ON POETRY

Poetry is the intense expression of the poet’s ideas or feeling or the highest form of human expression.
Poetry helps the reader discovers the preciseness in the poet’s language and see the new light that sheds
as he peoples and furnishes his imagined world of things. There are three main elements that shape a
poem: the sense, the sound and the structure.

BASIC TYPES OF POETRY

1. Narrative Poetry

Narrative poetry tells a story in verse form. It is a relatively long form of poetry that contains all of the
necessary elements for a story, including plot, characters, setting, theme, and dialogue. Like stories,
narrative poems present a conflict, build to a climax, and end with a resolution. At the same time,
narrative poems also contain poetic elements which distinguish them from prose narratives. Narrative
poems generally contain some form of sound or rhythmic patterns. They may rhyme, make use of
regular meter, or play with sound through repetition, assonance, and alliteration. The oral inflections
of the narrative poem are therefore noticeably different from the flatter rhythms of prose. Like other
forms of poetry, narrative poems also employ figurative language, sensory imagery, and carefully
selected diction.

A. Epic or Heroic Poem- a poetic form marked by its unusual length, seriousness of purpose,
elevated style and noble character; it centers about a heroic figure on whose action depends
the fate of a founding or developing nation.
Examples:
Biag ni Lam-ang
Pilandok (Meranao Epic)
Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon Epic
Illiad and Odyssey by Homer

B. Romance- a term originally used to refer to Old French vernacular; then later to stories or tales
of chivalrous adventurous of knights in pursuit of honor or in devotion to Christian faith, went
to battles, hence “medieval romance”.
- often used to designate a story of love and adventure cut free from the realistic world.
Example:
The Lady of Shallot by Alfred Lord Tennyson

C. Tale- example is The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

D. Ballad- briefly, a short song or narrative dramatic poem popularly or literary edition.
A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of
rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. Folk (or traditional) ballads
are anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic
event; examples include “Barbara Allen” and “John Henry.” Beginning in the Renaissance, poets
have adapted the conventions of the folk ballad for their own original compositions. Examples of
this “literary” ballad form include John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” Thomas
Hardy’s “During Wind and Rain,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee.” Browse more ballads.
 La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
BY JOHN KEATS

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
 I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me ere,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing

2. Lyric Poetry

- Originally, the Greek writers identified the lyric as a song rendered to the accompaniment of the
lyre, hence melodic. As a genre, lyric poetry refers to any short poem presenting a single speaker, not
necessarily the poet himself, who expresses a state of mind invoking thought or intense feeling.

A. Pastoral, Bucolic or Eologue- This applies to poetry dealing with the lives of the shepherds-
their flocks, fields, lives and loves- in an idealized world of unending beauty, music, love,
warmth and happiness. The writers of pastoral poetry consciously created never never
lands as a contrast to their own world; they meant to project imaginatively what it would
be like to live in, a world without time pressure, death, disharmony, failures, intrigues,
noise and frustration.
Examples:
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love by Christopher Marlowe
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
BY CHRIST OP HER MARL OWE BY SI R WALTER RAL EGH

Come live with me and be my love, If all the world and love were young,
And we will all the pleasures prove, And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, These pretty pleasures might me move,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields. To live with thee, and be thy love.

And we will sit upon the Rocks, Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls And Philomel becometh dumb,
Melodious birds sing Madrigals. The rest complains of cares to come.

And I will make thee beds of Roses The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
And a thousand fragrant posies, To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle; Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
 A gown made of the finest wool Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull; Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Fair lined slippers for the cold, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
With buckles of the purest gold; In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

A belt of straw and Ivy buds, Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs: The Coral clasps and amber studs,
And if these pleasures may thee move, All these in me no means can move
Come live with me, and be my love. To come to thee and be thy love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing But could youth last, and love still breed,
For thy delight each May-morning: Had joys no date, nor age no need,
If these delights thy mind may move, Then these delights my mind might move
Then live with me, and be my love. To live with thee, and be thy love.

