Narrative and Lyric Poems

Lyric Poems – A poem that has a speaker presenting a state of mind or an emotional state. Originally, lyric poems were meant to be sung. Types of lyric poems include elegy, ode, and sonnet.Narrative Poems – A poem that describes a sequence of connected events and how a character works through a plot. Includes a narrator. These types of poems include epic, ballad, and villanelle. Both types (lyric and narrative) can contain lengthy and detailed descriptions or scenes of direct speech.

What are lyric and narrative poems?

Lyric Poems

Elegy – a formal lament for death of a particular person. Poems include three parts: lamentation of the deceased, praise of the idealized dead, and consolation and solace. A prose equivalent to an elegy would be a eulogy.

Lyric PoemsElegy Example – from one you should know – Walt Whitman’s 1865 “O Captain! My Captain!”The Lament

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.

The Praise

Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;Here Captain! dear father!This arm beneath your head;It is some dream that on the deck,You've fallen cold and dead.

The Consolation

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!But I, with mournful tread,Walk the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.

Lyric Poems

Sonnets and Odes will be discussed later in

this unit.

Narrative Poems

Epics – usually long poems (including book length) and include lengthy topics like founding a nation (Virgil’s Aeneid) or the beginning of world history (Milton’s Paradise Lost) or the story of a heroic figure (Beowulf).Included in epics superhuman deeds, fabulous adventures, and highly stylized language.

Narrative Poems

Epic Poem example – an excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey. SPEAK, MEMORY--Of the cunning hero,The wanderer, blown off course time and againAfter he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.SpeakOf all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,The suffering deep in his heart at seaAs he struggled to survive and bring his men homeBut could not save them, hard as he tried--The fools--destroyed by their own recklessnessWhen they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,And that god snuffed out their day of return.

Narrative Poems

Ballad – in short, it is a poem that tells a story and is meant to be sung. The poem uses a four-line stanza.Topics for poems often deal with religious themes, love, tragedy, domestic crimes, and political propaganda. Like all narrative poems, the plot is the driving force.

Narrative PoemsBallad poem example – An excerpt from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:It is an ancient marinerAnd he

stoppeth one of three.—“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,Now wherefore stoppest thou me?The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,And I am next of kin;The guests are met, the feast is set:Mayst hear the merry din.”

He holds him with his skinny hand,“There was a ship," quoth he.“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”Eftsoons his hand dropped he.He holds him with his glittering eye—The wedding-guest stood still,And listens like a three-years’ child:The mariner hath his will.

Narrative Poem

Villanelle – similar to ballad in content and theme, this is a highly structured poem. The poem is nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. Lines one and three of the first stanza are repeated throughout. Line one repeats as 6, 12, and 18. Line three repeats as line 9, 15, 19.Includes the rhyme scheme ABA for the first five stanzas and ABAA for stanza six.

Narrative Poems

The poet in the garrisonWrote accompanied by thunder; Death sprinkled in the sky like tarragon. The messenger lad ran a marathonWhile overhead the sky was rent asunder; The poet in the garrison Gilded his strength; fought like a Saracen But paralysed by fear and wonder; Death sprinkled in the sky like tarragon. The men outside reloaded, carried on; General Butcher muttered “Oops! Another blunder!” The poet in the garrison Stopped not to cast for a comparison In words of how the roof was going under; Death sprinkled in the sky like tarragon. His last letter to his wife in Harrington So tragic, yet so beautiful it stunned her: The poet in the garrison’sDeath sprinkled in the sky like tarragon.

Villanelle exampleABA

ABA

ABAA

FIRST LINE

FIRST LINE

FIRST LINE

FIRST LINE

THIRD LINE

THIRD LINE

THIRD LINE

THIRD LINE

PLEASE CONTINUE ON TO POEM FREE WRITE #2 FOR THE BALLAD/ VILLANELLE

ASSIGNMENT