Kinds of Poetry. It is a difficult thing to give a definition of poetry. Many have done so, yet no one has been fortunate enough to have his definition go without criticism. In general, it may be said that poetry deals with serious subjects, that it appeals to the feelings rather than to the reason, that it employs beautiful language, and that it is written in some metrical form.
Poetry has been divided into three great classes: narrative, lyric, and dramatic.
Narrative poetry deals with events, real or imaginary. It includes, among other varieties, the epic, the metrical romance, the tale, and the ballad.
The epic is a narrative poem of elevated character telling generally of the exploits of heroes. The “Iliad” of the Greeks, the “Æneid” of the Romans, the “Nibelungen Lied” of the Germans, “Beowulf” of the Anglo-Saxons, and “Paradise Lost” are good examples of the epic.
The metrical romance is any fictitious narrative of heroic, marvelous, or supernatural incidents derived from history or legend, and told at considerable length. “The Idylls of the King” are romances.
[285] The tale is but little different from the romance. It leaves the field of legend and occupies the place in poetry that a story or a novel does in prose. “Marmion” and “Enoch Arden” are tales.
A ballad is a short narrative poem, generally rehearsing but one incident. It is usually vigorous in style, and gives but little thought to elegance. “Sir Patrick Spens,” “The Battle of Otterburne,” and “Chevy Chase” are examples.
Lyric poetry finds its source in the author’s feelings and emotions. In this it differs from narrative poems, which find their material in external events and circumstances. Epic poetry is written in a grand style, generally in pentameter, or hexameter; while the lyric adopts any verse that suits the emotion. The principal classes of lyric poetry are the song, the ode, the elegy, and the sonnet.
The song is a short poem intended to be sung. It has great variety of metres and is generally divided into stanzas. “Sweet and Low,” “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon,” “John Anderson, My Jo, John,” are songs.
An ode is a lyric expressing exalted emotion; it usually has a complex and irregular metrical form. Collins’s “The Passions,” Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” and Lowell’s “Commemoration Ode,” are well known.