Types of Poetry

Ballad:

1. Ballad originated from medieval period in the Western World. It has been derived from Latin, and Italian word 'ballata' which means ‘dance’. The Ballad is a story accompanied by music, so ballad is sometimes considered as narrative poem

2. The Ballad is a story type of poetry in verse form.

3. Ballad is a narrative of unknown authorship passed on in the oral tradition. It often makes use of repetition and dialogue. This is a short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and possibly a refrain that most frequently deals with folklore or popular legends and is suitable for singing.

4. Ballads can be of love, death, the supernatural or even a combination of the three. Many ballads also contain a moral which is expressed mostly in the final stanza.

5. Ballad is characterized by well-rounded plots and complex narrative techniques, but it is not sufficient in range and size to match the proportions of the epic or the romance. It traditionally uses a quatrain form.

6. In method and style the Ballad are characterized by straight forwardness, Rapidity of narration, and Simplicity and Artlessness.

7. Ballad is a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. These are thus the narrative species of folk songs, which originate, and are communicated orally, among illiterate or only partly literate people.

8. In all probability the initial version of a ballad was composed by a single author, but he or she is unknown; and since each singer who learns and repeats an oral ballad is apt to introduce changes in both the text and the tune, it exists in many variant forms.

Examples:

I. Ellis Parker Bulter’s “The Ballad of a Bachelor”

II. John Keat’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”

III. Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

IV. Robert Burns’ “Ballad on the American War”

V. Robert Burns’ “The Kirk of Scotland”

VI. Sidney Lanier’s “A Ballad of the Trees and the Master”

VII. Sir Walter Raleigh’s “As You Came From the Holy Land”

Sonnet:

1. The term “sonnet” is derived from the Italian “sonetto”, a “little sound or song”.

2. A Sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a fixed rhyme scheme. Often, sonnets use iambic pentameter: five sets of unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables for a ten-syllable line.

3. A Sonnet is a poem which has a single thought or sentiment.

4. The topics of sonnet are mostly love, death, patriotism etc.

5. A Lyric poem with a traditional form of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. A poem with a strict rhyme scheme; it is often used for the treatment of “worldly love” in poetry.

6. Sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, traditionally written in iambic pentameter--that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable.

7. Sonnet has two parts: i. The first part consisting of eight lines called Octave; and ii. The Second part consists of six lines called Sestet.

Types of Sonnet: Sonnets have different types according to their rhyme schemes.

Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet: The Italian (sometimes called "Petrarchan") sonnet was probably invented by Giacomo da Lentini, (1230) head of the Sicilian school under Frederick II. Later rediscovered by Guittoned'Arezzo. Other Italian poets of the time who followed this trend including Dante Alighieri (1265,1321) and Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250,1300) wrote sonnets, but the most famous early sonneteer was Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304,1374).

Form of Italian Sonnet:

i. Rigid structural form: the poet is asked to express his thoughts and feelings in fourteen lines Petrarchan sonnet

ii. Fourteen iambic pentameters are divided into two stanzas, one octave and one sestet, usually rhyming: ABBAABBA. CDECDE or CDCDCD (even if the rhyme scheme sometimes varies).

iii. The function of the octave is to introduce a problem or a situation

iv. The function of the sestet is to provide an answer or comments on the situation and expresses the personal feelings of the poet.

v. Typically, the ninth line created a "turn" or volta, which signaled the move from proposition to resolution.

The Petrarchan sonnet: They are perfected by the Italian poet Petrarch, divides the 14 lines into two sections: an eight-line stanza (octave) rhyming ABBA ABBA, and a six-line stanza (sestet) rhyming CDCDCD or CDECDE.

i. Petrarch become famous in Italy because of the following reasons:

ii. The sonnet collection of Petrarch is titled “Canzoniere” (started in 1335)

iii. Petrarch describes his love for his beloved Laura using the typical features of courtly love.

iv. A poet is a man who suffers because of a disdainful lady who is beautiful, and often cruel.

v. The Petrarchan lady is a woman who is both real and ideal, full of the highest physical and spiritual qualities.

vi. The poet feels contrasting sensations: happiness or sorrow, love or hatred according to the presence or absence of the lady or to his different states of mind.

English Sonnet:

i. The sonnet in England Sir Thomas Wyatt (1500 , 1542) , was the first English poet to introduce the Italian Sonnet to England.

ii. Initially, he simply translates the poems into English; then, to adapt the Italian pattern to the English language, he left the octaveunchanged and modified the sestetdividing it into a quatrain and a couplet.

iii. Sometimes Wyatt’s quatrain and couplet seem more like a sestet.

iv. The Petrarchan theme of love remains unchanged.

v. With Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1517 -1547) the final couplet becomes separate from the quatrain and comments on the previous twelve lines.

vi. It was Surrey who gave them the rhyme scheme, meter, and division into quatrains that now characterizes the English sonnet.

vii. Surrey also changes the octave into two quatrains with different rhymes.

English or Shakespearean Sonnet:

i. Sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ii. It is also called also a Shakespearean sonnet.

iii. The final couplet often exhibits a turn or volta containing a shift in perspective or makes a witty comment about the foregoing material.

Spenserian Sonnet:

i. The Spenserian sonnet is a 14-line poem developed by Edmund Spenser in his Amoretti, that varies the English form by interlocking the three quatrains (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE)

ii. There does not appear to be a requirement that the initial octave sets up a problem which the closing sestet answers, as is the case with a Petrarchan sonnet.

iii. Three quatrains are connected by the interlocking rhyme scheme and followed by a couplet.

iv. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, BCBC, CDCD, EE.

