Types of poetry

Figurative language in poetry

Of all the forms of literature, the poetry molds and stretches language the most. Poets use images — concrete details that appeal to the senses — to create vivid impressions of their subjects. They also stretch words beyond their literal meanings by using figurative language or figures of speech, which are unusual comparisons that embroider or exaggerate the literal facts to make a special point.

A poem may be dominated by one central image or may consist of a series of different images. As we read a poem, its images remind us of our own sensory experiences and draw us into the poet’s words. Imagery also engage our emotions.

Personification — is a figure of speech in which an animal, object, or idea is given human qualities. The thing that is personified might speak, feel emotions, and even assume a human appearance.

Metaphors, symbols, allusions are widely used as linguistic devices in poetry.

1. A narrative poem tells a story in verse. It may focus on the most meaningful parts of a story. In reading narrative poetry we often accept jumps on time, space, and logic that we might find difficult to understand in more “realistic” prose narratives.

Long narrative poems with heroic subjects are known as epics. One of the most popular forms of narrative poetry is the ballad, a short narrative with a definite pattern of rhythm and rhyme. Folk ballads or popular ballads are usually anonymous; literary ballads are written by poets to imitate folk ballads.

2. Dramatic poetry. It is a type of poem that uses one or several of the techniques associated with drama. All dramatic poems present characters, often in tense situations, who speak to silent listeners, to themselves, or directly to the reader.

One of the most popular forms of dramatic poetry is the dramatic monologue, which presents only one speaker who addresses a silent listener. The speaker of a dramatic monologue reveals something important about himself or herself; in many dramatic monologues the speakers tell more about themselves than they may realize.

3. The sonnet —is fourteen lines lyric poem. It is usually of iambic pentameter and follows very strict stanza divisions and rhymes. The Shakespearean or English sonnet is one of the two major types of sonnets. It consists of three quatrains or four-line stanzas, followed by a couplet, or a pair of rhyming lines. The final couplet in it often provides a direct and memorable statement of the poem’s central idea.

The Petrarchan sonnet or the Italian sonnet is a form of lyric poetry of 14 lines long, and follows a strict line scheme which differs from that of the Shakespearean sonnet. It is divided into 2 stanzas (octave and sestet).

4. A concrete poetry. A concrete poem — is a poem that, above everything else, stresses the visual appearance of the words and lines on the page. It creates pictures on the page by experimenting with punctuation, line lengths, even with the way in which the poem’s words are spelled and typed.

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