The most significant form of poetry in the Anglo-Saxon world is the epic poem Beowulf. It was written in a language that is not comprehensible and indeed, Seamus Heaney translated it into standard Modern English. An epic poem tells the deeds of a hero, someone able to to face test of particular difficulty referring to values considered relevant by the community.

Since the first poetic experiences Anglo-Saxon poetry has relied on an alliterative use of the line to be handed down and therefore the sound level was really important to guarantee the poems survival. Word choice made us of kenning and had to be ears to understand by the common people. Epic poems had to record the culture of a civilization and as a result, reading epic poetry you can understand the culture of a spoonful and its values. Any historical period has/shows different points of view reflecting the values of a civilization.

In the Middle Ages popular focus of poetry as it was in the style of Anglo-Saxon lines, heavily relied on the sound level. Indeed, ballads are oral forms of poetry and therefore they must refer to sound dances to be able to be danced. The refrain is one of the lyrical danced used to make people able to dance them. Once and again phonological instrument like rhyme, incremental repetition, alliteration, assonance and consonance reveal to be essential ways in the poetical text.

Ballad content is exhemly style: ballads deal with tragic love stones, the supernatural and the frights on the border on Scotland and England. Their characters are really sketched and what matters most is the atmosphere created by setting: it is generally nostalgic and sad since it generally records past events. Structure is arranged into dialogues and narration. Suffice it to say/ it is worth saying that the language used is simple, words are generally concrete because they refer to illiterate people.

Even in the Middle Ages when the most representative poet is Geoffrey Clancer called the poet’s poet because he was the first to use the English language for literary purposes, writes the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in a poetic language and makes used the pilgrim's characterization to present the different social classes.

As one can understand the woman’s role during the Middle Ages was confined to the one of wife or nun and woman was conceived as a damage of man. He was easily tempted by whatever woman showed attitudes that do not conformed to standard behavior. An illuminating example is given by the characterization of the Wife of Barth where you can note the poet’s irony in the presentation of her dressing style and last but not least in their profile conclusion “ Amor vincit ommia” . In the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the focus moves from the religion principle and God, the most representative codes of the reseal to the centrality of the human beings. You can see it clearly in the fashion of publishing sonnet where the central element, expressed in a lyrical form, is the contrast between the spiritual element to the material element. Even if with a different structure, the English express the most intimate feelings through sonnets existing of 3 quatrain and a rhyming couplet. The three quatrains give voice to private and personal contrasts generally felt by the fear who addressed a woman mainly a cay mistress. The Petrarc clean structure of the sonnet relied on an octave and a septet where the former was meant to present the problem and the latter provide a possible solution. This vision implied a total acceptance of the courteous Code that resorted to a stereotyped idea of the woman: a blond a blue eyes woman whose task was to improve the spiritual structure of man.

A genius like W. Shakespeare was necessary to be able to represent the step forward in the development of the sonnet. The play writer used parody to turn the courteous profile of the woman. In his 130 sonnet he plays the traditional aspects of the angel-woman and presents a woman who has got black hair, whose breath smells and further devices. The intelligent reader understand that the Shakespearean choice is meant to mean that when someone fells in love there are no stereotypes that appear right. Human feelings justify W. Shakespeare choice’s and the humans being becomes central in the poetry investigation. The sonnet together with drama display a totally different vision of the world: where human features capture the same important of the divine ones in the Meddle Ages. W. Shakespeare’ heroes are all human beings that are reduced into feces by a flaw: Hamlet for his incapacity to make a decision, Othello by his tremendous and unjustified jealousy, Anthony and Cleopatra at the same time are intrus of a passionate love that will bring them to death and Macbeth by his thirst for power.

By definition human beings are always called to overcome teds that make them different from God.

During the Renaissance the use of lyrical language to later unite with Metaphysical poetry to integrate investigating areas that up to that moment were totally distant from lyrical poetry. Earthquakes, geographical discoveries, metaphor from geometry enter poetry revealing a new vision of the world that is new called Modern Age. The Modern Age of the Renaissance avails a world the barriers of which are unknown and if Dante could pend Ulysses to Hell because he had dared overcome the Gibraltar, now the research of new horizons is appreciated rather then condemned. The strength of Metaphysical poetry will be affirmed in the twenty century by the poet Eliot who will re-valuated Metaphysical poetry in its capacity to mix emotions intellect. According to the Modernist poet since the Metaphysical poets “there has been a dissociation of sensibilities from which we have never recovered”. During the Enlightenment poetry is no longer. Indeed during the XVIII century the novel is born and it will become the most common form of literature. In the Enlightenment the rational aspect becomes central to investigate humans nature and therefore poetry mock-heroic poetry that is a parody of aristocracy.