Section Two: Genres (Types) and Forms of Poetry

A genre is a tradition or classification of poetry which is based on the subject

matter, style, or other broader literary characteristics of poetry. Here is some
of the common types and forms of poetry.
It is useful to keep two general distinctions in mind: lyric poetry and narrative
poetry.
Lyric Poetry
A lyric poem is a comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single
speaker presents a state of mind or an emotional state. Lyric poetry retains
some of the elements of song which is said to be its origin: For Greek
writers the lyric was a song accompanied by the lyre.
Subcategories of the lyric are, for example elegy, ode, sonnet and dramatic
monologue and most occasional poetry:
In modern usage, elegy is a formal lament for the death of a particular person
(for example Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H.). More broadly defined, the
term elegy is also used for solemn meditations, often on questions of death,
such as Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

An ode is a long lyric poem with a serious subject written in an elevated style.
Famous examples are Wordsworth’s Hymn to Duty or Keats’ Ode to a
Grecian Urn.
The sonnet was originally a love poem which dealt with the lover’s sufferings
and hopes. It originated in Italy and became popular in England in the
Renaissance, when Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey translated and
imitated the sonnets written by Petrarch (Petrarchan sonnet). From the
seventeenth century onwards the sonnet was also used for other topics than
love, for instance for religious experience (by Donne and Milton), reflections
on art (by Keats or Shelley) or even the war experience (by Brooke or Owen).
The sonnet uses a single stanza of (usually) fourteen lines and an intricate
rhyme pattern (see stanza forms). Many poets wrote a series of sonnets linked
by the same theme, so-called sonnet cycles (for instance
Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, Drayton, Barret-Browning, Meredith) which
depict the various stages of a love relationship.
In a dramatic monologue a speaker, who is explicitly someone other than the
author, makes a speech to a silent auditor in a specific situation and at a critical
moment. Without intending to do so, the speaker reveals aspects of his
temperament and character. In Browning's My Last Duchess for instance, the
Duke shows the picture of his last wife to the emissary from his prospective
new wife and reveals his excessive pride in his position and his jealous
temperament.
Occasional poetry is written for a specific occasion: a wedding (then it is
called an epithalamion, for instance Spenser’s Epithalamion), the return of
a king from exile (for instance Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis) or a death (for
example Milton’s Lycidas), etc.
Narrative Poetry
Narrative poetry gives a verbal representation, in verse, of a sequence of
connected events, it propels characters through a plot. It is always told by a
narrator. Narrative poems might tell of a love story (like Tennyson's Maud),
the story of a father and son (like Wordsworth's Michael) or the deeds of a
hero or heroine (like Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel).
Sub-categories of narrative poetry:
Epics usually operate on a large scale, both in length and topic, such as the
founding of a nation (Virgil’s Aeneid) or the beginning of world history
(Milton's Paradise Lost), they tend to use an elevated style of language and
supernatural beings take part in the action.
The mock-epic makes use of epic conventions, like the elevated style and the
assumption that the topic is of great importance, to deal with completely
insignificant occurrences. A famous example is Pope's The Rape of the Lock,
which tells the story of a young beauty whose suitor secretly cuts off a lock
of her hair.
A ballad is a song, originally transmitted orally, which tells a story. It is an
important form of folk poetry which was adapted for literary uses from the
sixteenth century onwards. The ballad stanza is usually a four-line stanza,
alternating tetrameter and trimeter.

Descriptive and Didactic Poetry

Both lyric and narrative poetry can contain lengthy and detailed descriptions
(descriptive poetry) or scenes in direct speech (dramatic poetry).
The purpose of a didactic poem is primarily to teach something. This can
take the form of very specific instructions, such as how to catch a fish, as
in James Thomson’s The Seasons (Spring 379-442) or how to write good
poetry as in Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism. But it can also be meant as
instructive in a general way.

Poetry: Form, Syllables, Mood, and Tone

A poem is a group of words that are written to express or draw out
emotion, paint a picture, or give a sense of beauty. There are certain ways to
identify poetry from prose. Prose is a group of words written in sentences
and paragraphs, like you would read in a novel or essay. Poetry is written
with breaks in the lines of text to create a certain sound. Poetry has a beat, or
rhythm, and sometimes it rhymes. It is often written in stanzas and uses
imagery and figurative language to express emotions or ideas to the reader.
This lesson will explore all of these poetry terms.
There are some basics of poetry that are important to know. These basics
give poetry organization and help it to flow. A stanza is when the lines of a
poem are grouped together, as with a paragraph in prose. Stanzas may have
any number of lines. It is important to note that a line in a stanza is not
necessarily the number of sentences. Some lines are a complete sentence;
some lines are only part of a sentence.

