Poetry a Distinctive Genre

Poetry a Distinctive Genre

Spenser define poetry in a way;

" no art but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by laboure and learning bit adorned with both and poured into the will by a certain enthusiasm and celestial (heavenly) inspiration "

Poetry has been defined differently by different poets and critics no definition can be considered as absolute and final when one thinks of poetry. The first aspect that comes to one's mind is that poetry is metrical composition. Poetry is composition in verse. However only the metrical and rhythmic composition is not enough for a verse to be recognize as poetry, rather there are certain other elements like form, theme and style or dictionary etc. That set poetry a distinctive literary form.

If we make contrast of poetry on the basis of style from other major literary genres i.e. fiction, (novel, short story) ,drama and prose, as find that poetry presents a clear rhythmic form. It can employ either descriptive or imaginative language. It is the mind of the poem that chooses the cadence. The poet, chooses words which have a particular syllabic breakdown to follow a formatted rhythm or to emphasize an idea. Poetry is a less structured writing where one is free to play with words and phrases and uses elements like repetition or alliteration for emphasis. The lines can run extremely long or be as short as one word or letter .

By contrast, fiction or prose do comprises of line breaks or sentences run to right margin. Fiction is structured. Characters make actions, which have sequences .The story starts, it has a middle and it finishes. It has directional pull. It makes us ask "what happens next?" .Fiction comprises chiefly of short story and novel. Short story is a story in prose that can be read in one sitting of half to two hours. It is written with few characters with an aim to create unity and mod rather than a plot. A shirt story can range from 1000 to 20,000 words in contemporary fiction.

Novel on the other hand is relatively longer work of narrative fiction normally in prose and typically published as a book it includes the narration as well as dialogues. By using this genre (..........). Story than poetry. As for length is concerned, poetry can be long enough to cover a book or books ie. Epic. Rather epic has been transformed in fiction.

In contrast to poetry on the basis of style, drama is yet an entirely different genre, Aristotle defined drama as;

"A criticism of life ,on a stage with action, characters and dialogues "

Contrary to poetry drama must have action of characters around plot chokes such as irony and conflict. Drama is written with heightened language. It is a story designed to be acted by players on a stage. While poetry can be a part of drama, somewhere may be in the form chorus etc. But it can't be something acted upon.

Poetry enjoys it's distinction from other genres on the basis of it's forms and elements it contains. Poetry has two main forms, free verse

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