Understanding Poetry and Narrative Texts: Key Features
Understanding Poetry and Narrative Texts
Lyric Poetry: Expressing Subjective Feelings
As a literary genre, poetry, specifically lyric poetry, is any poetic composition in which the author expresses their feelings subjectively. Written in verse and prose, poetic language aims to create a world that is connotative, evocative, and polysemous, full of artifice and expressive density.
Lyric Language: Three Attitudes
Three lyrical attitudes exist between reality and the poet:
- Lyrical Emotion: The poet’s external reality inspires the composition.
- Lyrical Apostrophe: The poet addresses a “you,” a constant reference in the poem, and engages in lyrical dialogue.
- Language of Song: The author, focused solely on their ego, presents their vision of existential reality or their inner world. This is the most lyrical form.
Lyric poetry originated with the Greeks, who sang it accompanied by a lyre. It continued to be sung in its simplest and most popular forms. Cultured poetry, from the 15th century onward, lost the musical accompaniment and became reserved for reading or recitation. Lyric poetry is distinguished by its brevity and variety, much greater than dramatic or epic poetry.
Characteristics of Poetic Text
The poetic text is characterized by:
- Predominance of the poetic function of language.
- Connotation, which is especially relevant.
- Multiple meanings: This is the same as polysemy.
- Fiction: Poetic worlds are not real, but they may be possible.
Lyric Poetry in the 20th Century
1. Creative Freedom: Both in themes and verse form. This includes:
- Alteration of free verse.
- Changes in metric schemes of traditional and classical poetry.
2. Everyday Poetry: In two ways:
- Language: Poetry incorporates expressions, money, and words from everyday language.
- Themes: Everyday life, especially in the city, is displayed.
Narrative Texts: The Novel as a Genre
The novel is the largest and most perfect literary event in narrative. It is a story told by someone about a person or persons. As a narrative, the novel has the following features:
1. The Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Not to be confused with the “sender” or real author of the text. The narrator is the “voice” that commands the facts from a certain point of view and, at times, interjects comments. The points of view from which the narrator acts are:
- Internal Narrator: A character tells the story. It has two variants:
- Narrator as the protagonist.
- Narrator as a secondary character.
- External Narrator: The story is told from the outside because the narrator does not participate in it. The external narrator can be:
- Omniscient: Acts as if they know all the circumstances of the story.
- Objective Observer: An impartial or objective narrator.
- Narrator as Editor: The writer pretends that they have not written the work but have found it and limited themselves to writing and editing it.
2. The Story Told
This refers to the narrative elements, which are essentially four: action, time, characters, and environment.
- Action: The set of events presented in a specific order, which may not coincide with the actual order. Action usually distinguishes between successive events as they are told, and history, or the sequence of events according to the actual order. Events can be ordered chronologically and causally (cause > events > effects), or this sequence can be broken.
- Characters: Those who cause or experience the events. Characters, based on their psychological depth, can be:
- Stereotypes
- Types
- Individual Characters