Narrative manes telling a story, so a narrative poem is a telling a story in the form of a poem. So that I can answer the above question I will look at the following areas and see if the poems that I was concentrating on fit in to these categories. I think that a good narrative poem should have, an interesting storyline, interesting characters, sounds good and it has good use of wordsInteresting StorylineIf a poem has an interesting storyline it needs to use myths and legends.
The myth and legends keep the adiances interesting in the poem. Myth and legends are stories that have been around a long time. The Griesly Bride and the legend of west Lochtarbet are both poems that sound if they have been around for a long time. I can tell that the legend of west Lochtarbert has been around a long time because of the language that it uses for example, "they rest on their oars awhile", we would not use the word awhile like it is used here.
"At ebb of day a mother called" the word ebb means end, we don't even use this word.The ballad of the bread mans is a very well know story but it some changes have been made and it has been brought up to the modem times. It is the story of Jesus. For example we know that Jesus was born in a stable but in the poem he was born in an annex which was next to the local pub. In the times of Jesus there was no pubs.
The story is interesting in this poem because it is a very famous story but it has been given a slant so that we see the story in a different mindInteresting CharactersAll stories need to have characters in them. If they didn't have characters there wouldn't be anything for the story to be based on. There are 3 poems that are based on the characters that are in the title. They are Lulu, timothy Winters and Maloney. The other 3 poems have characters as well but they are not mentioned in the titles of the poems.
The poems with the people mentioned in the titles are all about people who may be different to ourselves. For example Timothy Winters is really poor. Maloney is a criminal who has been in prison and lulu has run away and nobody knows why. The legend of west Lochtarbet has two main characters; they are the two brothers who are racing each other for their mother's inheritance. The grieslybride has two characters the trapper and his wife, but the wife turns into a griesly creature.
SuspenseSuspense is where you don't know what is going to happen, it is an anxious uncertainty while awaiting an event. It could also be an answered question. There is a lot of suspence in the 6 poems. For example, in the Grielslybride, what has happened to the wife, in the legend of west Lochtarbet who will win the final race for the money?Where has lulu gone and what has happened to her? Is there any hope for timothy winters in the future? What will maloney end up like.
In the ballad of the bread man, it makes us think what would it be like if jesus was to return in today's world.
