- Epic
The epic poem is the granddaddy of all poetry. The actual subjects and the original forms are lost in antiquity because they come from the oral period of a culture's development.
The epic poem can be defined partly by its length and its usual heroic subject matter. This heroic poem is applied to a work that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long narrative poem on a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-devine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race.
Literary epics are highly conventional poems which commonly share the following faetures:
- The hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance.
- The setting of poem is ample in scale, and maybe worldwide or even larger.
- The action involves superhuman deeds in battle.
- In these great actions the gods and other supernatural beings take an interest or an active part.
- An epic poem is a ceremonial performance, and is narrated in a ceremonial style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary specch and proportioned to the grandeur and formality of the heroic subject matter and epic architecture.
- Narrative
The narrative poem in some ways could be seen as an
over-umbrella of the epic. But its roots do not go back as deep.
Simply put it is a poem which tells a story.
Ballad is type of narrative poetry which is short and is made up of stanzas of two to four lines. Ballads usually have a refrain. They also deal mostly with folklore or popular trends though some also originate from a wide range of subject matter. The verses in ballads are straight-forward and seldom have any detail. Apart from that, ballads always possess graphic simplicity and force.
Ballad is type of narrative poetry which is short and is made up of stanzas of two to four lines. Ballads usually have a refrain. They also deal mostly with folklore or popular trends though some also originate from a wide range of subject matter. The verses in ballads are straight-forward and seldom have any detail. Apart from that, ballads always possess graphic simplicity and force.
- LYRIC POETRY
This is the kind of poetry that are expressions of strong emotional events--love, sorrow, religious joy, anger at injustice--recollected by the poet and expressed in tranquility of thought.
The term is used for nonnarrative poem presenting a single
speaker who expresses a state of mind or a process of thought and feeling.
A lyric poem may be simply a brief expression of a mood or
state of feeling.
The lyric poetry is set in the present, catching a speaker
in a moment expression; but a lyric can, of course, glance backward or forward.
Lyric poetry is separated into some various:
- Elegy
a lyric is melancholy or mournfully contemplative , especially if it laments a death. For examples: Milton’s Lycidas, Shelly’s Adonais and Shakepeare’s Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies.
- Ode
a long lyric poem, serious in subject, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure.