Anonymous poems

Anonymous poetry spans the entire history of verse, from Sumerian laments and Old English epic to pseudonymous debuts.

15 works.

Still unknown
Beowulf
Date unrecorded · poem
The Old English epic of the hero's fights with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. Its poet is unknown, and the single surviving manuscript names no author.
Still unknown
Book of Dede Korkut
Date unrecorded · poem
The epic story cycle of the Oghuz Turks, framed around the legendary bard Korkut Ata. Its compilers are unknown; the bard is the frame, not a documented author.
Still unknown
Cantar de Mio Cid
Date unrecorded · poem
The Castilian epic of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the Cid, composed around 1200. The poet is unknown; only the copyist Per Abbat's name survives in the manuscript.
Still unknown
Debate between bird and fish
Date unrecorded · poem
A Sumerian disputation poem in which Bird and Fish argue their worth before the god Enki. Composed some four thousand years ago by unnamed scribes.
Still unknown
Hurrian hymn to Nikkal
Date unrecorded · poem
The oldest surviving notated music in the world, a hymn to the goddess Nikkal from Ugarit, around 1400 BCE. Composer unknown.
Disputed
Kesh Temple Hymn
Date unrecorded · poem
One of the oldest surviving works of literature, a Sumerian hymn praising the temple of Kesh. Tradition links the Temple Hymns to Enheduanna, but this hymn predates her.
Still unknown
Lament for Eridu
Date unrecorded · poem
A Sumerian city lament mourning the destruction of Eridu, the oldest of cities. Composed by unnamed scribes in the early second millennium BCE.
Still unknown
Lament for Nippur
Date unrecorded · poem
A Sumerian lament for the religious capital Nippur and its restoration by king Ishme-Dagan. Its composer is unnamed.
Still unknown
Lament for Sumer and Ur
Date unrecorded · poem
The Sumerian lament for the fall of the Ur III empire to Elamite invasion, around 2000 BCE. Composed anonymously in the scribal tradition.
Still unknown
Lament for Ur
Date unrecorded · poem
The masterpiece of the Sumerian city laments, mourning Ur's destruction through the voice of the goddess Ningal. Its poet is unknown.
Still unknown
Lament for Uruk
Date unrecorded · poem
A Sumerian city lament for Uruk, Gilgamesh's city, destroyed in the collapse around 2000 BCE. Composed by unnamed temple scribes.
Still unknown
St. Erkenwald
Date unrecorded · poem
A fourteenth century alliterative poem in which a pagan judge's corpse speaks to a bishop of London. Sometimes linked to the Pearl poet; author unknown.
Still unknown
The Battle of Maldon
Date unrecorded · poem
The Old English poem of the 991 battle against Viking raiders and the loyalty of Byrhtnoth's men. Its poet is unknown.
Still unknown
Poetic Edda
Published 1260 · poem
The Old Norse collection of mythological and heroic poems preserved in the Codex Regius. Long misattributed to Saemundr the Learned; its poets are unknown.
Later revealed
Tamerlane and Other Poems
Published 1827 · poem
Edgar Allan Poe's 1827 debut, credited only to 'a Bostonian'. Around a dozen copies survive of the most valuable anonymous debut in American letters.

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