Authors

Greek

Anacreon

Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet from Teos who spent his career at the courts of Samos and Athens, composing songs of love, wine, and the pleasures of life that gave rise to the 'Anacreontic' tradition of lyric poetry. His surviving fragments, alongside a large body of later imitations known as the Anacreontea, established the erotic-convivial lyric as one of the major forms of Western poetry. The tune associated with his verse gave the American national anthem its melody.