1.Kinds of poetry and what each of them is about

Ballad

Ballad enjoys a very long history. The word comes from the Latin and Italian “ballare” meaning “to dance." Originally, the anonymous folk ballads were sung as accompaniment to dances, passed along orally, and changed in transmission. A ballad is a short simple narrative poem often relating a dramatic event.

Lyric

In Greek a "lyric" is a song to be accompanied with a lyre. This reminds one of the musical quality of poetry. Usually, a lyric is short, within fifty or sixty lines. Lyrics treat the thoughts and feelings, usually powerful emotions of the poet or some invented speaker. They adopt various tones, but frequently personal and reflective ones.

Narrative Poem

If a poem mainly tells a relatively complete story, it is called a narrative poem. Narrative poems are widespread in many literatures and continue to be written and read. Noteworthy examples from the English language are Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Marine”.

Epic

Epic is one of the ancient types of poetry and plays a very important role in the early development of literature and civilization. An epic is a long narrative poem of great scale and grandiose style about the heroes who are usually warriors or even demigods.

Sonnet

Sonnet is one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in Europe. A sonnet is a lyric invariably of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.

Ode

An ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.

Elegy

The word " elegy” comes from a Greek word meaning “lament”. Elegies have been written by both ancient and modern poets, and are thus divided into two types. Originally, in classical Greek and Roman poetry, elegies are poems written in distichs or couplets (in hexameter and pentameter couplets).

Pastoral

The word “Pastoral” has a Latin etymology, meaning “pertaining to shepherds " and can be applied to works of any literary genre that deal with the simple and unspoiled life of the shepherds or countryside. The exaltation of the rural life is idealistic and the expressed sentiment is nostalgic.

The pastoral eclogue is a subtype of pastoral poetry that is composed in the form of dialogue or conversation. The poet contrasts the purity and simplicity of rural life with the corruption and artificiality of court and city life.

Blank Verse

Blank verse refers to poems of unrhymed lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. Because the poems are unrhymed, the rhyme scheme is “blank,” hence the name.

Free Verse

Free verse is rhymed or unrhymed poetry free from conventional rules of meter. The aesthetic and musical effect of free verse is achieved through rhythms and cadence of natural speech. Poets famous for their works composed in free verse include Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound. T S. Eliot, Amy Lowell and Carl Sandburg. The King James Bible is also labeled as free verse.

2.Metrical rhythm of poetry and the relation between meter and foot

Meter: The word is derived from the Greek word “metron,” meaning “measure.” Meter in poetry is a way of measuring a line of poetry based on the rhythm of the words. The meter of much poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on particular patterns of syllables of particular types. In English when applied to poetry, "meter” refers to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Usually, a stressed syllable is marked with “/,” and an unstressed syllable is marked with “U.”

Names for Meters:

Iamb (iambic): an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Its pattern is like this: U/

anapest (anapestic or anapaestic): two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Its pattern is like this: UU/

trochee (trochaic): a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Its pattern is like this: /U

dactyl (dactylic): a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Its pattern is like this: /UU

spondee (spondaic): a stressed syllable followed by another stressed syllable. Its pattern is like this: / /

Foot: a unit of poetic meter of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Names for Feet:

monometer: one foot

dimeter: two feet

trimester: three feet

tetrameter: tour feet

pentameter: five feet

hexameter: six feet

heptameter: seven feet

octameter: eight feet

Relation: Foot is not to be confused with meter, though the names for feet end with “- meter.” Meter is based on syllables, including how stressed and unstressed syllables are arranged. Foot is applied in a single line, including how many meters are employed in that line. Foot in poetry is a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, to decide what meter is used in the following lines, one will examine how the stressed and unstressed syllables are arranged.

3.The function of images in poetry

The function of imagery in literature is to generate a vibrant and graphic presentation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader’s senses as possible. It aids the reader’s imagination to envision the characters and scenes in the literary piece clearly. Apart from the above-mentioned function, images drawn by using figures of speech like metaphor, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia, serve the function of beautifying a piece of literature.

4.What’s the relation between a simile and a metaphor?

Metaphor is also a comparison in nature, but the comparison is implicit whereas in a simile it is explicit. A simile juxtaposes two things while metaphor fuses the two; there are no indicators for metaphors. Simile and metaphor both work on sensory level.