Literary Chronology

1644: Matsuo Bashō is born.

1686: Matsuo Bashō's "Temple Bells Die Out" is published.

1694: Matsuo Bashō dies of a stomach ailment in the summer.

c. 1775: Ho Xuan Huong is believed to have been born sometime between 1775 and 1780, in a village near present-day Hanoi, North Vietnam.

c. 1820: Ho Xuan Huong dies sometime around 1820.

1840: Thomas Hardy is born on June 2 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England.

1861: Rabindranath Tagore is born on May 7 in Calcutta, India.

1888: Anna Akhmatova is born on June 23 in the Russian town of Bolshoy Fontan, near the resort town Odessa.

1893: Dorothy Rothschild Parker is born August 22 in West End, New Jersey.

1900: Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" is published.

1909: Ho Xuan Huong's "Spring-Watching Pavilion" is published.

1912: Rabindranath Tagore's "60" is published.

1913: Rabindranath Tagore is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1914: Octavio Paz is born March 31 in Mexico City.

1925: Maxine Kumin is born on June 6 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1925: Carolyn Kizer is born December 10 in Spokane, Washington.

1928: Thomas Hardy dies January 11 in Dorchester, Dorset, England

1928: Dorothy Parker's "The Last Question" is published.

1934: Mark Strand is born April 11 in Summerside on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

1940: Pattiann Rogers is born on March 23 in Joplin, Missouri.

1940: Robert Pinsky is born on October 20 in Long Branch, New Jersey.

1941: Billy Collins is born on March 22 in New York City.

1941: Rabindranath Tagore dies August 7 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.

1949: Agha Shahid Ali is born on February 4 in New Delhi, India.

1950: Carolyn Forché is born on April 28 in Detroit, Michigan.

1950: Anne Carson is born on June 21 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1962: Octavio Paz's "Duration" is published.

1965: Anna Akhmatova's "Midnight Verses" is published.

1966: Anna Akhmatova dies on March 5 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia.

1967: Dorothy Parker dies on June 7.

1978: Maxine Kumin's "Address to the Angels" is published.

1984: Robert Pinsky's "Song of Reasons" is published.

1986: Carolyn Kizer's "To an Unknown Poet" is published.

1988: Carolyn Forché's "The Garden Shukkei-en" is published.

1990: Mark Strand's "The Continuous Life" is published.

1991: Billy Collins's "The Afterlife" is published.

1991: Octavio Paz is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1993: Pattiann Rogers's "The Greatest Grandeur" is published.

1997: Agha Shahid Ali's "The Country Without a Post Office" is published.

1998: Octavio Paz dies of cancer on April 19 in Mexico City.

2000: Anne Carson's "New Rule" is published.

2001: Agha Shahid Ali dies of brain cancer on December 8.