Gutierrez, N.A. English historical poetry, 1476-1603, 1983: pp. xi-xii (The range of poems considered historical is wide: folk ballads, contemporary broadsides, complaints, narrative poems, epics, biographies and saints' lives, elegies; All of these poems were occasioned ... by a specific historical event; Specifically, the rhetorical relationship which bind the historical poet, his historical subject matter, and his audience characterize the historical poem's very identification as a genre.)
LCSH, Oct. 22, 2014 (Historical poetry)

Poems set during a recognizable time period prior to the time in which they were written.