Examples of Poetic Texts

The poetic texts are those literary compositions that express the subjectivity of the author and that, generally, are written in verse, but may be in prose. For example: "Serene Night", by Fray Luis de León.

Most of the poetic texts are poems lyrical, that is, poems that express the feelings and emotions of the poetic self, which have a metaphorical, imaginative and aesthetic language and in which the musicality and rhythm of the words prevail.

However, there are also poetic texts that are narratives, because they emphasize telling a story (for example: epic poetry and romances) or that they are realistic, because they focus on objectively reflecting society.

• See also: types of poetry

Characteristics of poetic texts

• Topics. The themes of the poetic texts are very varied, for example, love, the finitude of life, beauty and loneliness. They almost always reflect the subjectivity of the author, that is, his feelings, his thoughts, his emotions and his way of conceiving the world. However, the themes of narrative poems can be stories of heroes, communities, myths, among others.
instagram story viewer
• Shape. The form of poetic texts is characterized by its brevity and intensity, but there are also some that are longer, such as romances. Generally, poetic texts are written in verse, but they can be in prose.
• Language. The language of the poetic texts is connotative, that is to say, that prevails the figurative sense on the literal, since the purpose is for the reader to be moved or to perceive an object or a subject in a different way.
• Rhetorical figures. In poetic texts abundant rhetorical figures are used in relation to:

• The meaning. It is about those rhetorical figures that are used to alter the current meaning of words. For example: simile, metaphor and synecdoche.
• the syntax. These are those rhetorical figures that are used to modify the natural or prototypical order of words. For example: hyperbaton, overriding and asyndeton.
• Sound. These are those rhetorical figures that are used to produce a specific musicality and rhythm. For example: alliteration, paranomasia and calambur.

Guys of poetic texts

There are different types of poetic texts. Some of them are:

• Romance. It is a long poem that usually narrates stories and has verses of eight syllables with assonance rhyme in the even verses.
• Sonnet. It is a poem that can deal with various themes and has two quatrains (stanzas of four lines of eleven syllables with consonant rhyme) and two triplets (stanzas of three lines of eleven syllables with consonant rhyme).
• Ode. It is a poem that deals with heroic, religious, loving or philosophical themes and whose structure is highly variable.
• Eclogue. It is a poem with a bucolic theme that usually narrates love or pastoral stories and that generally has stanzas of eleven or seven syllables with rhyme.
• Free. It is a poem whose themes and structures are chosen by the author. For this reason, it does not usually have a certain number and type of verses or stanzas.

Structure of poetic texts

According to metrics, poetic texts are composed of:

• verses. They are each line of a poem and are separated from others by a phonetic pause. For example:

What is poetry?, you say while nailing(verse 1)
in my pupil your blue pupil. (verse 2)
What is poetry? Are you asking me that? (verse 3)
You are poetry. (verse 4)

(Gustavo Adolfo Becquer)

• stanzas. They are sets of verses, they are separated from others by blank spaces and usually have a fixed length and rhyme. For example:

It's burning ice, it's icy fire,
It's wounded, it hurts and you don't feel it
It is a good dream, a bad present,
it's a short break very tired. (verse 1)

It is an oversight, which gives us care,
a coward, with the name of brave,
a solitary walk among the people,
a love only to be loved. (verse 2)

(Francisco de Quevedo)

• rhythm and rhyme. The rhythm of a poetic text is established by the repetitions of the words, the accents and the length of the verses, the pauses, caesuras, and rhyme (the repetition of some or all of the sounds from the last stressed vowel of two or more verses). The rhyme can be:

• assonance rhyme. It is the repetition of the vowels from the last accented vowel of the verses. For example: the memories of others tolbstos / the ones that were expectedtonztos.
• Rhyme. It is the repetition of consonants and vowels from the last accented vowel of the verses. For example:a coward, by the name of valientity, / a solitary walk among the gentity.

