Curated playlist
Sonneteers
- MichelangeloMichelangelo said he lived like a poor man, yet he was worth about 50,000 gold ducats.
- William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare called himself in "perfect health" in his will, then died within a month.
- John KeatsJohn Keats asked for a tombstone with no name on it. He died in Rome at 25, sure he had failed as a poet.
- Percy Bysshe ShelleyPoet Percy Bysshe Shelley's body was identified partly by a copy of Keats's Lamia in his jacket.
- Dante AlighieriDante was condemned to exile from Florence and threatened with burning at the stake.
- William WordsworthWordsworth's greatest poem, The Prelude, appeared only months after he died. His widow, Mary, published it in 1850.
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges directed Argentina's National Library while completely blind.
- Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire never reached India, yet he told stories of riding elephants there.
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
- Rainer Maria RilkePoet Rainer Maria Rilke was born René, until a married woman renamed him.
- Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II won back Jerusalem while excommunicated, and was vilified for it.
- Michael DraytonMichael Drayton's first book, published in 1590, was almost entirely destroyed by public order.
- Edmund SpenserWhen poet Edmund Spenser was buried in 1599, fellow poets threw pens and their own poems into his grave.
- PetrarchPetrarch climbed Mont Ventoux in 1336, then closed his book angry at himself for admiring the view.
- Joachim du BellayA lead coffin found under Notre-Dame may hold poet Joachim du Bellay. Bone tests point to western France, not his home.
- Philip SidneyPhilip Sidney died at 31 from a thigh wound, leaving a romance that stops mid sword fight.
- Thomas Wyatt (poet)Poet Thomas Wyatt's sonnets were not printed under his name until 1557. That was fifteen years after he died.
- Luís de CamõesPortugal's national day, the 10th of June, is the day poet Luís de Camões died.
- Pierre de RonsardSudden deafness in 1540 ended Pierre de Ronsard's career as a diplomat's aide.