SKIP TO CONTENT

Rhyme’s Reason: Poetry: Genres

You'll be well versed in poetic genres once you master this list covering everything from the brief haiku to the lengthy epic.

To learn even more about poetry, explore our lists on Literary Devices and Structure and Meter.
24 words 11779 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Full list of words from this list:

  1. ballad
    a narrative poem of popular origin
    I close my eyes and follow the ballad’s words, the story of a sparrow who freed a lark from her cage, only to be betrayed by the lark who flew away. The Last Cuentista
    Notable English ballads include ”La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
  2. chanson de geste
    Old French epic poems
    The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds," are the epic poetry that appears at the dawn of French literature. New World Encyclopedia
    The Song of Roland, like many chansons de geste, celebrates the exploits of Charlemagne and his army.
  3. dirge
    a song or hymn of mourning as a memorial to a dead person
    We heard the sounds of the traditional dirge grow louder, and so did the screams and wails coming from a memorial ceremony in a private room. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
    Shorter than an elegy, dirges are typically recited at funerals. Christina Rosetti's poem "A Dirge" laments, "all winds go sighing/For sweet things dying."
  4. doggerel
    a comic verse of irregular measure
    “Lord God Almighty, Weiser, are you an idiot? She will not produce anything worth reading when she’s in this state. Look—this is verse. English doggerel. Pages and pages of it!” Code Name Verity
    In The Canterbury Tales, the character of Chaucer has barely begun his "Tale of Sir Topaz" when the Host cuts him off, complaining that Chaucer's "drasty" ("crude") doggerel makes "myn eres aken" ("my ears ache").
  5. eclogue
    a short poem descriptive of rural or pastoral life
    Poets are given vast fees by international conglomerates for their latest eclogues, while screenwriters live in poverty, paid a pittance for their largely ignored outpourings. The Guardian
    Though the eclogue was originally a Greek verse form, the most popular writer of eclogues was the Roman poet Virgil. Virgil's eclogues were distinct from Greek idylls because, rather than idealizing country life, they included political unrest and emotional turmoil.
  6. elegy
    a mournful poem; a lament for the dead
    Here an elegy bring tears to the eyes by never losing sight on the joy of living. Los Angeles Times
    Classical elegies were written in elegaic couplets, couplets with one line of hexameter and one line of pentameter, but today the word can be applied to a poem of mourning in any form. Traditionally, the English elegy includes praise for the deceased and concludes with a sense of solace or consolation. Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is a famous English elegy.
  7. epic
    a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds
    For centuries, ballads, and epics were all sung, as were Biblical chants and Vedic hymns. Music and the Child
    The oldest epic is the ancient Mesopotamian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Other epics include The Iliad and The Odyssey (Greek), The Aeneid (Latin), Beowulf (Old English), and Paradise Lost (English).
  8. epithalamium
    an ode in honor of a wedding
    In fact, there’s a special term for a wedding poem: epithalamium. Washington Post
    Epithalamiums were originally addressed specifically to brides, although today the word is often used to mean any poem in honor of a marriage. This classic Greek form has been adapted by English poets including Edmund Spenser, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and E.E. Cummings.
  9. free verse
    poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter
    Whether he was writing in forms or in free verse, his deep awareness of life’s fleeting nature informed how he lived. Washington Post
    Although free verse is not restricted by a set meter or rhyme scheme, it often includes lines breaks, stanzas, and other elements that distinguish it from ordinary prose.
  10. haiku
    an epigrammatic Japanese verse form of three short lines
    “It’s a kind of poem,” I said, “called a haiku. It’s always three lines.” The Honest Truth
    Traditional Japanese haiku include several elements: a strict syllabic pattern (5/7/5), a reference to a season, and a juxtaposition of two distinct images. Masters of the haiku include Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa.
  11. hymn
    a song of praise, especially a religious song
    Dilsey moved about the kitchen, singing the two lines of the hymn which she remembered. The Sound and the Fury
    Though hymns are often sung, lyrical poems in praise of a deity are also considered hymns. "Caedmon's Hymn," an Old English poem written in the late 7th century, is the first recorded poem in English.
  12. idyll
    a short poem descriptive of rural or pastoral life
    Not quite a satire and not quite a pastoral idyll, Jon Raymond's new novel, "Rain Dragon," focuses on a possible Pacific Northwest utopia, its lurking discontents — and its surprisingly vigorous business potential. Seattle Times
    An idyll is a poem that depicts life in the countryside but, unlike an eclogue, it is not typically composed in dialogue form. Tennyson used the word in the title of his Idylls of the King, a series of poems recounting Arthurian legends, although the poems are not technically idylls.
  13. lament
