Rabindranath Tagore began writing poetry when he was eight years old and released his first significant poetry collection, Bhanusimha Thakurer Padabali, when he was sixteen. Gitanjali, his best-known piece of poetry, was released in 1910. He finished it the following year, at age twenty-six. Tagore's wife died the year he completed Gitanjali. He used her death as inspiration for some of the poems in this collection. Here are some other famous poets and their work dates: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) - Symphony No. 9 George Byron (1607–1688) - Don Juan John Clare (1793–1864) - Poems by John Clare Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) - Prometheus Unbound, A Defence of Poetry Robert Burns (1759–1796) - Poems by Robert Burns William Wordsworth (1770–1850) - The Prelude Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) - Kubla Khan