WEEK 2

Kinds of Poetry
Kinds of Prose

World Literature
English Class
Professor: John Michael Cultura
Kinds of Poetry
Poetry has been around for almost
four thousand years. Like other forms
of literature, poetry is written to share
ideas, express emotions, and create
imagery. Poets choose words for their
meaning and acoustics, arranging
them to create a tempo known as the
meter. Some poems incorporate
rhyme schemes, with two or more
lines that end in like-sounding words.

Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making") is a form of literature that

uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language—such
as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or
in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

Poetry has a long story. The earliest forms of poetry were recited and sung. With the
passing years, it obtained a structured form that later evolved into a free verse format.
Poets dealing with different subjects and presenting their ideas in different ways, gave
rise to various kinds of poetry.

Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations of words, or to

evoke emotive responses. Devices such as the “Figures of speech”
Narrative Poetry

Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often making the voices of a
narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse.
Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be short
or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. Some narrative poetry takes the
form of a novel in verse.

Oral tradition

The oral tradition is the predecessor of essentially all other modern forms of

communication. For thousands of years, cultures passed on their history through the
oral tradition from generation to generation.

The oral tradition is the predecessor of essentially all other modern forms of

communication. For thousands of years, cultures passed on their history through the
oral tradition from generation to generation.

A narrative poem usually tells a story using a poetic theme. Epics are very vital to
narrative poems, although it is thought those narrative poems were created to explain
oral traditions. The focus of narrative poetry is often the pros and cons of life.

Epic
Retells in a continuous narrative the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or
group of persons. It is considered as the oldest form of literature since its existence is
known to be along the ancient history. Most of the epic are handed down orally from
generation to another as part of the writing. This might also have been the reason as to
the narrators could have added details thereby supplementing their own ideas to the
story as they please since the stories are handled orally and nobody could check
whether they are verbatimly duplicated.
It is also a genre of narrative defined by heroic or legendary adventures presented in a
long format. Originating in the form of epic poetry, the genre also now applies to epic
theatre, films, music, novels, stage play, television series, and video games. Scholars
argue that 'the epic' has long since become "disembedded" from its origins in oral
poetry.

There are two notions as to the emergence of the epic as a literary art form: first, is that,
it was the product of early people’s desire for entertainment. Back then, they were no
media hypes, nor achieves for books and works of art. A favorite past time activity is to
recall and recite in audile poetic manner the adventures of their heroes. This would
have been done by anyone, most especially the elderly who were fond of narrating
stories in front of many people; second, is that the epics were chronicled to trace and
describe the way of life ancient tribes or nations as part of their cultural heritage and
pride

Modernity of Epic
Specific echelons of pop culture draw from a variety of epic narrative tropes this may
preclude to genres such as Heroic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Space Opera, Fantasy
adventure, high fantasy and Political fantasy. Some even draw influence from each
other, just as ancient sources. For example Frank Herbert's Dune Saga inspired
the Star Wars trilogy and the Jodoverse.

There are many genres of epic and various mediums that have adopted such genres,
including:

 Epic film: encompasses historical epics, religious epics, and western epics.

[5]
 However, such commonly been broken further into subgenres, [which?][10][11]
 Female epic: examines ways in which female authors have adapted the masculine
epic tradition to express their own heroic visions.[12]
 Chivalric epics from the Middle Ages.
 National epics, and pan-national epics.
Ballad
Is songlike poem that tells a story, often one dealing with adventure or romance. Many
ballads employ repetition of a refrain or incremental repetition in which a refrain is varied
slightly each time it appears.

It is also a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the
medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs".
Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and
Ireland from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used
across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. 

Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often
used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads.
In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love
song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or
rock music, although the term is also associated with the concept of a stylized
storytelling song or poem, particularly when used as a title for other media such as a
film.

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. 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.

e.g.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.
Metrical Tale
Is a narrative poem that relates to real or imaginary events in a simple, straight forward
language, from a wide range of subjects, characters, life experiences, and emotional
situations. The characters are ordinary people concerned with ordinary events.

Most metrical tales convey the story in the first person. A metrical tale typically
comprises of a series of connected events, which usually end up with a happy ending
especially in romance themes; where tales are told of brave Knights facing hardships
and trials in their quests for adventure. A romantic end would often suffice as a reward
for their valiant accomplishments.

Metrical Romance
 Is a long narrative poem that presents remote or imaginative incidents rather than
ordinary, realistic experience. The term Romance originally used to refer to medieval
tales of the deeds and loves of noble knights and ladies.

Metrical romance was popular back in the high renaissance period. It was a form of
prose poetry that was popular among royals and the upper class.
Metrical romances do not necessarily include a love story, although some tell tales of
courtly love.

Lyric Poetry

A lyric poem is short, highly musical verse that conveys powerful feelings. The poet may
use rhyme, meter, or other literary devices to create a song-like quality.

Unlike narrative poetry, which chronicles events, lyric poetry doesn't have to tell a story.
A lyric poem is a private expression of emotion by a single speaker.

Song
Is a lyric poem set to music and is intended to be sung. A song is a musical
composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct
and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain
various forms, such as those including the repetition and variation of sections.
A song may be for a solo singer, a lead singer supported by background singers,
a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices singing in harmony, although the
term is generally not used for large classical music vocal forms including opera
and oratorio, which use terms such as aria and recitative instead.

Sonnet
Sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem focused on a single theme.
The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a
little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it
signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific
structure.

