Poetry Notes
There are two types of poetry: Lyric and Narrative.
1.) Narrative Poetry
This is poetry organized around a time sequence. It is similar to narrative prose in that a plot,
which contains characters, setting, and a basic theme is developed.
A.) Epic Poem
i.) The theme is so broad in its scope that it reaches beyond the affairs of mere individuals to
things concerning an entire nation or the world as a whole. Tradition would make people
familiar with the theme.
ii.) Subject matter is taken from history, religion, legend, or mythology. The supernatural
element is usually prevalent.
iii.) Action is always on a large scale; powerful forces are in conflict.
iv.) Character is interesting to us for the part he plays in the struggle with opposing forces rather
than because of his own individuality. The action is more important than the individual.
v.) The same meter is used throughout.
Examples: The Iliad by Homer; The Odyssey by Homer; Paradise Lost by Milton
B.) Story Poem
This form is a simple narrative, usually intended for a young audience.
Examples: The Lady of Shalott by Tenneyson; Dr. Seuss
C.) Traditional Ballad
i.) Tells a story.
ii.) Comes from the works of minstrels or reciters. They are one of the oldest forms of literature,
for men have always been fond of recording history and fiction in poetic forms. A minstrel who
sang ballads was like a talking newspaper.
iii.) Traditional ballads date from approximately 1200 to 1700 AD. The first written ballads were
not recorded until about 1800 when Sir Walter Scott went into the more primitive regions of the
Highlands of Scotland and wrote down the songs which these people were singing.
iv.) Traditional ballads are said to be the work of many people, not of an individual poet.
v.) Traditional ballads are usually quite short and simple because they were originally designed
to be sung.
vi.) The main characters are often heroic, such as knights or kings.
vii.) Most traditional ballads begin abruptly with no introduction. The language is very simple.
viii.) Traditional ballads tell their story through dialogue and description of action.
ix.) The rhythm is quite pleasing. Usually, the stanzas are four lines long, and lines two and four
rhyme. There is often a refrain or repetition.
x.) The story is usually about some great adventure or tragic event.
xi.) There is very often something of the supernatural present.
xii.) The most common themes are love, war, hatred, tragedy.
Example: Lord Randall
D.) Literary (Modern) Ballad
i.) Modern ballads use a definite rhyme scheme and rhythm.
ii.) The supernatural element is usually strong.
iii.) The author is known.
iv.) Modern ballads have a definite introduction and setting.
v.) Modern ballads are relatively modern in scope (after 1700 AD).
vi.) The story related often has a tragic element.
Examples: The Highwayman - Alfred Noyes; The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – G. Lightfoot
2.) Lyric Poetry
This poetry is the expression of human feelings in poetic form. It expresses the author’s own
mood, emotions, and reflections in musical language. The reader looks at life through the
author’s eyes.
A.) Sonnet
Probably the most esteemed stanza form is the sonnet. Its extremely rigid rules seem a
challenge to the poet to show how much range and variety he can create within the space of 140
syllables. The term “sonnet” refers to a poem of 14 iambic pentameter lines which hold to a very
definite rhyme scheme.
The most common is the Petrarchan sonnet. Its rhyme scheme is
abba, abba, cde, cde (the last six lines may change). Such a sonnet falls into stages. The first
eight lines form the “octave”, and the last six lines form the “sestet”. This division allows the
writer to present his poem in two parts.
i.) In the octave, the writer poses a problem, depicts a situation, or offers an observation. He
merely tells the reader about something.
ii.) In the sestet, the author provides an answer or conclusion to the octave. He tells what the
meaning of the octave is.
Examples: How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Some poets have experimented with the sonnet and produced a different form. For example, the
Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
Examples: Shall I Compare Thee? by Shakespeare
B.) Blank Verse
This is unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter. Because it is appropriate to serious
poetry, narrative, and dramatic expression, blank verse has been widely used in English poetry.
Examples: most of Shakespeare’s plays; Wordsworth’s longer poems
C.) Free Verse
This form does not try to follow any rigid requirements or to obey conventional rules.
i.) The lines may vary in length from one word (or even part of a word) to as many as the poet
wishes to include.
ii.) There is no regular rhyme scheme.
iii.) The poem is not arranged in conventional metric feet but it usually does have a rhythm.
iv.) The achievement of results comes through:
* clarity of presentation
* the use of strong images
*arrangement
* originality and freshness in point of view.
Examples: Dulce et Decorum by Wilfred Owen; The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
D.) Limerick
This is a five-line, nonsense stanza of anapestic feet. The first, second, and fifth lines are
trimester and the third and fourth are dimeter ( 9, 9, 6, 6, 9 syllable lines respectively). The
rhyme scheme is aabba.
Example: There once was an old man from Esser,
Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser.
It at last grew so small,
He knew nothing at all,
And now he's a college professor.
E.) Parody
A piece of writing which achieves a humourous effect by mimicking the structure or content of a
serious selection.
