GENRES

Types of Poetry

Ballad

Ballads are short folk songs that tell stories. The oldest recorded ballad in the English language, called Judas, was written down in a late thirteenth-century manuscript. The Celts and Anglo-Saxon undoubtedly composed ballads but there is no record of these early works.

Ballads were very popular throughout the Middle Ages. Many first appeared in written form with the introduction of the printing press (1476). They were printed on sheets of paper about the size of a banknote. Pedlars sold the ballads in the streets singing the songs so that anyone who did not know the melody could learn it. Ballads are usually grouped into five main categories on the basis of their subject matter:

• the supernatural; stories of ghosts and demons and people who return from the dead to haunt the living;

• romantic tragedies; the separation of lovers through misunderstanding or the opposition of family is perhaps the most common ballad story;

• crime and its punishment; one particular variety of crime ballads is called the 'last goodnight'. These ballads tell the stories of convicted criminals who are about to be executed and repent for their sins on the execution scaffold;

• outlaws and badmen; These include over forty ballads about the great English folk hero Robin Hood and his band of outlaws. Robin Hood was probably a real historical character who lived in the English north midlands in the twelfth century. In the ballads he is praised for his adventurous spirit, his sense of humour, his disregard for the law and his concern for the poor;

• historical events which included battles between the English and the Scots (The Border Ballads) and natural disasters such as shipwrecks and plagues.

Elegy

Until the seventeenth century the term 'elegy' was used to refer to any poem whose theme was solemn meditation. Since then, it has been applied to poems in which the speaker laments the death of a particular person or the loss of something he valued. An eighteenth-century example is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray.

Epic

The epic is one of the earliest literary forms. It consists of a long narrative in elevated style that deals with a great and serious subject. The works of Homer and Virgil provide the prototypes in classical literature, while Beowulf and Milton's Paradise Lost are examples in English literature. Epics generally have the following features:

• the hero is a figure of great importance;

• the setting of the poem is ample in scale;

• the action involves superhuman deeds in battle or a long and arduous journey;

• the gods or supernatural beings take an interest or active part in the action;

• there are catalogues of some of the principal characters, introduced in formal detail;

• the narrator begins by stating his theme and invoking a muse;

• the narrative starts in medias res, that is 'in the middle of things', when the action is at a critical point.

Epigram

An epigram (from the Greek for 'inscription') is a very short poem which is condensed in content and polished in style. Epigrams often have surprising or witty endings.

On a volunteer singer

Swans sing before they die

T'were no bad thing

Should certain people

Die before they sing!

(S.T. Coleridge)

Haiku

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. It consists of a seventeen-syllable verse made up of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Traditional haikus contain very brief descriptions of nature that convey some insight or capture the essence of the moment. Haiku became popular in England and America at the beginning of the twentieth century and influenced poets of the Imagist movement.

The Falling Flower

What I thought to be

Flowers soaring to their boughs

Were bright butterflies.

(Mouritake, 1452-1540)

Limerick

A limerick is a short humorous often nonsensical poem usually of five lines. The metre is predominanly anapestic and lines one, two and five are three feet while lines three and four are two feet. The rhyme scheme is AABBA.

There once was an old man of Esser,

Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser,