Types of Poems (AP Literature)

A love lyric expressing complaint that dawn means the speaker must part from his lover.

A popular type of narrative poetry.

A lament for the dead.

A long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero whose exploits are important to the history of a nation.

A brief witty poem that is often satirical.

Extra-ordinary events evoked in direct, simple language, and scant characterization that contain repeated lines and stanza in refrain, swift action with an occasional surprise ending.

A sonnet composed of an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet.

Imitates the folk ballad by adhering to its basic conventions (repeated lines, etc.) but is more polished stylistically and more self-conscious in its use of poetic techniques.

Stress emotion and song.

Stress story and action.

A long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form.

A type of narrative poem in which adventure is a central feature; these poems tend to be complex, with surprising and even magical actions common.

A lyric form that consists of six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three-line conclusion or envoy; this form requires a strict pattern of repetition of six key words that end the lines of the first stanza.

Composed of three four-line quatrains and a concluding two-line couplet.

Condenses into 14 lines an expression of emotion or an articulation of idea according to one of two basic patterns: the Italian (or Petrachan) and the English (or Shakespearean).

A lyric form that relies heavily on repetition and is composed of five three-line tercets and a final four-line quatrain; its singular feature is the way its first and third lines repeat throughout the poem — the entire first line reappears as the final line of the second and fourth tercets, and again as the third line of the third and fifth tercets and as the concluding line of the poem.