Notes: Types of Poetry

Poetry

Epic Lyric

Ode Sonnet

Couplet

Elegy Ballad

Type Definition Purpose Features Examples

EpicDefinition Purpose + History Features Examples

a long, serious, poetic narrative about a significant event, often featuring a hero.

•Form of entertainment (novela)•used to promote cultural values•originally told not written

-Long!-Musical feel (meter: bouncy rhythym)-Rhyming

BeowolfThe OdysseyThe Illiad (Troy)

Epic : BeowolfO flower of warriors, beware of that trap.Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.For a brief while your strength is in bloombut it fades quickly; and soon there will follow illness or the sword to lay you low,or a sudden fire or surge of wateror jabbing blade or javelin from the airor repellent age. Your piercing eyewill dim and darken; and death will arrive, dear warrior, to sweep you away.

OdeDefinition History Features Examples

An ode is a lyric poem, usually addressing a particular person or thing

•Greek origin•Celebrates a person or thing

•Focus on one thing•Expresses awe, adoration, wonderment•3 stanzas

Ode to Thanks – Pablo Neruda

Ode to Maiz: Pablo NerudaAmerica, from a grainof maize you grewto crownwith spacious landsthe ocean foam.A grain of maize was your geography.From the graina green lance rose,was covered with gold,to grace the heightsof Peru with its yellow tassels.

Sonnet

Definition Purpose + History Features Examples

A lyric poem that follows strict rules.

•Focus on one topic•Express feelings about topic•from the Italian word for "little song“

•14 lines,•strict rhyme scheme•iambic pentameter•three coordinate quatrains •a concluding couplet

Shakespearean Sonnets

Sonnet 130 - ShakespeareMy mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then she is nothing but dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

ElegyDefinition History Features Examples

poem expressing sorrow for one who is dead

•Ancient Greece•Mourn the dead

•3 stages of loss:1. lament: speaker

expresses sorrow

2. praise and admiration of the idealized dead

3. consolation and solace.

“Oh Captain, My Captain” – Walt Whitman

BalladDefinition History Features Examples

a narrative in rhythmic verse suitable for singing

•The word French. It is derived from late 15c., from Fr. ballade meaning "dancing song". •Traditional ballads were stories and romantic tales set to melody and rhyming and were penned in a style so as to be sung to music.

•Stanzas•Rhyming 2nd and 4th lines•Refrain used (chorus)

“Ballad of Birmingham” – Dudley Randall

Ballad of Birmingham"Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren't good for a little child."