POETR

Y
LYRICAL
POETRY
Lyrical Poetry
originated in the Ancient Greece. In the years
that followed, this style of writing spread all
through Europe. This form of poetry has
witnessed a lot of ups and downs in its
popularity. Yet, it has managed to thrive in one
form or the other until now.
Lyrical Poetry
Revived itself during the Renaissance
period with the help of brilliant writers
like Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and
John Milton; and in the Romantic era with
the help of Robert Burns, William Blake,
William Wordsworth, John Keats, Shelley,
Victor Hugo, etc.
Lyrical Poetry
Each form of lyrical poetry is a descriptive
and intricate ensemble of words depicting
intense and complicated emotions.

Example:
Dying by Emily Dickinson
Types of Lyrical Poetry
•Ode - An ode is a form of poetry such
as sonnet or elegy. Ode is a literary technique
that is lyrical in nature, but not very lengthy.
Ode is derived from a Greek word aeidein,
which means to chant or sing. It is highly
solemn and serious in
its tone and subject matter, and usually is used
with elaborate patterns of stanzas.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
Example:
Ode to the Confederate Dead
(By Allen Tate)
“Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacramen
To the seasonal eternity of death …”
Types of Lyrical Poetry
This is an example of Horatian ode, which
presents a consistent rhyme scheme. It has no
division into triads like Pindar ode, but is less
ceremonious, less formal, more tranquil, and
better suited for reading. The purpose of using
this type of ode is to give vent to pent-up
feelings.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
• Song - A short poem or other set of words set
to music or meant to be sung. A song is a
musical composition intended to be sung by
the human voice. This is often done at
distinct and fixed pitches using patterns of
sound and silence.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
• According to New Princeton Handbook
(2013), they defined song as referring to
verbal utterance that is musically expressive
of emotion; hence more narrowly, the
combined effect of music and poetry or, by
extension any poem that is suitable for
combination with music or is expressive in
ways that might be construed as musical.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
Example:
The Show Must Go On – Queen
Written by the amazing Brian May and belted out by the
superb showman Freddie Mercury just 6 weeks before his
death, this song has emotion, story, poetic allusion and a
strength of character that will keep it at the top of any list
of poetry set to music. There is also a version from the
film ‘Moulin Rouge‘ that deserves a mention also.
My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies,
fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
• Elegy - During the classic literature era,
an elegy used to be a simple poem
written in an elegiac meter meaning
alternating lines consisted of dactylic
hexameter and pentameter.
Types of Lyrical Poetry
However post the 16th century, this form of
lyric poem laments the death of someone. A
famous form of elegy is the pastoral elegy
which speaks of the simple life of the shepherd
and his observations.

Example: O Captain! My Captain! by Walt

Whitman
Types of Lyrical Poetry
•Sonnets are lyric poems comprising 14 linesfalling
into 3 quatrains followed by a couplet.
Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare, Death be not proud by John
Donne, Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Browning are a few of
the famous sonnets.

Example: Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a

summer’s day? By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
NARRATIVE
POETRY
 Narrative Poetry
Poems that tell stories. There is a beginning,
which introduces the background to the story,
a middle, which tells the action of the event,
and an end, which concludes and summarizes
the story.
 Narrative Poetry
• It is a poem which tells a story.
• It has a full storyline with all the elements of a
traditional story including
characters, plot, conflict and resolution, setting and
action.
• It does not need a rhyming pattern, it is a metered
poem with clear objectives to reach a
specific audience.
• These poems have been borrowed from oral poetic
narratives from different cultures.
 Narrative Poetry
• It often contains a moral lessons at the end of the
poem maybe in the explicit and implicit form.
• Another function of the narrative poem is to create
a national narrative so that the people may be
inspired by it. It also functions as a national song,
national anthem or a cultural requiem to make the
people aware of their past to receive guidance for
the future.

