Poetry is the first major literary genre. All types of poetry share specific characteristics. In fact, poetry is a form of text that follows a meter and rhythm, with each line and syllable. It is further subdivided into different genres, such an epic poem, narrative, romantic, dramatic, and lyric. Dramatic poetry includes melodrama, tragedy, and comedy, while other poems includes ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, song, and epic.
Popular examples of epic poems include Paradise Lost, by John Milton, The Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer. Examples of romantic poems include Red Red Rose, by Robert Burns. All these poetic forms share specific features, such as they do not follow paragraphs or sentences; they use stanzas and lines instead. Some forms follow very strict rules of length, and number of stanzas and lines, such as villanelle, sonnet, and haiku. Others may be free-form, like Feelings, Now, by Katherine Foreman, which is devoid of any regular meter and rhyme scheme. Besides that, often poetry uses figurative language, such as metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and alliteration to create heightened effect.
Popular examples of epic poems include Paradise Lost, by John Milton, The Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer. Examples of romantic poems include Red Red Rose, by Robert Burns. All these poetic forms share specific features, such as they do not follow paragraphs or sentences; they use stanzas and lines instead. Some forms follow very strict rules of length, and number of stanzas and lines, such as villanelle, sonnet, and haiku. Others may be free-form, like Feelings, Now, by Katherine Foreman, which is devoid of any regular meter and rhyme scheme. Besides that, often poetry uses figurative language, such as metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and alliteration to create heightened effect.
Primary Sub-Genres of Poetry
- Songs and Ballads
- Lyric
- Epic
- Dramatic
- Narrative
Songs and Ballads
Centuries-old in practice, the composition of ballads began in the European folk tradition, in many cases accompanied by musical instruments. Ballads were not originally transcribed, but rather preserved orally for generations, passed along through recitation. Their subject matter dealt with religious themes, love, tragedy, domestic crimes, and sometimes even political propaganda.
A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the reader what’s happening, describing each crucial moment in the trail of events. To convey that sense of emotional urgency, the ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.
Ballads began to make their way into print in fifteenth-century England. During the Renaissance, making and selling ballad broadsides became a popular practice, though these songs rarely earned the respect of artists because their authors, called “pot poets," often dwelled among the lower classes.
However, the form evolved into a writer’s sport. Nineteenth-century poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth wrote numerous ballads. Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the tale of a cursed sailor aboard a storm-tossed ship, is one of the English language’s most revered ballads. It begins:
It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three.
—“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppest thou me?
The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.”
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship," quoth he.
“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.
He holds him with his glittering eye--
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three-years’ child:
The mariner hath his will.
Other balladeers, including Thomas Percy and, later, W. B. Yeats, contributed to the English tradition. In America, the ballad evolved into folk songs such as “Casey Jones," the cowboy favorite “Streets of Laredo," and “John Henry.”
Source : https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/ballad-poetic-form
A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the reader what’s happening, describing each crucial moment in the trail of events. To convey that sense of emotional urgency, the ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.
Ballads began to make their way into print in fifteenth-century England. During the Renaissance, making and selling ballad broadsides became a popular practice, though these songs rarely earned the respect of artists because their authors, called “pot poets," often dwelled among the lower classes.
However, the form evolved into a writer’s sport. Nineteenth-century poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth wrote numerous ballads. Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the tale of a cursed sailor aboard a storm-tossed ship, is one of the English language’s most revered ballads. It begins:
It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three.
—“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppest thou me?
The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.”
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship," quoth he.
“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.
He holds him with his glittering eye--
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three-years’ child:
The mariner hath his will.
Other balladeers, including Thomas Percy and, later, W. B. Yeats, contributed to the English tradition. In America, the ballad evolved into folk songs such as “Casey Jones," the cowboy favorite “Streets of Laredo," and “John Henry.”
