narratives

Narrative means a story so the poems which tells a story inside it is known as Narrative story which is one of the oldest form of poems is called Narrative. Before, people couldn’t read or write so there were no sources to gain or attain the knowledge through books. The only way is the spoken language to share or pass on the knowledge from one generation to the other. It is written from the perspective of the poet in which she/he wants to tell a story that can be related to their life incidents or it can be their fantasy. The story is build around the characters, the feeling, the emotion, it creates a sense of drama is the normal poem.

Well there is no written rule about the length of the Narrative poems. You can write a short or long poem according to your choice but there has to be a story in it that can depicts drama, complexity of life and romance. The different types of narratives are Epic- which is a form of long tales of battles and peace, Ballads-the most interesting type of narrative stories as it the only form which is arranged in the rhythmic form set as ABAB, and Lays that is short romance stories. Some of the narratives is used in the novels which is known as verse. Verse is a poem that is written in the metric rhythm and arranges so that it rhymes. Rhythm is the flow of the word, on which word you give the stress. And rhyme is simply the repetition of the word. The Odyssey by Homer is one of the great example of narrative poem which comes under the Epic and the use of poem in the novel is called verse.

One of the good example of Narrative poems are

The ballad of the harp weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Ballad of The Harp Weaver (1922)

“Son,” said my mother,

   When I was knee-high,

“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,

   And not a rag have I.

“There’s nothing in the house

   To make a boy breeches,

Nor shears to cut a cloth with

   Nor thread to take stitches.

The poem is set in the winter in which it speaks about the relationship of a mother and child who are very poor. A mother is worried for her son what could she can give him to eat or to wear it is a cold winter night where they burn the chairs and sat on the floor. A mother who can’t see his son dying in winters, weave all night to provide him comfort. The thing I like the most is the love of the mother for her child that give her strength to do anything for him.

Citation

Basset Samuel Eliot. The poetry of Homer. 1938.New edition, edited and introduced by Bruce Heiden. Lexiton Books.2003

Duplessis, Rachel Blau. Blue studios: Poetry and its cultural work. Tuscaloosa. University of Alabama Press. 2006.

Fowler, Alaster. A history of English literature. Cambridge MA: Harvard Uni. Press.1987.

Champman, George. Homer’s Iliad. London: Routledge and sons.1903.

References

http:/www.powerpoetry.org/actions/how-write-narrative-poem

https:/www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-ballad-of-the-harp-weaver-by-edna-st-vincent-millay