Types of Prose Writing

Poetic Forms

• Elegy: a solemn and less formal poem about death, containing a tragic theme and serious reflection on the death of a person.
• Ode: a formal poem that honors or glorifies people, natural scenes, abstract ideas, and commemorative events, with a solemn and serious tone and subject matter.
• Song: a poem set to music, intended to be sung.
• Ballad: a narrative poem that tells a story, often with adventure or romance, featuring 4 or 6-line stanzas, rhyme, simple language, and dramatic action.
• Epic: a long poem that tells the adventures of gods or heroes, chronicling the origins of civilization and embodying its central values.

Story Forms

• Metrical Tale: a poem that relates to real or imaginary events, presented in simple, straightforward language, featuring ordinary people concerned with ordinary events.
• Metrical Romance: a poem that presents remote or imaginative incidents, often about the deeds and love of noble knights and ladies, featuring tales of chivalry and courtly love.

Prose Forms

• Essay: a short work about a particular subject.
• Biography: a life story of another person.
• Autobiography: the author's own life story.
• Memoirs: records of fact or events in connection with particular subjects and/or historical periods, known by the writer or gathered from special sources.
• Journal: a daily record of occurrences or observations.

Other Forms

• Epistle: a letter, often referring to the apostolic letters in the New Testament.
• Sonnet: a 14-line poem with a single theme, written in iambic pentameter.
  • Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet: inspired by Francesco Petrarch, featuring an 8-line octave and 6-line sestet.
  • English or Shakespearean Sonnet: inspired by William Shakespeare, featuring a 4-line quatrain and a concluding 2-line couplet.

Narrative Forms

• Legend: a story that may or may not have a foundation in fact, reflecting people's identity or cultural values with more historical dimension and less on supernatural beliefs.
• Myth: a story with religious significance that explains the actions of gods or heroes and the causes of natural phenomena.
• Fable: a story of animal characters that teaches a moral or lesson.
• Parable: an allegory that illustrates a moral or spiritual lesson.
• Short Story: a prose writing that can be read in one sitting, containing the major elements of plot.
• Novel: a lengthy prose fiction that may be about romance and tears, ordinary life, overwhelming forces of nature and society, and behavior and motivation.
• Folktale: a fictional story that has been orally passed down over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years.