• See also: parts of a poem

Examples of poetic texts

1. Fragment of "Noble disappointment", by Luis de Góngora (romance)

noble disappointment,
I thank heaven
that you broke the tie
That held me prisoner
for such a great miracle
I will hang in your temple
the grave chains
Of my serious mistakes.
The strong joints
From the yoke of steel,
that with your favor
I shook my neck,
the wet sails
And the broken oars
that I escaped from the sea
And I offered in the port,
already of your walls
They will be ornament,
glory of your name,
And of Love discount. (…) 

• More examples at: sonnets

1. “Sonnet II”, by Lope de Vega (sonnet)

When I imagine of my brief days
the many that the tyrant love owes me
and in my hair anticipate the snow
more than the years my sorrows,

I see that they are your false joys
poison that reason drinks in the glass
for whom the appetite dares
dress of my sweet fantasies.

What herbs of oblivion has given the taste
to the reason that without doing his job
You want against reason to satisfy him?

But he wants to comfort himself with my displeasure,
what is the desire of the indication remedy
and the remedy of love to want to overcome it.

• More examples at: sonnets

1. Fragment of "To Francisco de Salinas", by Fray Luis de León (ode)

the air serene
and dresses in beauty and unused light,
Salinas, when it rings
extreme music
by your wise hand governed
to whose are divine
the soul, which is sunk in oblivion,
return to collect the tino
and lost memory
of its first clarified origin.
and as it is known
in luck and thought it improves;
gold unknown
that the vile vulgar adores,
beauty expires deceitful.
pierces the air all
until you reach the highest sphere
and hear there another way
non-perishable
music, which is the source and the first.
See how the great Teacher,
to this immense zither applied,
with right-handed movement
produces the sacred sound,
with which this eternal temple is sustained. (…)

• More examples at: odes

1. Fragment of "Eclogue I", by Garcilaso de la Vega (eclogue)

The sweet lament of two shepherds,
I went out together and Nemoroso,
I have to sing, imitating their complaints;
whose sheep when singing tasty
they were very attentive, the loves,
of grazing forgotten, listening.
You, what did you earn by working
a name all over the world
and a degree without a second,
now be attentive alone and given
to the illustrious state government
Albanian, now turned to the other side,
resplendent, armed,
representing on earth the fierce Mars;

now, of troublesome care
and free business, by chance
go hunting, the mountain tiring
in fiery horseman, who rushes
the course after the fearful deer,
that in vain their dying is dilating:
wait, that in turning
to be restored
to leisure already lost,
then you will see exercise my pen
for the infinite, innumerable sum
of your virtues and famous works,
before it consumes me
lacking you, that everyone is left over. (…)

• More examples at: Eclogue

1. "If you forget me", by Pablo Neruda (free)

I want you to know one thing.
You know how is this:
If I look at the crystal moon, the red branch
of the slow autumn in my window,
If I touch the impalpable ash by the fire
or the wrinkled body of the firewood,
everything leads me to you, as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals, were small boats that sail
towards your islands that await me.
Now, if little by little you stop loving me
I will stop loving you little by little.
If you suddenly forget me, don't look for me
that I will have already forgotten you.
If you consider long and crazy
the wind of flags that passes through my life
and you decide to leave me on the shore
of the heart in which I have roots,
think that on that day,
at that time I will raise my arms
and my roots will come out to look for another land.
But if every day
every hour you feel that you are destined for me
with relentless sweetness.
If every day goes up
a flower to your lips to look for me,
oh my love, oh my
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing fades or is forgotten,
my love is nourished by your love, beloved,
and as long as you live she will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

1. Fragment of "Canción del pirata", by José de Espronceda (hymn)

With ten cannonry per band,
Wind in their sails,
It does not cut the sea, but flies
A brigantine sailing ship:
pirate vessel they call
For his bravery the Feared,
In all the known sea
From one to the other border.

