What is a poem? What's the difference between
a sonnet, ode or ballad??
It is typically much easier to describe poetry than attempting to
define it. As a rough indication, Poetry might be defined as a kind
of language that says more and says it more intensely than does
ordinary language. William Wordsworth defined poetry as "the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, recollected in
tranquillity." Poetry is the most condensed and concentrated form
of literature, saying most in the fewest number of words.
Here are some characteristics or patterns of Traditional
Poems (source: Reuben, Paul P.
"PAL: Appendix F: Elements of Poetry." PAL: Perspectives in
American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide.
URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/axf.html
)
Ballad, or literary ballad, is a long singing poem
that tells a story (usually of love or adventure), written in
quatrains - four lines alternatively of four and three feet - the
third line may have internal rhyme.
Ballade is French in origin and made up of 28
lines, usually three stanzas of 8 lines and a concluding stanza,
called envoy, of 4 lines. The last line of each stanza is the same
and the scheme is ababbcbc and the envoy's is bcbc.
Blank Verse is made up of unrhymed iambic
pentameter lines.
Elegy is a lyric poem written to commemorate
someone who is dead.
Epigram is a brief, pointed, and witty poem of no
prescribed form.
Free Verse has no identifiable meter, although the
lines may have a rhyme-scheme.
Haiku is an unrhymed poem of seventeen syllables
derived from Japanese verse; it is made up of three lines, lines 1
and 3 have five syllables, line 2 has seven.
Heroic Couplet is two lines of rhyming iambic
pentameters.
Limerick is a five-line poem in which lines 1, 2,
and 5 are anapestic trimeters and lines 3 and 4 are anapestic
dimeters, rhymed as aabba. Possible source of origin is Limerick,
Ireland.
Lyric is a poem of emotional intensity and
expresses powerful feelings.
Narrative form is used to tell a story; it is
usually made of ballad stanzas - four lines alternatively of four
and three feet.
Ode, English in origin, is a poem of indefinite
length, divided in 10-line stanzas, rhymed, with different schemes
for each stanza - ababcdecde, written in iambic meter.
Parody is a humorous imitation of a serious
poem.
Quatrain is a four-line stanza with various meters
and rhyme schemes.
Sestina consists of thirty-nine lines divided into six
six-line stanzas and a three-line concluding stanza called an
envoy.
Sonnet is a fourteen line poem. The Italian or
Petrarchan has two stanzas: the first of eight lines is called
octave and has the rhyme-scheme abba abba; the second of six lines is
called the sestet and has the rhyme cdecde or cdcdcd. The Spenserian
sonnet, developed by Edmund Spenser, has three quatrains and a
heroic couplet, in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababbcbccdcdee. The English sonnet,
developed by Shakespeare, has three quatrains and a heroic couplet,
in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababcdcdefefgg.
Tercet is a three-line stanza; when all three
lines rhyme they are called a triplet.
Terza Rima consists of interlocking three-line
rhyme scheme (aba, bcb).
Villanelle is a fixed form consisting of nineteen
lines divided into six stanzas: five tercets and a a concluding
quatrain.
