Dramatic poetry includes
well-known plays like Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_ and _Julius
Caesar_, and also certain poems not written for the stage, such as
Browning's _Pippa Passes_ and Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_. In a
dramatic production the poet goes out of himself for the time being,
and expresses the thoughts and feelings of other characters.
It may have been noticed that in this description of the principal
kinds of poetry, only three of the poems included in this book have
been mentioned. This is because the other three--_The Traveller_, _The
Deserted Village_, and _The Cotter's Saturday Night_--do not fit
exactly into any of the divisions. One would class them with the epics
rather than with the lyrics or the dramas, but they are not properly
narratives, because they tell no story; they are really descriptive and
reflective poems. One often comes upon a difficulty of this kind when
attempting to classify a poem, and the truth is that several smaller
divisions are necessary if every production is to be placed where it
belongs. But while it is desirable to know whether one is reading a
lyric, an epic, or a drama, it is far more important to enjoy a
beautiful poem than to be able properly to classify it.
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