Narrative Poetry

‘’The IIiad’’
By:Homer

Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,

Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks

Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls

Of heroes into Hades' dark,

And left their bodies to rot as feasts

For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.

Begin with the clash between Agamemnon-

The Greek warlord - and godlike Achilles.

 LYRICAL POETRY
‘’ Ode on a Grecian Urn’’
By:English Romantic poet John Keats

"O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

DRAMATIC POETRY

‘’The Dream Called Life’’

By:Pedro Calderon de la Barca.

"A DREAM it was in which I found myself.

And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,

In a brave palace that was all my own,

Within, and all without it, mine; until,

Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,

Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide

That of myself I burst the glittering bubble

Which my ambition had about me blown

And all again was darkness. Such a dream

As this, in which I may be walking now,

Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,

Who make believe to listen; but anon

Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel,

Ay, even with all your airy theater,

May flit into the air you seem to rend

With acclamations, leaving me to wake

In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake

From this that waking is; or this and that,

Both waking and both dreaming; such a doubt

Confounds and clouds our moral life about.

But whether wake or dreaming, this I know,

How dream wise human glories come and go;

Whose momentary tenure not to break,

Walking as one who knows he soon may wake,

So fairly carry the full cup, so well

Disordered insolence and passion quell,

That there be nothing after to upbraid

Dreamer or doer in the part he played;

Whether tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell,

Or the last trumpet of the Eternal Day,

When dreaming, with the night, shall pass away.

ELEMENTS OF EXPLANATION
POETRY

SPEAKER The speaker of the poem is the first person

because of the ‘’I’’ and ‘’me’’

The poem explores the fleeting nature of life

THEME and wordly achievements. It compares life to
dream,highlighting the impermanence of
power and glory.
The subject is the speaker’s contemplation of
SUBJECT life’s impermanence and the importance of
living a normal life despite its dreamlike
quality.
The tone is contemplatative and philosophical.
The speaker wrestles with existential question
TONE about reality and the meaning of life. There’s a
hinf of cynicism toward worldly power and a
call for moderation.
The diction is formal and elevated using words
DICTION like majesty,solemn justice,and acclamations’’.
The poem uses some rhym ,though not a strict
pattern. There are slant rhymes like king and
SOUNDS thing or blown and alone. The poem also
utilizes internal rhyme,such as pride and wide
in the fourth line.
STANZAS The poem is written in octaves which are eight-
line stanzas.
 The poem uses vivid imagery to describe the
IMAGERY dream state, such as the ‘’glittering’’ bubble’’
of ambition and the ‘’dark tower’’ of reality.
The palace and crown symbolize power and
SYMBOLISM glory, while the darkness represents
uncertainty and death.