Types of Poetry

Blank Verse
-unrhymed iambic pentameter
-often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech
-Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse
An example:

The Ball PoembyJohn Berryman
What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,What, what is he to do? I saw it goMerrily bouncing, down the street, and thenMerrily over-there it is in the water!

Epigram

-very short, satirical and witty poem

-brief couplet or quatrain

-derived from the Greek word 'epigramma' meaning inscription

-cultivated in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by poets like Ben Jonson and John Donne who wrote twenty-one English epigrams

An example:

A Lame Begger by John Donne
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,

To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies

Romanticism

-nature and love were a major themes

-favoured by 18th and 19th century poets

-emphasis in such poetry is placed on the personal experiences of the individual.

An example:

The Question by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,

Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,

And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring