of Hinduism, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Song of the Weaver by an unknown Egyptian of the Second Dynasty.The psalms and The Iliad are "attributed" to David and Homer, respectively - but painstaking scholarship has never given them exclusive credit.Every English teacher I've ever had has named Chaucer as the author of the first poem in the English language, not merely because the Canterbury Tales are structured in a form different from prose, but because the work aimed for themes beneath the surface of action and plot.
Robert del Valle, Detroit USA
- From about the 14th century BC there is a so-called "Hymn to Aten" in praise of Akhenaten's newly invented deity. All early poetry is really "Lyric Verse" (it rhymes, and you sing it to a melody). From about the 12th century people wrote verse which was never intended to be sung. That's poetry.
Ralph Stephen, London, UK
- Poetry was originally performed orally before the invention of writing. Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit poetry was all metrical, i.e. the rhythm of the lines marked 'poetry' as separate to prose, not a rhyming structure. It is hypothesized that the similarities indicate that poetry existed in Proto-Indo-European, the postulated ancestral language from which most tongues from Irish to Dravidian developed, which was spoken around 3000-5000 BC. This language pre-dated writing, so the first poem will probably never be known.
Rob Horton, Birmingham, UK
- The first poem was by a resident of the Garden of Eden.It was composed by Adam, who mircaulously was already speaking English, and liked palindromes.He said, when seeing Eve for the first time, "Madam, I'm Adam."*ducks*
Will, UK
- Dravidian is not descended from proto-Indo-European, but is in fact a separate family of languages.Tamil historiographers claim that their language (one of the Dravidian family) is the oldest in the world. The 'Sangam' cycles of Tamil poetry were said to have lasted from several millenia before Christ until about 200 BC.
Vinod Moonesinghe, Rajagiriya Sri Lanka
- In fact it was the Epic of Gilgamesh , written 7th century BCE during the Babylonian Era in Iraq.
Sheelam, London uk
