View source for List of Poet Laureates

Here is the list of British '''[[Poets Laureate]]'''. Analogous posts exist in other countries, such as the USA. (It may be worth noting that 'poet' normally included 'writer of plays' in the 17th and 18th centuries, following [[Aristotle]]'s ''Poetics'', and that most of the early Laureates not only wrote plays, but often adapted ('improved') plays by [[Shakespeare]] as part of their ''oeuvre''.)



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! Name of Laureate <br>and years of birth and death !! year of appointment !! year of death or resignation !! Notes
|-
| John [[Dryden]] (1631-1700) || 1668 || 1689 || Distinguished [[August - Augustan- Augustine - Augustinian|Augustan]] poet, critic and playwright. Author of:<br>''Absalom and Achitophel''; critical essay ''Of Dramatick Poesie''; ''All For Love'', etc<br>Resigned because of conversion to [[Roman Catholic|Catholicism]]
|-
| Thomas Shadwell (c.1640-1692) || 1689 || 1692 || playwright
|-
| Nahum Tate (c.1652-1715) || 1692 || 1715 || playwright and 'modernizer' of [[Shakespeare]], as well as poet
|-
| Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) || 1715 || 1718 || poet, playwright; 1st modern (~scholarly) editor of [[Shakespeare]]'s plays
|-
| Laurence Eusden (1688-1730) || 1718 || 1730 || One of the least distinguished of all Poets Laureate
|-
| [[Colley Cibber]] (1671-1757) || 1730 || 1757 || Actor, Manager and playwright. Quarrel with [[Alexander Pope|Pope]] continued in his Autobiography: ''An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber'' (1740)
|-
| William Whitehead (bap. 1715, d. 1785) || 1757 || 1785 || Playwright and (neo-classical) poet
|-
| Thomas Warton (1728-1790) || 1785 || 1790 || Poet, and author of 3-vol. ''History of English poetry'' 
|-
| Henry James Pye (1745-1813) || 1790 || 1813 || Undistinguished as a Poet, or 'rhymer for life'; keen shot
|-
| Robert Southey (1774-1843) || 1813 || 1843 || Early a radical; Lake poet, friend of [[Coleridge]]; lived near [[Wordsworth]]. Later a conservative, and butt of [[Byron]].
|-
| William [[Wordsworth]] (1770-1850) || 1843 || 1850 || Distinguished [[Romantic]] 'Lake' poet. Wrote ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798) with [[Coleridge]]<br>''Poems in Two Volumes'' (1807), ''The Prelude'' (1850; posthumous), introduction to ''The Excursion'' (1814), middle part of ''The Recluse'' (unfinished). Early revolutionary, died conservative.
|-
| Alfred [[Tennyson]], first Baron Tennyson (1809-1892) || 1850 || 1892 || [[Queen Victoria]]'s personal choice, and favourite, partly because of ''In Memoriam'' (1850), mourning his friend Hallam, which consoled the Queen after the death of [[Prince Albert]]. Prolific poet and intellectual.
|-
| Alfred Austin (1835-1913) || 1896 || 1913 || 'The Poetaster Laureate'
|-
| Robert Seymour [[Bridges]] (1844-1930) || 1913 || 1930 || Patron and champion of [[G.M.Hopkins]], whose poems he published posthumously. Wrote ''Testament of Beauty'' (1929)
|-
| John Edward Masefield (1878-1967) || 1930 || 1967 || Seaman, poet and novelist. Wrote ''Dauber'' (1913), ''Reynard the Fox'' (1913) (poems), <br>sea stories and children's books like ''The Box of Delights'' (1935)
|-
| Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972) || 1968 || 1972 || Poet and novelist (pen-name '''Nicholas Blake'''). One of the '[[Auden]] group' of left-wing activist poets.
|-
| Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) || 1972 || 1984 || Great conservationist and champion of Victorian architecture, as well as poet and socialite.
|-
| Edward James [Ted] Hughes (1930-1998) || 1984 || 1998 || Poet and writer. Married [[Sylvia Plath]]. Wrote much on cruelty and nature.
|-
| Andrew Motion (b. 1952) || 1999 || resigned 2009 || First laureate to relinquish post voluntarily 
|-
| Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955) || 2009 || at present  (2012) <br>remains in post|| Poet, playwright and academic.<br>First female, first Scot and first gay Laureate
|-
|}

::Much of the information on this page has been taken from ''[[ODNB]]''.
	
[[Category:English literature]]
[[Category:UK culture]]