Examples: Weird Al Yankovic’s songs
Also:
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe
Parody:
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
Come bowl with me this evening dear
And we’ll kill twelve cans of beer:
We’ll join the others on the team
And eat three quarts of peach ice cream
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And in between each frame we bowl
We’ll have a burger on a roll,
A dozen hotdogs, sacks of fries,
A meatball and two apple pies;
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
Come bowl with me you really should The exercise will do us good.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
F.) Haiku
a.) An ancient Japanese verse form of three unrhymed lines containing 17 syllables in all.
b.) The conventional poem usually includes a comparison, allusion, or paradox, refers to a
season of the year, and is comprised of 5, 7, 5 syllable lines respectively.
c.) North American usage interprets the Haiku as a simple, metaphorical, three-line 5, 7, 5 poem.
Example:
The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
Was a butterfly.
3.) Rhythm
This is the regular recurrence of accent or stress. In any polysyllabic word in English, one of the
syllables receives a greater stress than the others.
Ie: photograph
photographer
photographic
Unstressed syllables are marked with a , while stressed syllables are marked with a .
Single syllable words, when used in a phrase, are stressed or unstressed according to the
meaning of the phrase.
down the street
When these phrases are used in sentences, the stress may shift.
We walk down the street.
This alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables and words is the rhythm of all language.
4.) Meter
In poetry, there is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables this is what gives verse
its rhythmic pattern. This regular pattern is known as meter. Each poem has a meter of its own.
A.) Foot
This is the division of each line into units called feet. One foot usually contains one stressed
syllable and its associated unstressed syllables.
Example: It is / an an /cient Mar / in er.
This line has a total of four feet.
one foot – monometer
two feet – dimeter
three feet – trimester
four feet – tetrameter
five feet – pentameter
six feet - hexameter
Longer lines are possible, but they occur very infrequently.
B.) Types of Metrical Feet
Meters differ in the number and arrangement of their syllables.
i.) Iambic is the most important and most used foot in English verse. This consists of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
Example: My heart / is like / a sing / ing bird /
Here we have four feet in each line, and each foot is iambic. The pattern of these lines is called
iambic tetrameter. The greater bulk of English verse is written in a basically iambic meter.
ii.) Trochaic is a stressed syllable preceding an unstressed syllable.
Example: Soft ly / through the / crim son / twi light /
To the / gate way / of the / sun
This example shows a fairly common variation of the trochaic foot; the omission of the final
unstressed syllable, as in the last line.
Trochaic feet occasionally appear in iambic lines, especially at the beginning of the line.
Example: Cap tive! / Is there / a hell / to him / like this? /
iii.) Anapestic is a stressed syllable following two unstressed syllables. This is closely related to
the iambic foot and is also often used to replace the iambic foot.
Example: The Ass
The anapestic foot is relatively uncommon in English poetry, except as an occasional
replacement for iambic feet.
Example: And the day / is loud / with voi / ces spea / king. /
iv.) Dactylic is a stressed syllable preceding two unstressed syllables.
Examples: gra du al
mar gar ine
Marg ar et
This form is seldom found making a complete metrical foot. It is usually found forming one foot
of another type of metrical foot.
v.) Spondaic consists of two syllables to form this pattern:
another type of metrical foot.
. This type also only forms part of
Example: Yet there is n’t / a train / goes by / all day./
5.) Rhyme
A.) Labeling (for end rhyme)
i.) Label the first line of the poem with the letter “a”.
ii.) Label the second line of the poem either:
“a” if it rhymes with line one or
“b” if it does not rhyme.
iii.) Label the third line of the poem:
“a” or “b” if it rhymes with either lines one or two
“c” if it does not rhyme.
iv.) Continue in the same fashion throughout the remainder of the poem.
B.) Types of Rhyme
There are two basic categories of rhyme – perfect and imperfect.
Perfect: thing – swing
Imperfect: crooned – ground
Using either form, they may be classified into the following types:
i.) Internal – the rhyming of words which occurs within a line of poetry
Example: On Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson Trail.
ii.) End – the most common form which entails the rhyming of words at the end of lines.
Example: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
But I have promises to keep.
iii.) Masculine – the rhyming of words of a single rhyming syllable or the last syllable.
Examples: fun-run-sun-one
concealed-revealed
iv.) Feminine – the rhyming of words with multiple syllables, with the first rhyming syllable
accented and the other rhyming syllables not accented.
Examples: showers-flowers
impulsively-convulsively
6.) Stanza Forms
Generally, poems are divided into stanzas, which is a group of two or more lines. A single line of
poetry is called a verse. Every poem has a pattern, and some of these are easy to understand.
However, patterns in poetry vary, and some are quite complicated. In some poems, there is no
rhyme at all, and lines are of many different lengths. Even in such a poem, the poet has a definite
pattern in mind. The order of his words and lines must conform to that pattern.
A.) Couplet
There are very definite rules about the patterns of most kinds of poetry. The simplest patter is
the couplet. It consists of two lines of poetry that are of equal length that rhyme with each other
at the endings. They also must have a uniform rhythm.
Example: January brings out the snow,
a
Makes our feet and fingers glow.
a
B.) Triplet
Three lines of poetry which rhyme.
Example: He clasps the crag with crooked hands
Close to the sun in lonely lands
Ringed with the azure world he stands.
a
a
a
C.) Quatrain
Four rhyming lines. Sometimes, the four lines all rhyme with each other.
Example: We have a secret, just we three
a
The robin, I, and the cherry tree,
a
The bird told the tree, and it told me
a
And nobody knows it, just we three.
A