history of poems

Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest of all surviving poems. This poem was written in the 3rd millennium BC. After this one, Greek epic poems like Iliad and Odyssey came into existence, which were followed by Gathic Avesta, Yasna, Vigil's Aeneid, Ramayana and Mahabharata. During the pre-Renaissance period, there were only three genres of poems- epic, tragedy and comedy, which later on replaced by epic, lyric and dramatic while including tragedy and comedy as the subdivisions of dramatic poetry.

The renaissance period was completely dominated by the romantics. Later, a number of literary structures were introduced to poems like rhythm, rhyme, compression, refrains, intensity of feelings and emotions. With these came the lyric poetry. With the advent of electronic media, performance poems came into existence. The later 20th century saw the rise of poetry slams, which divided poems in academic and popular genres.


source: www.google.com