Other Types of Sonnets

I. Curtal sonnet or curtailed or contracted sonnet is a shortened version devised by Gerard Manley Hopkins

II. The caudate sonnet, adds codas or tails to the 14-line poem

III. The sonnet redoublé, also known as a crown of sonnets, is composed of 15 sonnets that are linked by the repetition of the final line of one sonnet as the initial line of the next, and the final line of that sonnet as the initial line of the previous; the last sonnet consists of all the repeated lines of the previous 14 sonnets, in the same order in which they appeared

IV. A sonnet sequence is a group of sonnets sharing the same subject matter and sometimes a dramatic situation and persona.

V. The stretched sonnet is extended to 16 or more lines, such as those in George Meredith’s sequence Modern Love.

VI. A submerged sonnet is tucked into a longer poetic work; see lines 235-48 of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

Examples:

John Donne’s “Death be not proud”.

II. John Milton’s “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent’’.

William Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”.

IV. William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us”.

Ode:

1. Ode is originated from Greece. The model of Ode was recognized by the Greek poet Pindar in the Greek Drama for Chorus.

2. Ode is a long lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style and elaborate in stanzaic structure .

3. This is a lengthy lyric poem comprised of formally written stanzas which express a sentimental or serious theme. The ode always makes use of the device of apostrophe. Inother words Ode is a traditional form of lyric poetry on a serious, mostly classical theme and consisting of several stanzas.

Types of Ode:

i. Pindaric Ode: Pindaric Ode is recognized as Pindaric due to its use by the Greek Poet Pindar. It is also called regular as it follows a regular structure of strophe, antistrophe and epode. The Pindaric ode was sung to the complement of a dance. This was introduced in England by BenJohnson. These odes were mostly written to praise and glorify someone.

ii. Horatian Ode: This type of ode was Originally modeled on the matter, tone, and form of the odes of the Horace so they are called as Horatian Ode. This type of Ode is also known as Lesbian Ode as they were originated from island of Lesbos. It consist of a number of short stanzas ,similar in length and arrangement.

iii. Irregular Ode: This type of ode was introduced in by Abraham Cowley so are also known as Cowleyan Ode.

Examples:

I. Keats’ “ Ode on Grecian Urn” and “Thou still Unravish'd bride of quietness”

II. Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”.

III. Sheakespear’s “Ode on the intimations of Immortality”

IV. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” and “ O wild west wind”

V. Tennyson’s “To Virgil”, “ Roman Virgil, thou that singest”

VI. Marvell’s “ Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland”

VII. Tennyson’s “ Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”

Pastoral Elegy:

1. Elegy is derived from the Greek word “Elegus” means ‘Song of bereavement sung along with a flute.

2. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary Elegy is, “: a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation, especially for one who is dead”.

3. It is a poem of serious reflection, usually a lament for the dead. It offers a poet to express his sorrow on the death of his dear and near ones.

4. Elegy was originally the form of poetry on the subject of sadness, especially 'complaints about love'. But now the word normally refers to the poems written on the subject of death of someone or great loss of any kind.

5. This is a formal song or poem which expresses sorrow and usually praise for the one who is dead.

6. The History of Elegy : For most of history, the term "elegy" did not have any special relationship to the subject of grief or mortality. In ancient Greek and Latin verse, the elegy was a poetic form that was defined by a particular metrical pattern called "elegiac couplets.

7. An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, especially one mourning the loss of someone who died. Elegies are defined by their subject matter, and don't have to follow any specific form in terms of meter, rhyme, or structure.

8. Elegy refers to reflective poems that lament the loss or death of someone or something.

Types of Elegies: There are so many types of Elegies and important ones are discussed below:

iv. Personal Elegy: In a personal elegy the poet laments the death of some close friend or relative or individual. These are also called as Subjective Elegy.

v. Impersonal Elegy. In impersonal elegy the poet grieves or is sad over human destiny or over some aspect of contemporary life and literature.

vi. Classical Elegy: In classical we have elegiac couplet 2 lines stanza. Each couplet consists of a hexameter followed by a pentameter.

vii. Modern Elegy: In modern times, writing an elegy does not care about literary devices like Meter, Rhyming scheme, or stanza. In it, the poet focuses on emotion rather on form.

viii. Pastoral Elegy: The words ‘pastoral’ comes from the Greek word “pastor”, which means “to graze”. Hence pastoral elegy is an elegy in which the poet represents himself as a shepherd mourning the death of a fellow shepherd. The form arose among the ancient Greeks, and Theocritus, Bions and Moschus were its most noted practitioners. In ancient Rome, it was used by the Latin poet Virgil. In England, countless pastoral elegies have been written down from the Renaissance to the present day.

Examples:

I. Arnold’s “Thyrsis and Scholar Gipsy”

II. John Donne’s “The Flea”

III. Matthew Arnold’s “Rugby Chapel”, “Thyrsis”

IV. Milton’s “Lycidas”.

V. Shelly’s “Adonais”.

VI. Spenser’s “Astrophel”

VII. Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”

VIII. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”

IX. Walt Whitman’s “Elegy written on the Death of Abraham Lincoln”, “When Lilacs Last”.

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