Source : https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/ballad-poetic-form
Lyric
Lyric, a verse or poem that is, or supposedly is, susceptible of being sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument (in ancient times, usually a lyre) or that expresses intense personal emotion in a manner suggestive of a song. Lyric poetry expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet and is sometimes contrasted with narrative poetry and verse drama, which relate events in the form of a story. Elegies, odes, and sonnets are all important kinds of lyric poetry.In ancient Greece an early distinction was made between the poetry chanted by a choir of singers (choral lyrics) and the song that expressed the sentiments of a single poet. The latter, the melos, or song proper, had reached a height of technical perfection in “the Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,” as early as the 7th century bc. That poetess, together with her contemporary Alcaeus, were the chief Doric poets of the pure Greek song. By their side, and later, flourished the great poets who set words to music for choirs, Alcman, Arion, Stesichorus, Simonides, and Ibycus, who were followed at the close of the 5th century by Bacchylides and Pindar, in whom the tradition of the dithyrambic odes reached its highest development.
Latin lyrics were written by Catullus and Horace in the 1st century BC; and in medieval Europe the lyric form can be found in the songs of the troubadours, in Christian hymns, and in various ballads. In the Renaissance the most finished form of lyric, the sonnet, was brilliantly developed by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton. Especially identified with the lyrical forms of poetry in the late 18th and 19th centuries were the Romantic poets, including such diverse figures as Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Goethe, and Heinrich Heine. With the exception of some dramatic verse, most Western poetry in the late 19th and the 20th century may be classified as lyrical.
Source : https://www.britannica.com/art/lyric
Latin lyrics were written by Catullus and Horace in the 1st century BC; and in medieval Europe the lyric form can be found in the songs of the troubadours, in Christian hymns, and in various ballads. In the Renaissance the most finished form of lyric, the sonnet, was brilliantly developed by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton. Especially identified with the lyrical forms of poetry in the late 18th and 19th centuries were the Romantic poets, including such diverse figures as Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Goethe, and Heinrich Heine. With the exception of some dramatic verse, most Western poetry in the late 19th and the 20th century may be classified as lyrical.
Source : https://www.britannica.com/art/lyric
Epic
An epic is a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons. Elements that typically distinguish epics include superhuman deeds, fabulous adventures, highly stylized language, and a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions.
Many of the world’s oldest written narratives are in epic form, including the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Sanskrit Mahâbhârata, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid. Both of Homer’s epics are composed in dactylic hexameter, which became the standard for Greek and Latin oral poetry. Homeric verse is characterized by the use of extended similes and formulaic phrases, such as epithets, to fill out the verse form. Greek and Latin epics frequently open with an invocation to the muse, as is shown in the opening lines of the Odyssey:
SPEAK, MEMORY--
Of the cunning hero,
The wanderer, blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.
Speak
Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them, hard as he tried--
The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,
And that god snuffed out their day of return.
Over time, the epic has evolved to fit changing languages, traditions, and beliefs. Poets such as Lord Byron and Alexander Pope used the epic for comic effect in Don Juan and The Rape of the Lock. Other epics of note include Beowulf, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Dante‘s Divine Comedy, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The epic has also been used to formalize mythological traditions in many cultures, such as the Norse mythology in Edda and Germanic mythology in Nibelungenlied, and more recently, the Finnish mythology of Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala.
In the twentieth-century, poets expanded the epic genre further with a renewed interest in the long poems. The Cantos by Ezra Pound, Maximus by Charles Olson, The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford, and Paterson by William Carlos Williams, while not technically epics, push and pull at the boundaries of the genre, re-envisioning the epic through the lens of modernism.
Source : https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/epic-poetic-form
Many of the world’s oldest written narratives are in epic form, including the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Sanskrit Mahâbhârata, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid. Both of Homer’s epics are composed in dactylic hexameter, which became the standard for Greek and Latin oral poetry. Homeric verse is characterized by the use of extended similes and formulaic phrases, such as epithets, to fill out the verse form. Greek and Latin epics frequently open with an invocation to the muse, as is shown in the opening lines of the Odyssey:
SPEAK, MEMORY--
Of the cunning hero,
The wanderer, blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.
Speak
Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them, hard as he tried--
The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,
And that god snuffed out their day of return.
Over time, the epic has evolved to fit changing languages, traditions, and beliefs. Poets such as Lord Byron and Alexander Pope used the epic for comic effect in Don Juan and The Rape of the Lock. Other epics of note include Beowulf, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Dante‘s Divine Comedy, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The epic has also been used to formalize mythological traditions in many cultures, such as the Norse mythology in Edda and Germanic mythology in Nibelungenlied, and more recently, the Finnish mythology of Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala.
