Theme Timeline

Pick a theme and see how often it shows up across 50-year cohorts of V2Melody poets. Bars are normalised so small cohorts don't get drowned out by large ones.

Choose a theme

— none — world life love death beauty nature self social beloved divine memory desire spiritual heart grief power romantic suffering woman light soul loss dead body pain wind philosophical voice music landscape hope religious sorrow spring children flowers faith bird water rose mortality silence domestic presence childhood lover sound earth past consciousness truth women dream flower irish garden mind rain summer lovers

“sound” + sounds across the centuries

Bar length = percentage of poems in that cohort whose critique surfaced any of these terms. Click an era to focus the poem list below.

pre-1500 0 / 28 BCE 1 / 12 1500s 0 / 9 1550s 1 / 89 1600s 1 / 176 1650s 2 / 57 1700s 1 / 34 1750s 1 / 161 1800s 16 / 683 1850s 21 / 937 1900s 24 / 1115 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Olympian 14

Available versions

Olympian 14

by Pindar · Greek

c. 518 BC - c. 438 BC (~80)

Ariel's Song

Available versions

Ariel's Song

by William Shakespeare · English

c. 23 April 1564 - 23 April 1616 (~52)

Along the dark and silent night

Available versions

Along the dark and silent night

by Robert Herrick · English

24 August 1591 - 15 October 1674 (~83)

Frog Haiku

Available versions

Frog Haiku

by Matsuo Bashō · Japanese

1644 - 28 November 1694 (~50)

The Voice of Cicadas

Available versions

The Voice of Cicadas

by Matsuo Bashō · Japanese

1644 - 28 November 1694 (~50)

Sound and Sense

Available versions

Sound and Sense

by Alexander Pope · English

21 May 1688 - 30 May 1744 (~56)

A Riddle

Available versions

A Riddle

by Anna Lætitia Barbauld · English

20 June 1743 - 9 March 1825 (~82)

The Infinite

Available versions

The Infinite

by Giacomo Leopardi · Italian

29 June 1798 - 14 June 1837 (~39)

Silence

Available versions

Silence

by Thomas Hood · English

23 May 1799 - 3 May 1845 (~46)

The Hunter's Song

Available versions

The Hunter's Song

by Barry Cornwall · English

21 November 1787 - 5 October 1874 (~87)

The Sound of the Sea

Available versions

The Sound of the Sea

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · English

27 February 1807 - 24 March 1882 (~75)

The Owl

Available versions

The Owl

by Alfred Lord Tennyson · English

6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892 (~83)

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