B. Elegy- In Greek and Roman poetry, it is any poem composed in a special elegiac meter
thought appropriate to the expression of serious, even mournful sentiments. In the narrow
sense, an elegy is a poem of mourning for the dead, but it can also be any pensive poem
on a meditative theme, expressing the poet’s serious reflections on some phase of death
or any other serious subject such as love, the vicissitudes of life, etc.

O Captain! My Captain!
BY WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

• Ode- a type of elegy; a lyrical poem with serious tone and subject, elevated in style and
elaborate in stanzaic structure. The ode is derived from the choral interlude in Greek
dramatic tragedy, in which the chorus chanted its song as it moved from one side of the
stage (strophe), as it retraced its steps (antistrophe) and as it stood in its place.
- treats an exalted theme in an elevated style and usually is addressed in praise to a person,
object or idea.
Examples:
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

C. Sonnet- characteristics are:

a. All sonnets have 14 lines.
b. All sonnets have strict rhyme scheme.
b1. Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet (Frances Petrarch)- originally introduced to
England by Surrey and Wyatt. The first eight lines (octava or octet) rhyme abba,
abba; the last six lines (sistet) may take one of the several patterns or irregular
schemes, though strictly, the last two lines should not rhyme.

The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The world is too much with us; late and soon, (a)
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— (b)
Little we see in Nature that is ours; (b)
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! (a)
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; (a)
The winds that will be howling at all hours, (b)
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; (b)
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;(a)

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

b2. Spenserian Sonnet (Edmund Spencer)- takes its name from Spencer and has the
following rhyme scheme: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. Superficially, it resembles the
Shakespearean but uses fewer rhymes and achieves coherence by the linking
reputation.

Sonnet LXXV
——Sir Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, (a)

But came the waves and washed it away; (b)
Again I wrote it with a second hand, (a)
But came the tide and made my pains his prey. (b)
“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay (b)
A mortal thing so to immortalize, (c)
For I myself shall like to this decay, (b)
And eke my name be wiped out likewise (c)
“Not so.” quod I, “Let baser thing devise (c)
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; (d)
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize (c)
And in the heavens write your glorious name, (d)
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue, (e)
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”(e)

b3. Shakespearean or English or Elizabethan Sonnet (William Shakespeare)- a form

taking its name from the poet who handled it best, although it was Surrey who
introduced it. The 14 line are divided into three quatrains and a couplet with the
inflexible following rhyme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

SONNET 12
-William Shakespear

When I do count the clock that tells the time, (a)

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; (b)
When I behold the violet past prime, (a)
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; (b)
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves (c)
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, (d)
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves (c)
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, (d)
Then of thy beauty do I question make, (e)
That thou among the wastes of time must go, (f)
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake (e)
And die as fast as they see others grow; (e)
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence (g)
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. (g)
 c. All sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, a poetic meter with 10 beats per line
made up of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.

3. Dramatic Poetry

A. Dramatic Monologue- a poem in which a single speaker addresses one or more mute listeners
and incidentally reveals his mind or psychological make-up. It is a poetic form exploited and
developed by Robert Browning to perfection.

B. Villanelle- originally used for pastoral subjects, the villanelle has become so stylized that its
simplicity is quite artificial. It is composed of five three-line stanzas and a concluding stanza of
four lines (19 lines in all), each stanza with an alternating line of the first verse. In the last
stanza, both of these lines appear together as a concluding couplet. So tightly restricted a form
as the villanelle will often seem, in execution, a tour de force. Pattern: AbA aBA aBA aBA aBAA

“Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

C. Haiku- a three-line poem of 17 syllables (5-7-5) derived from the 5-7-5-7-7 or 31 syllable renga
(linked verses or chained poem). The haiku is characteristically sensuous. It is more concerned
 with human emotions than with human acts. It pictures a wide range of emotions: expressing
or evoking regret or hope, sadness or geiety, a deep yearning, or simple delight. Because of its
brevity and tight form, the haiku depends for its effect on the power of suggestion.

