Narrative & Lyric Poems

1. Narrative and Lyric
Poems

2. 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?

3. 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.

4. Lyric Poems
Elegy 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.

5. Lyric Poems
Sonnets and Odes will be
discussed later in this unit.

6. 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.

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

8. 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.

9. Narrative Poems
Ballad poem example – An excerpt from Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:
It is an ancient mariner And 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.

10. 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.

11. Narrative Poems
The poet in the garrison
Wrote accompanied by thunder;
Death sprinkled in the sky like tarragon.
The messenger lad ran a marathon
While 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’s
Death sprinkled in the sky like tarragon.
Villanelle example
A
B
A
A
B
A
A
B
A
A
FIRST LINE
FIRST LINE
FIRST LINE
FIRST LINE
THIRD LINE
THIRD LINE
THIRD LINE
THIRD LINE

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