The form of a poem is the way it looks on the page. The form includes the
number of lines in each stanza and the length of each line. Like a paragraph
in prose, each stanza is separated by a blank space. Sometimes a stanza ends
at the end of a complete idea, sometimes it ends in the middle of a sentence.
Poets may do this to give the poem a certain flow.
Some poems are even written in the shape of the thing they are written
about. For example, if the poem is about an apple, the words in the poem
are arranged in a way that creates the shape of an apple on the page. These
poems are called concrete poems. The poem below is about arrows and the
words create the shape of an arrow.
Example:
Poems that don’t follow set patterns are written in free verse. Free verse is
the trickiest type of poetry to tell apart from prose. Free verse is when poets
write without any rules. He/she just write however he/she feels they can
express themselves best. The example below is the concrete poem you just
read written in free verse.
The syllables in the poem play a major part in the meter. Meter is the
rhythmic structure of verse, so in other words, the beat of the poem. The
meter relies on the placement and pattern of syllables in the verse. Syllables
in a poem can be stressed( \) or unstressed( ). The stressed syllable is the
long syllable and the unstressed syllable is the short syllable. Remember,
words can have more than one syllable.
\\
Example: Roses are red,
\\
Violets are blue
\\
Sugar is sweet,
\\
And so are you.
You can see in this poem that the pattern of the syllables, or the meter,
is the same for the first three lines and different for the last line.
One type of poetry that is written based on syllables is Haiku. Haiku is a
form of Japanese poetry in which an idea is expressed in just 17 syllables.
The format of these syllables is: line one is five syllables, line two is seven
syllables, and line three is five syllables. Traditional Japanese haiku usually
describes ideas that have to do with nature or the different seasons. As
haiku has spread across the nations, the content of this poetry has broadened,
but the format remains the same: 5-7-5.
Example:
1 Prickly cactus,
2 Bright green in the desert sun.
3 A vulture swoops by.

1. Try writing your own haiku in the space below. Remember:

√It must be three lines long.
√Line one has five syllables.
√Line two has seven syllables.
√Line three has five syllables.
√It should be about nature.

Mood is the feeling created by the poet for the reader. Tone is the feeling
displayed by the author toward the subject of the poem. Mood and tone
often depend on one another to get across what the author is trying to
portray.
Example: Some words that can describe the mood of a poem might
be: romantic, realistic, optimistic, pessimistic, gloomy,
mournful, sorrowful, etc.
Some words that can describe the tone of a poem might be:
serious, humorous, amused, angry, playful, cheerful, sad,
gloomy, etc.
Example:
Deadly Winter
Barren branches pierce the sky,
Chattering in the shivering breeze.
The clouds hold captive
Rays of the gloomy sunshine.
Blades of grass brown and tattered
From frost’s sharp fingernails.
Winter squeezes the last breath
Out of all that once thrived.

This poem’s mood could be described as gloomy because the poem is about death.
The tone might be described as serious. The words used in the poem give clues as
to how the author feels about winter. Words like: barren, chattering, shivering,
gloomy, tattered, sharp fingernails, squeezes the last breath...all show that the
author does not look at winter in a good way.
Now, see how the mood and tone change when it is written a little differently:
Wondrous Winter
Long sleek branches
Sway to the music of the wind.
A game of hide and seek
The clouds and sun do play.
Blades of grass sleep
Under a sparkly blanket of frost.
Winter’s beauty transforms
Landscapes into wonderlands.
This poem’s mood could be described as optimistic because the poem is about the
beauty of winter. The tone might be described as cheerful. This poem uses words
like: sleek, sway to the music and hide and seek (which have a playful tone to
them), sparkly, beauty, wonderland. These words suggest the author looks forward
to winter.

Read each mood below. Decide whether the mood is positive or negative.
Write a P on the line if it is positive and an N if it is negative. Use your
dictionary skills if you come across a word you are unsure of. The first one is
done for you.
____ 2. N angry ____14. disappointed
____ 3. anxious ____ 15. offended
____ 4. bored ____ 16. optimistic
____ 5. joyful ____ 17. passionate
____ 6. embarrassed ____ 18. reassured
____ 7. excited ____ 19. relaxed
____ 8. frustrated ____ 20. relieved
____ 9. guilty ____ 21. restless
____ 10. happy ____ 22. sad
____ 11. heartbroken ____ 23. scared
____ 12. irritated ____ 24. flattered
____ 13. mournful ____ 25. threatened
Read this poem and answer the questions on the following page.
Loneliness
Katherine Mansfield
Now it is Loneliness who comes at night
Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.
Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread,
I watch her softly blowing out the light.
Motionless sitting, neither left or right
She turns, and weary, weary droops her head.
She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.
So, with the laurel she is garlanded.
Through the sad dark the slowly ebbing tide
Breaks on a barren shore, unsatisfied.
A strange wind flows... then silence. I am fain
To turn to Loneliness, to take her hand,
Cling to her, waiting, till the barren land
Fills with the dreadful monotone of rain.
26. Which word best describes the tone of this poem?
a. inspired
b. somber
c. optimistic
d. frustrated
27. Which word best describes the mood of this poem?
a. excited
b. playful
c. angry
d. gloomy
28. How many stanzas does this poem have?
a. 1
b. 14
c. 2
d. 12
29. How many syllables does each line have?
a. 5
b. 7
c. 10
d. 14
Now, read the poem and answer the questions that follow.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

30. What is the mood of this poem?

a. playful
b. sorrowful
c. excited
d. cautious
2. What is the tone of this poem?

a. gloomy
b. angry
c. cheerful
d. agitated
33. This poem is made up of four...
a. sentences
b. stanzas
c. lines
d. paragraphs