None is travelling (5)

Here along this way but I, (7)
This autumn evening. (5)
- Matsuo Basho

D. Renga- together with the related haiku, the renga or linked verses is the most Japanese of all
verse-forms. In its simplest form, it consisted of one tanka (the tanka is a poem in 31 syllables,
arranged in lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables) composed by two people, one wrote the first three and
another writes the last two lines, to make the normal poem.

The final leaf falls (5)

The tree branches are so bare (7)
Autumn has arrived (5)

Remember Summer's warm kiss (7)

So gentle, it will be missed. (7)

REPETITION OF SOUNDS

1. Rhyme- the repetition of the final accented vowel and the following consonants. Usually
the rhyming words are at line ends; when more rhyming words are within the line, the
rhyme is called internal. Rhymes may be masculine (occurring on the last syllables, as in
handy-candy, giver-river) or polysyllabic (occurring in more than two syllables, as in
travelling-raveling, capability-instability). Take note that the sound, not the spelling,
determines the rhymes: with off, but not through.
Certain sound repetitions that do not strictly follow the rules of rhyme (lovely-baby, sitting-
filly, dangle-handle) are known as imperfect rhyme, half-rhyme, slant-rhyme, approximate-
rhyme, or near-rhyme.

2. Alliteration- the repetition of the initial consonants of words

Ex. She sells seashells by the seashore.

3. Assonance- the repetition of any accented vowel

Ex. red-pencil, baby-may, so-although

4. Consonance- the repetition of both initial and final consonants of a syllable (read-red, ping-
pong), or the repetition of the final consonants (hard-board).
Repetition of sounds can be used to produce a pleasing effect called euphony.
Example: “O my love is like a red, red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June…”

The same device can be used to produce an unpleasing effect with harsh sounds called
cacophony.
 Example: “I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind.”

REPETITION OF RHYTHM
1. Foot- the basic unit of meter, a rhythmic pattern determined by the relationship between the
stresses, accented, or strong syllables and the unstressed, unaccented or weak syllables of the
words in a line of verse.

TYPES OF FOOT
A. Iamb or iambus meter- has the first syllable unaccented and the second accented. Its
foot is ta tum or da dum.
Examples: That time of year thou mayst in me behold
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Come live with me and be my love

B. Trochee meter- has the first syllable accented and the second unaccented. Its foot is
tum ta or dum da.
Examples: Tell me not in mournful numbers
By the shores of Gitche Gumee

C. Anapest meter- has the first two syllables unaccented and the third syllable accented.
This has the foot ta tatum or da dadum.
Examples: And the sound of a voice that is still
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold

D. Dactyl meter- has the first syllable accented and the second and third unaccented. It
has foot pattern tum ta ta or dum da da.
Examples: This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock.

2. Meter -traditionally defined in terms of the number of feet in the line. From one to eight per line,
from monometer, dimeter, …heptameter, and octameter. Note that in scansion, the division into
feet need not correspond with the division of the words.
3. Syllabic Count -the basis for the rhythmic patterning of verse lines infrequently used in English
poetry, although it is regularly used in French.
4. Stress Count- measures the number of stresses in a line of verse rather than number of syllables.
A line based on stress count is divided into feet containing varying number of syllables, with the
accent or stress on the first.

PATTERNS OF REPETITION AND VARIATION

1. Stanza -the grouping of lines into which poems is divided. A pair of rhyming lines is a couplet. A
three-line unit is with a rhyming pattern is tercet, a four-line unit is quatrain, and the five is cinquain
(rarely used: six-sestet and eight-octave).
2. Rhyme Scheme- (pattern of rhyming lines) of a stanza or verse form is usually indicated in the
studies of versification by using letters of the alphabet to stand for a rhymed line ending.
3. Free Verse -follows no set of patterns, no meter, has no rhyme scheme, but bases its rhythmic flow
on the thought or emotion being expressed in the poem.
4. Refrain -a phrase, a line, or group of lines occurring at regular intervals in a poem.