    a mournful poem
    Clive James’s book-length poem “The River in the Sky” is superb, an epic lament, written in late life, filled with exact and moving observations about life and culture. New York Times
    A lament is a poem that expresses great sorrow or grief. Although the traditional English elegy includes a lament, a formal elegy also includes a section of praise for the person who has died, as well as a concluding section that offers consolation.
  14. lay
    a narrative poem of popular origin
    The Lais of Marie de France are a series of twelve short narrative poems in Anglo-Norman, generally focused on glorifying the concepts of courtly love through the adventures of their main characters. A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. New World Encyclopedia
    There are different types of lays. The Breton lai, for example, is a short, chivalric poem that was popular in medieval France and then England. Lay can also be used more generally to refer to ballads or similar narrative poems.
  15. limerick
    a humorous rhymed verse form of five lines
    Maybe she will try writing again, nothing too ambitious, a fun poem in the limerick mode. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
    Limericks are comical poems and often use rude or suggestive language. Limericks have a set meter and rhyme scheme (AABBA).
  16. lyric
    a short poem of songlike quality
    The musical forms, phrases, harmonies and the poetic structure reveal a great deal of material apart from the content of the lyrics. Music and the Child
    Lyric can refer either to a genre of poetry — short poems in which a speaker expresses strong emotions — or to an individual poem of this genre.
  17. madrigal
    an unaccompanied partsong for several voices
    Unusually for their time, Arcadelt’s madrigals and chansons were intended for performance by men and women, and their success inspired many other composers. The Story of Music
    As a verse form, the Italian madrigal consists of lines of 7 or 11 syllables, although there is considerable variation in length and rhyme scheme. English madrigals, which employed a stricter form and rhyme scheme, were written by poets like Chaucer and Shakespeare.
  18. ode
    a lyric poem with complex stanza forms
    In its many rooms, the men read their odes, or played the violin, or performed their philosophical exercises. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party
    Odes originated in the ancient world and were originally sung. The form was later adapted by English poets. John Keats wrote some of the most famous odes in English, including "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
  19. panegyric
    a formal expression of praise
    "You can't judge historical writings by the standards of our time. These writings were mostly panegyrics, written to glorify the leaders and rulers." BBC
    Originally a speech of praise in classical antiquity, panegyric can also refer specifically to a poem that praises someone, such as Ben Jonson's "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author William Shakespeare."
  20. pastoral
    a literary work idealizing the rural life
    But unfortunately, the first editors of many of these early novels labeled them "romances" or "sagas" or satires, folk epics, tales, pastorals, legends, picaresques, and other terms, which allowed literature professors to ignore them. The Guardian
    Think of pastoral as a broad generic category that includes idylls and eclogues. Unlike idylls and eclogues, however, pastorals can be written in either poetry or prose.
  21. prose poem
    prose that resembles poetry
    In her first book, “Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise,” published in 1980, she addressed the problems of identity, history and colonialism in a series of prose poems. New York Times
    Although prose poems often look like ordinary prose, they are distinguished from ordinary prose through their use of poetic language and rhetorical devices.
  22. rondeau
    a French verse form of 10 or 13 lines running on two rhymes
    Since I love French forms, it came as a surprise to me that I haven't covered the rondeau on this blog, yet. As with other French forms, there is an element of rhyming and repetition in the rondeau. In fact, the rondeau is related to the triolet—one of my favorites. Writer’s Digest
    In the Middle Ages, the rondeau was one of the most popular French verse forms and rondeaux were often set to music. Like a ballad, a rondeau includes a refrain.
  23. sonnet
    a verse form of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme
    I would write a sonnet describing the petals, white and rose-colored, that fluttered to the ground, borne upon the warming breeze. Ophelia
    There are two main types of sonnet: the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet and the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet. The English sonnet is usually composed of three quatrains and a couplet, while the Italian sonnet is typically divided into an octave and a sestet.
  24. tanka
    a Japanese verse form of 5 lines with 5 or 7 syllables
    For centuries, the only accepted way to write poetry in Japanese was waka, that is, within the established traditions of tanka and haiku. The New Yorker
    A tanka is a five-line poem that consists of a single, unbroken sentence or thought. Like haiku, tanka conform to a strict syllabic pattern: 5/7/5/7/7.
Created on Tue Mar 05 13:38:35 EST 2019 (updated Thu May 04 18:35:50 EDT 2023)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.