Poetry throughout history has always been divided in some way. Today, there are hundreds of forms developed around the world, with each culture and region specializing in its own version of the craft. However, we can still put poetry into non-specific genres due to its general themes. Poetry enthusiasts today divide the craft into three main themes: lyrical, narrative, and dramatic.
Little is known about literature in the ancient past. However, we know that poetry has existed for thousands of years. We also have records showing the general themes of such writings. In Ancient Greece, for example, we know that poetry was divided into three main types of poetry by the great philosopher Aristotle; they were comedy, tragedy and epic. He claimed that comedy was simply an imitation of what is inferior and possibly laughable. He stated that the other two, the tragedy and the epic, were similar in the sense that they portray suffering and produce effects and emotions in their readers. The only difference between the two was that epic was said to be a one-line poem, while tragedy was said to be in narrative form.
Today, scholars of poetry and literature believe that poetry actually contains three main genres. However, all three are known as lyrical, narrative, and dramatic, not as comedy, tragedy, and epic. Then each of these genres can be saturated with sub-genres and then sub-sub-genres based on rhyme scheme, rhythm, meter, style, and even emotion.
Lyric poetry are poems focused on thought and emotion. Poems can be songs, and songs can be of any other genre. Major subdivisions include elegy, ode, and sonnet. Lyric poetry does not tell a story. Major lyric poems include Sappho’s “Go, Lovely Rose” and Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Narrative poetry is a poem that tells a story. More commonly, the stories involve heroic events or are of cultural or national (or to some degrees even local) significance. Subdivisions of narrative poetry include ballads and epics. Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Raven” and Homer’s “Odyssey” are just some of the major narrative pieces.
Dramatic poetry is written in verse that is meant to be spoken. It usually tells a story, but it can also simply portray a situation. Most dramatic poetry is written in blank verse. Authors Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare have written important dramatic works.
Although there are three main types of poetry, each can be divided into hundreds, possibly even thousands of genres. If you haven’t found one you like, chances are you will, keep looking!