This example, Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116", illustrates the form (with some typical
variances one may expect when reading an Elizabethan-age sonnet with modern eyes):

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (A)

Admit impediments, love is not love (B)*
Which alters when it alteration finds, (A)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (B)*
O no, it is an ever fixèd mark (C)**
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (D)***
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (C)**
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (D)***
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (E)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (F)*
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (E)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (F)*
If this be error and upon me proved, (G)*
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (G)*
Elegy
Elegy is a solemn and formal lyric poem about death. It may mourn a particular person
or reflect on serious or tragic theme.
In English literature, an elegy is a poem of serious reflection, usually a lament for the
dead. However, "for all of its pervasiveness ... the ‘elegy’ remains remarkably ill-defined:
sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone,
sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of
a lament for the dead".

Ode
Is a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme. It often honors people,
commemorative events, respond to natural scenes, or consider serious human
problems.
The William Wordsworth poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood" is a very good example of an English language Pindaric ode. It begins:

     There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

     The earth, and every common sight
                                To me did seem
                        Apparelled in celestial light,
     The glory and the freshness of a dream.
     It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
                          Turn wheresoe'er I may,
                            By night or day,
     The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Simple lyric
Or simply lyric includes all lyric poems that do not fall under the 4 other types.
Haiku

Haiku is another kind of poetry which originated in Japan. It is a 700-year-old Japanese

verse form. A three line poem consisting of seventeen syllables (5,7,5, i.e. five syllables
of the first line, seven on the second, and five for the final line).
Haiku crams a wealth of observation feeling and philosophy in just seventeen syllables.
It attempts to compress a great amount of meaning in the fewest possible words.
Usually, the poems suggest things. It is up to the reader to understand.
The word haiku (pronounced hahy-koo) is derived from the Japanese
word hokku meaning “starting verse.”
e.g
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw
Kinds of Prose
What is Prose?

Prose is a form or technique

of language that exhibits
a natural flow of
speech and grammatical
structure. Novels, textbooks
and newspaper articles are all
examples of prose.

“Prose” from Latin word “prosa”

part of the phrase “prosa
oratio” means “straightforward
speech” or a natural flow of speech.

Written or spoken language in its ordinary form without metrical structure.

Written or spoken in grammatical sentences which constitutes paragraph.

The word prose is frequently used in opposition to traditional poetry, which is language

with a regular structure and a common unit of verse based on metre or rhyme.

prose refers to any written work that follows a basic grammatical structure (think
words and phrases arranged into sentences and paragraphs). This stands out from
works of poetry, which follow a metrical structure (think lines and stanzas). Prose
simply means language that follows the natural patterns found in everyday speech.

Prose in its simplicity and loosely defined structure is broadly adaptable to spoken
dialogue, factual discourse, and to topical and fictional writing.
Prose Fiction

Prose fiction is the most organic of writing styles, using a natural narrative inspired by
how the world digests language – a colloquial take on fiction storytelling that is
constantly evolving.

Virtually all fiction today is prose fiction.

In the past there were verse novels — some of them popular — such as Aurora
Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But I am not aware of any verse novels that are
selling today in large numbers.

Some of Shakespeare’s famous plays are works of pure fiction written in blank verse, so
they would not be considered prose fiction. But most modern plays are written in prose,
rather than verse.

Epic poems like Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad and John Milton’s Paradise Lost are other

fictions written in verse. But we don’t see new epic poems selling today, either.

 It is any creative, imaginary writing that is written in sentences and paragraphs, as
opposed to creative, imaginary writing in lines and scenes.

There are very few rules a prose fiction writer has to follow outside of the standard
punctuation and grammar specifications and the type of language used in the narrative
will differ depending on both the location and the time period in which it was written. The
English language is constantly developing and changing and prose fiction writing
reflects the most commonly seen words and speech styles that exist in the outside
world.

Many people have enjoyed a book that included a character whose personality or
speech was remarkably similar to someone they know in real life. Perhaps you’ve read
a piece where the protagonist thinks or feels in the same way you do – this is the beauty
of prose fiction. While the story might not be based on fact, it’s certainly based upon
how we as humans operate, and this lets the author get magnificently creative while
building upon a foundation of commonly accepted and understood social conventions.

Modern cinematic writing can also be considered as prose fiction as it aids in the
portrayal of believable storylines and characters. While both are different forms of
media, the methods used in scriptwriting and those in novel or prose writing are akin to
each other. Filmmaking was influenced by the centuries of literature that came before it,
so the two mediums operate in a similar fashion.

Nonfiction Prose

Nonfiction or non-fiction is any document or content that purports in good faith to

represent truth and accuracy regarding information, events, or people. Nonfiction
content may be presented either objectively or subjectively, and may sometimes take
the form of a story. Nonfiction is one of the fundamental divisions of narrative
(specifically, prose) writing— in contrast to fiction, which offers information, events, or
characters expected to be partly or largely imaginary, or else leaves open if and how the
work refers to reality.

Nonfiction's specific factual assertions and descriptions may or may not be accurate,
and can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However,
authors of such accounts genuinely believe or claim them to be truthful at the time of
their composition or, at least, pose them to a convinced audience as historically or
empirically factual. Reporting the beliefs of others in a nonfiction format is not
necessarily an endorsement of the veracity of those beliefs, but rather an exercise in
representing the topic. Works of nonfiction need not necessarily be written text, since
statements expressed by pictures or film can also purport to present a factual account
of a subject.

Common literary examples of nonfiction include expository, argumentative, functional,

and opinion pieces; essays on art or literature; biographies; 

memoirs; journalism; and historical, scientific, technical, or economic writings (including

electronic ones).
Journals, photographs, textbooks, travel books, blueprints, and diagrams are also often
considered nonfictional.

End of Week 2
English Class
World Literature