In the twentieth-century, poets expanded the epic genre further with a renewed interest in the long poems. The Cantos by Ezra Pound, Maximus by Charles Olson, The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford, and Paterson by William Carlos Williams, while not technically epics, push and pull at the boundaries of the genre, re-envisioning the epic through the lens of modernism.
Source : https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/epic-poetic-form
Dramatic
Also known as a dramatic poem, this is an emotional piece of literature which includes a story which is recited or sung. It refers to the dramatic genre of poetry. Till the nineteenth century dramas were written in the form of verses. The definition of this piece of literature can be quoted as, 'a form of poetry where a story is narrated in the form of a lyrical ballad.' This kind of poetry has come from Sanskrit dramas and Greek tragedies. The method adopted in this form is that the story is usually narrated in the form of a recital or song. Soliloquy and dramatic monologues are the main instruments of this form of poetry. There are also many examples of dramatic poetry for children. They are written in such a manner that they can be easily understood, and enacted.
The history of poetry can be traced back to the Shakespearean era, where different settings of a play were written in verse which would rhyme. The discourse of the story and characters of the play would be told in the form of poetry. Epic poetry is also one of these kinds, which can be mostly seen in Greek literature. Epics are usually narrations of deeds and events, usually heroic, of a particular country or culture. Plays were enacted on stage and dialogs delivered were in the poetic form. This technique could be seen in Greek plays, which were written in verse so that the lines could be easily memorized. This method was also adapted in the Renaissance theater, where modern free verse was used in combination with the ancient form of poetry.
Let's read Pedro Calderon de la Barca's The Dream Called Life. This poem is a magnificent portrayal of how dreams can affect a person. The poem is given below:
DREAM it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had about me blown
And all again was darkness. Such a dream
As this, in which I may be walking now,
Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,
Who make believe to listen; but anon
Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel,
Ay, even with all your airy theater,
May flit into the air you seem to rend
With acclamations, leaving me to wake
In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake
From this that waking is; or this and that,
Both waking and both dreaming; such a doubt
Confounds and clouds our mortal life about.
But whether wake or dreaming, this I know
How dreamwise human glories come and go;
Whose momentary tenure not to break,
Walking as one who knows he soon may wake,
So fairly carry the full cup, so well
Disordered insolence and passion quell,
That there be nothing after to upbraid
Dreamer or doer in the part he played;
Whether tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell,
Or the last trumpet of the Eternal Day,
When dreaming, with the night, shall pass away.
Some more examples of dramatic poems include:
Source : https://penlighten.com/dramatic-poetry
The history of poetry can be traced back to the Shakespearean era, where different settings of a play were written in verse which would rhyme. The discourse of the story and characters of the play would be told in the form of poetry. Epic poetry is also one of these kinds, which can be mostly seen in Greek literature. Epics are usually narrations of deeds and events, usually heroic, of a particular country or culture. Plays were enacted on stage and dialogs delivered were in the poetic form. This technique could be seen in Greek plays, which were written in verse so that the lines could be easily memorized. This method was also adapted in the Renaissance theater, where modern free verse was used in combination with the ancient form of poetry.
Let's read Pedro Calderon de la Barca's The Dream Called Life. This poem is a magnificent portrayal of how dreams can affect a person. The poem is given below:
DREAM it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had about me blown
And all again was darkness. Such a dream
As this, in which I may be walking now,
Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,
Who make believe to listen; but anon
Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel,
Ay, even with all your airy theater,
May flit into the air you seem to rend
With acclamations, leaving me to wake
In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake
From this that waking is; or this and that,
Both waking and both dreaming; such a doubt
Confounds and clouds our mortal life about.
But whether wake or dreaming, this I know
How dreamwise human glories come and go;
Whose momentary tenure not to break,
Walking as one who knows he soon may wake,
So fairly carry the full cup, so well
Disordered insolence and passion quell,
That there be nothing after to upbraid
Dreamer or doer in the part he played;
Whether tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell,
Or the last trumpet of the Eternal Day,
When dreaming, with the night, shall pass away.
