Poets

 

T.S. Eliot - Considered one of the great poets of the 20th century, Eliot's existential style has had an impact on modern poetry like no other. His woks The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, and The Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock are standards.

 

 Ezra Pound - Although he is not talked about much, Pound was one of the most significant poets of the last century. His Cantos are considered some of his best work.

 

Seamus Heany - Known by the general public for his now standard translation of Beowulf, Heany was a powerful influence on poetry for decades. His poem Blackberry-picking  is considered a standard of his work.

 

W.B. Yeats - Like Heany, Yeats is an irish born Nobel Prize winner. HIs style is really a combination of allegory, and lyricism. The Second Coming is considered one of Yeats' masterpieces.

 

Robert Browning - Considered an extremely influencial poet in the Victorian age,  Browing made his mark with dramatic dialog, romatic imagery, and modern idealisms. His poems Pophyria's Lover and My Last Dutchess are considered standards.

 

G.K. Chesterton - A prolific writer of his time, Chesterton was active the the poetry, litterary, and philosophical communties. Elegy in a Country Churchyard  is considered one of his best poems.

 

Emily Dickinson - American poet Emily Dickinson made her mark as a writer in the end of the Victorian age, with her distinctly romantic influenced style, as she often writes on love and nature. Her work Two Butterflies went out at Noon is an embodyment of her style.

 

Walt Whitman - Whitman is considered a quintessential American poet. A vonlunteer nurse during the Cival War, Whitman began writing his classic book lf poems Leaves of Grass which quickly became a standard not only in the United States, but around the world.

 

Lord Alfred Tennyson - The Poet Laureate under Queen Victoria, Tennyson blends existentialism with elegant ballad like verses. His poems The Lady of Shalott  and Ulysses are some of his classics.

 

Willaim Wordsworth - Another British Poet Laureate, Wordsworth was part of spearheadding the romatic movement. His poems closely examin the relationship of man and nature, which can be seen in his classic  Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley - Husband to the author of Frankenstein Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley was actually a more well known and respected writer than his wife during the romantic period. His work Ozymandias is just one example of why his impact as a poet was so significant.

 

Samuel Taylor Colridge - An English poet who was known for a love of philosophy, Colridge made his mark with poertry that blended romanticism and post modern thought that was popular in his time. His best known work is Kubla Khan which is quite possibly the best representation of his artistic style.

 

Johm Keats - While he was considered nothing more than a nobody during his short life, Keats is considered an extremely important figure in the romantic movement. His work is dramtic and emotionally charged, which can be seen in his poem Ode to a Nightingale.

 

Lord Byron - One of the most popular poets of his time, Byron was opinionated, and is often credited with created the moody and pensive Romatic. His epic satire Don Juan is considered a classic.

 

John Milton - The English born Millton is known for writing one of the most important works of poetry of all time Paradise Lost, which follows Satan and the events that take place after his ejection from heaven. The epic also makes many a statement about poltical affairs, life and relationships.

 

Dante Alighieri - Algihieri is credited with not only writing the first major italian work (some say he revolutionized the language), he is also accredited with writing what some call the most important poem of all time. His Divine Comedy  follows the authror's decent into Hell, and his ascension into Heaven. Algihieri makes great use of reference, rhetoric, and philosophy to prove his points.

 

Geoffrey Chaucer - Known as one of the most important writers of all time, the English born Chaucer is almost certainly known best for his most grand work The Cantabury Tales,which follows a group of pilgrims on their quest to a mythical land. This work is considered by most to be one of the most important books ever written.

 

Arthur Rimbaud - The french born Rimbaud is one of the most intersting writers of all time. At the age of around 16, Rimbaud could be seen in Parisian cafes writing world class poetry on napkins on a whim. As soon as he started writing, he was finished and decided a beter life would be that of an weapons smuggler. Poems like Genie  have served as insperation for some of the worlds greatest writers.

 

Homer -  The Greek born Poet is known for his epic poems The Iliad  and The Odyssey . Both take place around the Trojan war and are considered crucial to not only Greek culture, but crucial to the development of the poetic epic.

 

Novelists 

 

Cormac McCarthy - A potential Nobel Prize nominee, McCarthy is considered by many to be the greatest living writer of prose. His novels No Country For Old Men  and All The Pretty Horses are considered some of his best work (Blood Meridian is considered by many to be a 20th century classic but a link could not be provided).

 

Thomas Pynchon - Winner of a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship, Pynchon's work is abstract and considered a pillar of modern literature. His Gravity's Rainbow is considered to be his best work.

 

Bret Easton Ellis - Known for his use of extreme satire, Ellis has been a major figure in the literature for the past 25 or so years. His works Less Than Zero and American Phycho are standards for his work.

 

Louis-Ferdinand Céline - While not talked about much, Céline had a profound impact on the world of fiction. His novels are dark, powerfu, and highly existential, exmples of which can be seen in his classic A Journey to the End the Night ( free link could not be provided but the book should be avalible in any library system or from Amazon for around $10).

 

Walter Moers - The Geramn Moers is someone who isn't talked about much, but is truely one of the great fantasy writers of our time. His work is a mixture of J.R.R. Tolkien and Dr. Suess. His works The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear and Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures are his best work and can be found in most library systems or through Amazon.

 

Akira Toriyama - Known for his popular manga Dragon Ball (which is based off of the great Chines novel Journey to the West) Toriyama has left his mark on storytelling (as well as art and animation) in a way that very few have.

 

Milan Kundera - The Czech Kundera has made his mark on literature with his blend of experimental fiction mixed with strong philosophy. His work The Unbearable Lightness of Being  is a fine example of the immense talent Kundera possesses .

 

Audrey Niffenegger - The Michigan native came onto the scene with her hit novel The Time Travelers Wife. Niffenegger has a very unique ability to look into what makes somoene human, her work, unlike many best sellers, is work anyones time.

 

Philosophers

 

(Note: This will not contain the majors figures of philosophy i.e. The Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, Descartes, Kierkegaard and so on, as their entier body of work is easily avalible with a Google search)

 

Thomas Nagel - Currently a teacher at NYU, Dr. Nagel takes special interest in the mind and its relationship to being. His essay What it is like to be a bat is considered a standard philosophical read by many. His newest book Mind and Cosmos runs along the same line and is indeed worth the read, and can be purchased at any major bookstore or on Amazon.

 

James V. Schall - Father Schall was a teacher at Georgetown university for years, and made his mark in the philosophical community by publishing a range of works the cover politics, christianity, education and the human condition. His work Another Sort of Learning  is possibly his most well known work, and covers a varity of subjects, as well as a wonderful reading list.

 

Jim Holt - Mr. Holt is a writer for the New York Times as well as The New Yorker. His last book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story delves into the subject it covers with great vigor; while his articles can be found freely online, his book can be found at most bookstores and on Amazon.

 

Mortimer J. Adler -  A prolific writer, Dr. Adler was known as the "everymans philosoper" because of the accessibility of his writing. His classic work How to Read a Book  is exactly what it sounds like, and is considered one of his greatest works.

 

Musicians

 

Have A Nice Life - A mix of shoegaze, drone, and pop, this band made a huge debut with their album Deathconciousnes which tells the story of a hunter building a stairway of bodies on the climb to heaven so he can kill God. The lyrics are extremely poetic and existential.

 

attic abasement - a small band from Rochester that specializes in experimental pop. Lyrically far above annything else in the genre, thier album Dancing is Depressing aught to be a classic.

 

 

Little Pirouettes - Math-emo band from Philadelphia with some of the most poetic lyrics around. Thier album Weed Debts is a wonerful combination of music and lyrics.