Poetry (the term derives from a variant of the Greek term, poiesis, "making") is a

form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic[1][2][3] qualities of language—

such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition
to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early
poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell
oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics,
the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's
Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later
attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and
emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively
informative, prosaic forms of writing.

Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words,

or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration,
onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory
effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of
poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly
figures of speech such as metaphor, simile and metonymy[4] create a resonance
between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections
previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual
verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres and respond to
characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to
identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as
written in lines based on rhyme and regular meter; there are, however, traditions,
such as Biblical poetry, that use other means to create rhythm and euphony. Much
modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition,[5] playing with and testing,
among other things, the principle of euphony itself, sometimes altogether forgoing
rhyme or set rhythm.[6][7] In today's increasingly globalized world, poets often
adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages.

Literature
Liji2 no bg.png
Major forms
Novel Poem Drama Short story Novella
Genres
Comedy Drama Epic Erotic Nonsense Lyric Mythopoeia Romance Satire Tragedy
Tragicomedy
Media
Performance play Book
Techniques
Prose Poetry
History and lists
History modern
Outline Glossary of terms
Books Writers Literary awards poetry
Discussion
Criticism Theory (critical theory) Sociology Magazines
Books-aj.svg aj ashton 01.svg Literature portal
v t e
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Western traditions
1.2 20th-century and 21st-century disputes
2 Elements
2.1 Prosody
2.1.1 Rhythm
2.1.2 Meter
2.1.3 Metrical patterns
2.2 Rhyme, alliteration, assonance
2.2.1 Rhyming schemes
2.3 Form in poetry
2.3.1 Lines and stanzas
2.3.2 Visual presentation
2.4 Diction
3 Forms
3.1 Sonnet
3.2 Shi
3.3 Villanelle
3.4 Limerick
3.5 Tanka
3.6 Haiku
3.7 Ode
3.8 Ghazal
4 Genres
4.1 Narrative poetry
4.2 Lyric poetry
4.3 Epic poetry
4.4 Satirical poetry
4.5 Elegy
4.6 Verse fable
4.7 Dramatic poetry
4.8 Speculative poetry
4.9 Prose poetry
4.10 Light poetry
5 See also
6 References
6.1 Bibliography
7 Further reading
7.1 Anthologies
History[edit]

Aristotle
Main articles: History of poetry and Literary theory
Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy.[8] Others,
however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing.[9]

The oldest surviving epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd
millennium BCE in Sumer (in Mesopotamia, now Iraq), and was written in cuneiform
script on clay tablets and, later, on papyrus.[10] A tablet dating to c. 2000 BCE
describes an annual rite in which the king symbolically married and mated with the
goddess Inanna to ensure fertility and prosperity; it is considered the world's
oldest love poem.[11][12] An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe
(c. 1800 BCE).

An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing
(Classic of Poetry)
Other ancient epic poetry includes the Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey; the
Avestan books, the Gathic Avesta and the Yasna; the Roman national epic, Virgil's
Aeneid; and the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Epic poetry,
including the Odyssey, the Gathas, and the Indian Vedas, appears to have been
composed in poetic form as an aid to memorization and oral transmission, in
prehistoric and ancient societies.[9][13]
Other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in
the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the Shijing, were initially lyrics.
[14]

The efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a

form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in "poetics"—the study
of the aesthetics of poetry.[15] Some ancient societies, such as China's through
her Shijing (Classic of Poetry), developed canons of poetic works that had ritual
as well as aesthetic importance.[16] More recently, thinkers have struggled to find
a definition that could encompass formal differences as great as those between
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Matsuo Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi, as well as
differences in context spanning Tanakh religious poetry, love poetry, and rap.[17]

Western traditions[edit]

John Keats
Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the
quality of poetry. Notably, the existing fragments of Aristotle's Poetics describe
three genres of poetry—the epic, the comic, and the tragic—and develop rules to
distinguish the highest-quality poetry in each genre, based on the underlying
purposes of the genre.[18] Later aestheticians identified three major genres: epic
poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres
of dramatic poetry.[19]

Aristotle's work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic
Golden Age,[20] as well as in Europe during the Renaissance.[21] Later poets and
aestheticians often distinguished poetry from, and defined it in opposition to
prose, which was generally understood as writing with a proclivity to logical
explication and a linear narrative structure.[22]

This does not imply that poetry is illogical or lacks narration, but rather that
poetry is an attempt to render the beautiful or sublime without the burden of
engaging the logical or narrative thought process. English Romantic poet John Keats
termed this escape from logic "Negative Capability".[23] This "romantic" approach
views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and
distinct from the underlying notional logic. This approach remained influential
into the 20th century.[24]

During this period, there was also substantially more interaction among the various
poetic traditions, in part due to the spread of European colonialism and the
attendant rise in global trade.[25] In addition to a boom in translation, during
the Romantic period numerous ancient works were rediscovered.[26]

20th-century and 21st-century disputes[edit]

Archibald MacLeish
Some 20th-century literary theorists, relying less on the opposition of prose and
poetry, focused on the poet as simply one who creates using language, and poetry as
what the poet creates.[27] The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not
uncommon, and some modernist poets essentially do not distinguish between the
creation of a poem with words, and creative acts in other media. Yet other
modernists challenge the very attempt to define poetry as misguided.[28]

The rejection of traditional forms and structures for poetry that began in the
first half of the 20th century coincided with a questioning of the purpose and
meaning of traditional definitions of poetry and of distinctions between poetry and
prose, particularly given examples of poetic prose and prosaic poetry. Numerous
modernist poets have written in non-traditional forms or in what traditionally
would have been considered prose, although their writing was generally infused with
poetic diction and often with rhythm and tone established by non-metrical means.
While there was a substantial formalist reaction within the modernist schools to
the breakdown of structure, this reaction focused as much on the development of new
formal structures and syntheses as on the revival of older forms and structures.
[29]

Recently, postmodernism has come to convey more completely prose and poetry as
distinct entities, and also among genres of poetry, as having meaning only as
cultural artifacts. Postmodernism goes beyond modernism's emphasis on the creative
role of the poet, to emphasize the role of the reader of a text (Hermeneutics), and
to highlight the complex cultural web within which a poem is read.[30] Today,
throughout the world, poetry often incorporates poetic form and diction from other
cultures and from the past, further confounding attempts at definition and
classification that were once sensible within a tradition such as the Western
canon.[31]

The early 21st century poetic tradition appears to continue to strongly orient
itself to earlier precursor poetic traditions such as those initiated by Whitman,
Emerson, and Wordsworth. The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman has used the phrase
"the anxiety of demand" to describe contemporary response to older poetic
traditions as "being fearful that the fact no longer has a form", building on a
trope introduced by Emerson. Emerson had maintained that in the debate concerning
poetic structure where either "form" or "fact" could predominate, that one need
simply "Ask the fact for the form." This has been challenged at various levels by
other literary scholars such as Bloom who has stated in summary form concerning the
early 21st century that: "The generation of poets who stand together now, mature
and ready to write the major American verse of the twenty-first century, may yet be
seen as what Stevens called 'a great shadow's last embellishment,' the shadow being
Emerson's."[32]

Elements[edit]
Prosody[edit]
Main article: Meter (poetry)
Prosody is the study of the meter, rhythm, and intonation of a poem. Rhythm and
meter are different, although closely related.[33] Meter is the definitive pattern
established for a verse (such as iambic pentameter), while rhythm is the actual
sound that results from a line of poetry. Prosody also may be used more
specifically to refer to the scanning of poetic lines to show meter.[34]