Some more examples of dramatic poems include:
- Paradise Lost - John Milton
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Ulysses - Alfred Tennyson
- Home - Thoughts, From Abroad - Robert Browning
- Poetics - Aristotle
- The Seven Ages of Man - William Shakespeare
- The Laboratory - Robert Browning
- Inferno - Dante
- Ode on Indolence - John Keats
- Songs of Innocence and Experience: The Tyger - William Blake
Source : https://penlighten.com/dramatic-poetry
Narrative
Narrative poetry tells a story in verse form. It is a relatively long form of poetry that contains all of the necessary elements for a story, including plot, characters, setting, theme, and dialogue. Like stories, narrative poems present a conflict, build to a climax, and end with a resolution. At the same time, narrative poems also contain poetic elements which distinguish them from prose narratives. Narrative poems generally contain some form of sound or rhythmic patterns. They may rhyme, make use of regular meter, or play with sound through repetition, assonance, and alliteration. The oral inflections of the narrative poem are therefore noticeably different from the flatter rhythms of prose. Like other forms of poetry, narrative poems also employ figurative language, sensory imagery, and carefully selected diction.
Narrative poetry is perhaps the oldest known form of literature. It dates back to pre-literate societies that relied on oral tradition to pass on stories and history. Most ancient epics, including Beowulf and The Odyssey, are narrative poems which were likely recited or sung from memory before eventually being written down and recorded. For centuries, during which most of the human population remained illiterate, narrative poetry maintained its appeal as a method of sharing information in an easy-to-memorize format. Medieval ballads and lais, for example, used rhyme and repeated refrains to conserve and pass on stories, history, and local news. Renaissance poets continued this style in works like The Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Inferno. In fact, respected poets continued to use the narrative form well into the 18th century, until the Romantic movement inspired a shift to lyric poetry.
Today, narrative poetry is less common as a poetic genre, but stands out in a few well-known classics, including “Paul Revere’s Ride”, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, and “Casey at the Bat”. The genre is also prevalent in other artistic mediums. Children’s books commonly tell stories in rhyming poetry, and novels in verse such as Out of the Dust or Love that Dog have become increasingly popular in the last few decades. Many musical artists also employ narrative poetry in their lyrics, telling tales of love, loss, and celebration in catchy rhyming verses. Whatever their form, good narrative poems leave a lasting impression through their vivid stories and rhythmic sound patterns.
Examples of Narrative Poetry
Source : https://www.storyboardthat.com/genres/narrative-poetry
Narrative poetry is perhaps the oldest known form of literature. It dates back to pre-literate societies that relied on oral tradition to pass on stories and history. Most ancient epics, including Beowulf and The Odyssey, are narrative poems which were likely recited or sung from memory before eventually being written down and recorded. For centuries, during which most of the human population remained illiterate, narrative poetry maintained its appeal as a method of sharing information in an easy-to-memorize format. Medieval ballads and lais, for example, used rhyme and repeated refrains to conserve and pass on stories, history, and local news. Renaissance poets continued this style in works like The Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Inferno. In fact, respected poets continued to use the narrative form well into the 18th century, until the Romantic movement inspired a shift to lyric poetry.
Today, narrative poetry is less common as a poetic genre, but stands out in a few well-known classics, including “Paul Revere’s Ride”, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, and “Casey at the Bat”. The genre is also prevalent in other artistic mediums. Children’s books commonly tell stories in rhyming poetry, and novels in verse such as Out of the Dust or Love that Dog have become increasingly popular in the last few decades. Many musical artists also employ narrative poetry in their lyrics, telling tales of love, loss, and celebration in catchy rhyming verses. Whatever their form, good narrative poems leave a lasting impression through their vivid stories and rhythmic sound patterns.
Examples of Narrative Poetry
- “Paul Revere’s Ride”
- “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
- “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert W. Service
- “Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “Theseus” by Bacchylides
- “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
- “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “Venus and Adonis” by William Shakespeare
- “Out, out—” by Robert Frost
- “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Tennyson
- “The Glove” by Robert Browning
Source : https://www.storyboardthat.com/genres/narrative-poetry