Example: The Echoing Green - William Blake

Types of Narrative Poetry
A. Ballad
• Is a type of poem that is set to music that tells and
narrate a story, and it can be dramatic, funny, or
romantic.
• A typical ballad consists of stanzas that contain
a quatrain, or four poetic lines. The meter or
rhythm of each line is usually iambic, which means
it has one unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable.
Types of Narrative Poetry
• In ballads, there are usually eight or six syllables in a line.
Like any poem, some ballads follow this form and some
don't, but almost all ballads are narrative, which means
they tell a story.
• The ballad was originally set to music, some ballads have
a refrain, or a repeated chorus, just like a song does.
Similarly, the rhyme scheme is often ABAB because of the
musical quality of this rhyme pattern.
Examples: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-Samuel Taylor
Coleridge An excerpt)
Types of Narrative Poetry
B.Metrical Romance
• These poems do not rhyme and deal with themes such as
love, rites of passage, chivalry, adventure and interpersonal
relationships. Knights, fair maidens and epic journeys
appear frequently in metrical romance poems.
• The defining feature of a metrical romance poem is the
hero character, a courageous man with excellent moral
character.

Examples: Faerie Queen- Edmund Spenser

Types of Narrative Poetry
C.Epic
• Is a long, narrative poem that is usually about
heroic deeds and events that are significant to the
culture of the poet. Elements that typically
distinguish epics include superhuman deeds,
fabulous adventures, highly stylized language, and
a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions.
Examples;
Iliad and Odyssey- Homer
DRAMATI
C
POETR
Dramatic Poetry
Like narrative poetry it tell stories. But in
dramatic poetry, the poet lets one or more of the
story’s characters act out the story. Many plays
are written as dramatic poetry. The difference
between drama and dramatic poetry is a matter
of degree. If the dialogue of a play rhymes, has
repeating rhymes or features of other distinct
poetic elements, the play is connected as
dramatic poetry.
Types of Dramatic Poetry
•Dramatic Monologue - is the combination of
the words dramatic and monologue. The
‘dramatic’ says that it could be acted out and is
a form of drama, while the ‘monologue’ defines
as a speech that one person makes, either to
himself or to another.

EX: “My Last Duchess” by Robert

Browning
Types of Dramatic Poetry
•Soliloquy - Is a long speech in which a
character who is alone on a stage expresses his
or her private thoughts or feelings. It is
interested to give the illusion of unspoken
reflection.

EX: Romeo and Juliet -Juliet speaks her

thoughts aloud just before she drinks the potion
that will make her appear to be dead
Types of Dramatic Poetry
• Character Sketch - you are letting the reader
know many things about the character in a few
lines of poetry or, as in a story, in a paragraph
or two. It is like drawing a quick pencil sketch
rather than doing a full portrait.

EX: High Purr Billy Biography Sketch Back

PROSE
POETRY
 Prose Poetry
• Prose Poetry seems like an oxymoron. It appears
as prose, reads as poetry, yet lacks line breaks
associated with poetry but uses fragmentation,
compression, repetition and rhyme and poetry
symbols, metaphor and figures of speech.

• Prose poetry is a hybrid or fusion of prose and

poetry.
• A Little History Prose poetry can be tracked back to
the haibun, a Japanese form of prose poetry seen
during the 17th century. Western prose poetry
emerged in the early 19th century as a rebellion
against traditional poetic structures.
Example of Prose Poetry from Campbell McGrath’s
aptly titled “The Prose Poem”
Some of the most well-know poets to write in prose
including Hans Christian Andersen, Rainer Maria
Rilke, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, H.P. Lovecraft,
and Gertrude Stein.
 Prose in Literature
• Prose in Novels - This is usually written
in the form of a narrative, and may be entirely
a figment of the author’s imagination.
Example: David Copperfield (By Charles
Dickens)
 Prose in Literature
• Prose in Speeches - used in speeches
often expresses thoughts and ideas of the
speaker.
Example: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance
Speech (By Mother Teresa)
 FUNCTION OF PROSE
It is the standard style of writing used for
most spoken dialogues, fictional as well as
topical and factual writing, and discourses. It
is also the common language used in
newspapers, magazines, literature,
encyclopedias, broadcasting, philosophy, law,
history, the sciences, and many other forms of
communication.
 ANY
QUESTIONS?
 qwerty
qwerty