Narrative Poem Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is usually dramatic, with objectives, diverse characters, and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls, and lays. Some narrative poetry takes the form of a novel in verse. An example of this is The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning.
In terms of narrative poetry, a romance is a narrative poem that tells a story of chivalry. Examples include the Romance of the Rose or Tennyson Idylls of the King. Although these examples use medieval and Arthur materials, romances may also tell stories from classical mythology. Examples: you Fill MY Days -Jack Ellison You fill my days with happiness With Joy I never knew There is no greater love my dear Than the love I feel for you You fill my days with kindness You set my poor heart free I can’t begin to tell you How much you mean to me You fill my days with friendship
The kind that lasts and lasts The purest kind of friendship What more could one man ask You fill my days with total Joy Like when I was Just a child The first time I could ride a bicycle The clown that made me smile You fill my days with quiet peace That blows my cares away With simple words of tenderness You brighten up my day But most of all sweet lady You fill my days with spice I’m never bored when you are near My love it’s been a slice Peace Can Only Happen – Bernard Barclay “I can’t change the way I feel” “But yes you can” “Go and watch a comedian And they will make an audience laugh” l am not responsible for your emotions” “But yes you are” “Yell and scream at me and that will create anger” “Every action has a reaction” A family that spends their lives Screaming at their children Teach their children to scream at other people A family that spends their time in anger Teach their children to be angry The family that teach their children to fight Put them on the road to fighting Each statement is true and yet is also false With life the child is also an actor in the play A child taught to hate can learn to love A child taught to fight can learn to care A child taught to play can learn to hate We live in a world where we can build peace But if you teach your child to fight Then we must teach ours to fight as well Peace can only happen when we all agree to peace. Little Moments – Madison Imminently Do you ever have these thoughts? These scenarios that play on in your mind? They haven’t exactly happened yet but in your heart you wish they would Could Just be a simple conversation back and forth A glance across the table when our eyes seem to meet The way you gently place your hand on the small of my back as we enter the restaurant Driving down a road with no destination with music up high
The windows down low When I’m in the middle of saying something and you stop me in my tracks and kiss It’s always these little movie clips These small moments that may be simple gestures but seem to leave the most impact and make you feel weightless Then reality hits and I find that a smile of pure joy has appeared on my face Descriptive Poem Descriptive poetry is the name given to a class of literature that belongs mainly to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. From the earliest times, all poetry not subjectively lyrical was apt to indulge in ornament which might be named secretive. But the critics of the 17th century formed a distinction between the representations of the ancients and those of the moderns.
Boiler stated that, while Virgil paints, Toast describes. This may be a useful indication in defining not what should, but what in practice has been called descriptive poetry. “Descriptive poetry is poetry in which it is not imaginative passion that prevails, but a didactic purpose or even something of the instinct of a sublimated auctioneer. In other words, the landscape, architecture, still life or whatever may be the object of he poet’s attention, is not used as an accessory, but is itself the centre of interest. In this sense, it is not correct to call poetry in which description is only the occasional ornament of a poem and not its central subject, descriptive poetry.
The landscape or still life must fill the canvas or, if human interest is introduced, that must be treated as an accessory Smoke -Henry David Thoreau Light-winged Smoke, Caring bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame. Summer Shower -Emily Dickinson A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be!
The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds Josser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. Perfect Woman -Henry Headwords Longfellow SHE was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment’s ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay. I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveler between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light. Lyric Poetry Lyric poems typically express personal (often emotional) feelings and are traditionally spoken in the present tense. Modern examples often have specific rhyming schemes.
Greek lyric poetry was defined by its musical accompaniment, and modern forms are sometimes also set to music or a beat Lyric Poetry consists of a poem, such as a sonnet or an ode that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. The term lyric is now commonly referred to as the words to a song. Lyric poetry does not tell a story which portrays characters and actions. The lyric poet addresses the reader erectly, portraying his or her own feeling, state of mind, and perceptions. Dying I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable,-and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. Part of Sonnet Number 18, William Shakespeare: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art lovelier and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed. I Felt a Funeral in my Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a
Drum -Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And l, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then Epic Poetry Traditionally, an epic poem is a long, serious, poetic narrative about a significant event, often featuring a hero. Before the development of writing, epic poems were memorize and played an important part in maintaining a record of the great deeds and history of a culture. Later, they were written down and the tradition for this kind of poem continued.
Epics often feature the following: a hero who embodies the values of a culture or ethnic group; something vital that depends on the success of the hero’s actions; a broad setting, sometimes encompassing the entire world; intervention by supernatural beings. Examples of epics include Galoshes, the Odyssey, and Beowulf. Odyssey The opening book of the Homer’s Odyssey foreshadows what will happen in the next 23 books. Starting in the middle (after the invocation of the Muse), Book I quickly summarizes events leading to Ethane’s appearance before the council of the gods to ask for help bringing Odysseus safely back to his kingdom of Ithaca: After the fall of Troy, the Greeks tried to sail home, but most of them, cursed by the gods, failed or met death upon their return. Not so Odysseus.
Between the ten years of the Trojan War and the years Poseidon has spent blocking Odysseus’ homecoming, Telemeters, the infant son Odysseus left behind, has become a man, faced with the difficult task of staving off his mother’s suitors. Now that Poseidon is on vacation, so to speak: But now that god Had gone off among the sunburns races, Most remote of men, at earth’s two verges, In sunset lands and lands of the rising sun, To be regaled by smoke of thighbones burning, Haunches of rams and bulls, a hundred fold. (From Fitzgerald translation. ) All the other gods support Athena. Jupiter dispatches the gods’ messenger, Hermes, to instruct the nymph Calypso to give up the man she has detained seven years.
Meanwhile, Athena contrives to persuade Telemeters to take action. Disguising herself as a trusted family friend, Mentis, she descends to Ithaca to persuade Telemeters to hold an assembly, rebuke the suitors, and commission a boat with crew to travel throughout Heals seeking news of his father. Besides establishing the direction of the story and briefing the listener on recent events, the first book of the Odyssey presents a series of contrasts between the divine and mortal worlds and a parallel between Odysseus’ family and that of the leader of the Achaean forces at Troy, Agamemnon. The gods had warned Augustus against taking what was not his, but Augustus wouldn’t listen.
While the Achaeans fought the Trojan, Augustus took Agamemnon fife and kingdom of Mycenae for his own. He got his desserts when Agamemnon son Rooster killed him for murdering his father. [Note: Homer does not blame Clytemnestra. ] Rooster’ revenge marks his transition to manhood and wins him his patrimony. It is important that Telemeters be willing to do the same: keep his mother safe for his father and kill the men who would steal his patrimony, should it become necessary. Just as Athena had to convene a meeting of the gods before putting her plan to work, so it is important for Telemeters to gain the backing of the Ithacan elders. Proper procedure must be followed.
