Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Though virtually unknown in her lifetime, Dickinson has come to be regarded, along with Walt Whitman, as one of the two quintessential American poets of the 19th century. In fact, it is commonly conjectured that Contemporary North American Poetry extends outward along two principal currents, that which flows from Whitman and that which flows from Dickinson. Curiously enough, the two poets are almost opposite in personality, prosody, poetic manifesto and style.

Dickinson lived an introverted and hermetic life, which has inspired numerous biographers and voluminous speculation, mostly about her sexuality, of which little is definitively known. Although she wrote, at latest count, 1789 poems, only a handful of them were published during her lifetime, all anonymously and probably without her knowledge.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet who wrote many works that are still famous today, including The Song of Hiawatha, Paul Revere's Ride and Evangeline. He also wrote the first American translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets. Born in Maine, Longfellow lived for most of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a house occupied during the American Revolution by General George Washington and his staff.

Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential poet the United States has ever produced.

Translated into more than 30 languages, Whitman is said to have invented contemporary American literature as a genre. He abandons the rigid rhythmic and metrical structures of European poetry for an expansionist free verse style, which appropriately delivers his philosophical view that America was destined to reinvent the world as emancipator and liberator of the human spirit.

Whitman, American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist was born in West Hills, Huntington on Long Island in New York. His most famous work is Leaves of Grass, which he would continue to edit and revise until his death. A group of civil war poems included within Leaves of Grass is often published as an independent collection under the name of Drum-Taps.

The first few versions of Leaves of Grass were self-published and poorly received. Several poems featured graphic depictions of the human body, endlessly enumerated in Whitman's innovative "cataloguing" style, which contrasted with the reserved Puritan ethic of the times. Despite its revolutionary content and structure, subsequent editions of the book would continue to evoke critical indifference in the US literary establishment. But abroad the book was a world-wide sensation, especially in France, where Whitman's intense humanism would help to provoke the naturalist revolution in French letters.

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to narrative forms of the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, and other agents.

William Shakespeare (baptised April 26, 1564 – died April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language, as well as one of the greatest in Western literature, and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He wrote about thirty-eight plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems. Already a popular writer in his own lifetime, Shakespeare's reputation became increasingly celebrated after his death and his work adulated by numerous prominent cultural figures through the centuries. In addition, Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the literature and history of the English-speaking world. He is often considered to be England's national poet and is sometimes referred to as the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard") or the "Swan of Avon".

Shakespeare is believed to have produced most of his work between 1586 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. He is counted among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy, and his plays combine popular appeal with complex characterisation, poetic grandeur and philosophical depth.

Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. In addition, many quotations and neologisms from his plays have passed into everyday usage in English and other languages. Over the years, many people have speculated about Shakespeare's life, raising questions about his sexuality, religious affiliation, and the authorship of his works.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803–April 27, 1882) was an American author, poet, and philosopher.

Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister in a famous line of ministers. He gradually drifted from the doctrines of his peers, then formulated and first expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his essay Nature.

When he was three years old, Emerson's father complained that the child could not read well enough. Then in 1811, when Emerson was eight years old, his father died. He attended Boston Latin School. In October 1817, at the age of 14, Emerson went to Harvard University and was appointed President's Freshman, a position which gave him a room free of charge. He waited at Commons, which reduced the cost of his board to one quarter, and he received a scholarship. He added to his slender means by tutoring and by teaching during the winter vacations at his Uncle Ripley's school in Waltham, Massachusetts.

After Emerson graduated from Harvard in 1821, he assisted his brother in a school for young ladies established in their mother's house; when his brother went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, then went to Harvard Divinity School, and emerged as a Unitarian minister in 1829. A dispute with church officials over the administration of the Communion service, and misgivings about public prayer led to his resignation in 1832. A year earlier his young wife and reputed one true love, Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker, died in April 1831.

It is not known how many children he had, but he had at least one son and one daughter. It is known that he travelled with her to Europe in his old age.

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and Civil Disobedience, on resistance to civil government and many other articles and essays. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet, one of the foremost of the 20th century. His work frequently drew inspiration from rural life in New England, using the setting to explore complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was highly honored during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes.

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