The moon in the sea shimmers,
On the canvas the wind moans,
And she lifts in soft movement
Waves of silver and blue;
And see the pirate captain,
Singing joyfully in the stern,
Asia on one side, Europe on the other,
And there in front of him Istanbul.

"Sail, my sailboat,
Without fear,
That neither enemy ship,
Neither storm nor bonanza
Your course to twist reaches,
Nor to hold your value.

»Twenty dams
We have done
in spite
Of English,
and they have surrendered
their banners
hundred nations
To my feet.

»That is my ship my treasure,
That my God is freedom,
My law, the force and the wind,
My only homeland the sea. (…)

• More examples at: Anthem

1. Fragment of "Powerful gentleman is a gift of money", by Francisco de Quevedo (letrilla)

Mother, I humble myself to gold,
he is my lover and my beloved,
Well, purely in love
it's constantly yellow.
So, doubloon or single
He does everything I want
Powerfull knight
It's Mr. Money.

He is born in the Indies honored,
where the world accompanies you;
he comes to die in Spain
and he is buried in Genoa.
And then who brings you next
he is beautiful, though he is fierce,
Powerfull knight
It's Mr. Money.

He is Galán and he is like gold,
he has broken the color;
person of great value
as Christian as Moorish;
Well, he gives and takes away decorum
and he breaks any law,
Powerfull knight
It's Mr. Money. (…)

• More examples at: letrilla

1. Fragment of "Elegy I", by Garcilaso de la Vega (elegy)

TO THE DUKE D'ALBA IN DEATH
BERNALDINO DE TOLEDO

Although this serious case has touched
with so much feeling my soul
what consolation I need,
with which of your pain my fantasy
downloaded a little and s'acabase
of my continuous crying the stubbornness,
I wanted to, but try if it was enough for me
the ingenuity to write you some consolation,
being what I am, take advantage
so that your recent inconsolation
the fury mitigated, if the muses
can a heart lift off the ground
and put an end to the complaints you use,
with that of Pindo and the dwellers
they appear hurt and confused;
that according to what I have known, nor at the hours
that the sun does not even show itself in the sea,
from your tearful state you do not improve,
before, in him remaining where-
wherever you are, your eyes always bathe,
and crying to your pain thus responds
I'm afraid to see your entrails undone
in tears, like the rainy wind
snow melts in the mountains. (…)

• More examples at: Elegy

1. Fragment of "A una tear", by Esteban Echeverría (madrigal)

If the magic of art
crystallize could,
that light drop
of heavenly origin;
in the most noble part
I would put it on her chest:
there would be no treasure
all over the world the same.

For her love is inflamed,
for her love sighs,
she inspires at the same time
tenderness and compassion:
his light is like a flame
detached from the sky,
that infuses the marble with life,
penetrates the heart

Who looks indifferent
the precious tear
that pours generous
the sensibility!
Its shine, transparent
of the soul the bottom leaves,
and even the shade reflects
of happiness. (…)

• More examples at: Madrigal

1. “Wishing to see you”, by Íñigo López de Mendoza, Marqués de Santillana (song)

wishing to see you,
kind lady,
I have not rested, par God,
point no time

wishing that good day
that you see,
the opposite of joy
it wars me
I totally die for you
and does not improve
my bad, swear to God,
but it gets worse.

Well I say to my heart
don't complain
but serve all seasoning
and do not leave
to love and serve you,
Who do you love:
So remember, for God's sake,
mercy now.

Interactive test to practice

Follow with:

• poems in a figurative sense
• poems in the literal sense
• modernist poems
• epic poems
• avant-garde poems
• lyric poems

References

• Darebny, J. and Vázquez Touriňo, D. (2016). E-manual of Spanish Metric. Available in: muni
• Ministry of Education and Training (Spain). (2010). Introduction to literary genres: theory and exercises. Technical General Secretariat.
• Rest, J. (1991). modern literature concepts. CEAL.