Origins and Characteristics of Narrative Poetry

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Narrative Poems are poems that tell stories. There is a start, which presents the background to the story, a middle, which informs the action of the event, and an end, which concludes and sums up the story. What are the origins of Narrative Poetry?

Stories are the earliest form of poetry. Long prior to there was paper to write on or ink to write with, long prior to the invention of the printing press, people typically shared stories as a form of entertainment.

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These stories were also often used to relate historic occasions. In the exact same method that we spread news through papers today, oral stories were used to spread news of historic events long earlier.

In order to assist recall information of the occasions, individuals started to use rhyme and rhythm to offer their stories a musical quality that would permit the story to be remembered and remembered far more easily. Consider just how much simpler it is to keep in mind the words to a song than it is to recall all of the words of a narrative.

That is precisely how narrative poems were originally created. In what methods are narrative poems comparable to brief stories?

Narrative poems have many similarities to short stories. For example, short stories have characters, a setting, a conflict, and a clear beginning, middle and end. Narrative poems have all of these elements as well. Sometimes there may only be one character, or there may be many characters. At times, the setting may be implied rather than obvious, and the conflict may be an internal conflict rather than external.

How can we analyze narrative poems?

In order to analyze a narrative poem, first read through it with the following questions in mind: Who are the characters in the poem? What are the characters doing, or what is happening? Why are these events happening? How are the characters affected by the action or events? What can be learned from the poem?

Where can we find narrative poetry in our daily lives? Although narrative poetry is one of the oldest forms of literature, this does not mean it is no longer prevalent in today’s world. In fact, any time you turn on a radio, you can hear narrative poetry on nearly any radio station. The best place to see or hear narrative poetry today would be in songs. Songs are simply poems set to music, and the songs that tell stories are narrative poems set to music.