Long poem
The long poem is a literary genre including all poetry of considerable length. Though the definition of a long poem is vague and broad, the genre includes some of the most important poetry ever written.
With more than 220,000 verses and about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is one of the longest epic poems in the world. It is roughly ten times the size of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, roughly five times longer than Dante's Divine Comedy, and about four times the size of the Ramayana and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh.
In English, Beowulf and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde are among the first important long poems. The long poem thrived and gained new vitality in the hands of experimental Modernists in the early 1900s and has continued to evolve through the 21st century.
The long poem has evolved into an umbrella term, encompassing many subgenres, including epic, verse novel, verse narrative, lyric sequence, lyric series, and collage/montage.
Definitions
Length and meaning
Lynn Keller describes the long poem as being a poem that is simply "book-length," but perhaps the simplest way to define "long poem" is this: a long poem is long enough that its bulk carries meaning. Susan Stanford Friedman describes the long poem as a genre in which all poems that are not considered to be short can be considered a part. Edgar Allan Poe, in his essay The Philosophy of Composition argued that there is no such thing as true long poem, only long strings of short poetic devices and experiences.These overly inclusive definitions, though problematic, serve the breadth of the long poem, and have fueled its adaptation as a voice for cultural identity among marginalized persons in Modern and Contemporary poetry. Only a broad definition can apply to the genre as a whole. In general, a poem is a "long poem" when its length enhances and expands upon the thematic, creative, and formal weight of the poem.
Though the term "long poem" may be elusive to define, the genre has gained importance both as a literary form and as a means of collective expression. Lynn Keller solidifies the genre's importance in her essay, "Pushing the Limits," by stating that the long poem will always be recognized as a notable genre of importance in the early twentieth-century American literature.
Purposes
Tale of the tribe
A long poem often functions to tell a "tale of the tribe," or a story that encompasses a whole culture's values and history. Ezra Pound coined the phrase, referring to his own long poem The Cantos. The long poem's length and scope can contain concerns of a magnitude that a shorter poem cannot address. The poet may see himself or herself as the "bearer of the light," to use Langston Hughes' term, who leads the journey through a culture's story, or as the one who makes known the light already within the tribe. The poet may also serve as a poet-prophet with special insight for their own tribe.In Modern and Contemporary long poems the "tale of the tribe" has frequently been retold by culturally, economically, and socially marginalized persons. Thus, pseudo-epic narratives, such as Derek Walcott's "Omeros," have emerged to occupy voids where post-colonial persons, racially oppressed persons, women, and other people who have been ignored by classic epics, and denied a voice in the prestigious genre.
Revisionary mythopoesis
Various poets have undertaken a "revisionary mythopoesis" in the long poem genre. Since the genre has roots in forms that traditionally exclude poets who have minimal cultural authority, the long poem can be a "fundamental revision," and function as a discourse for those poets. These "re-visions" may include neglected characters, deflation of traditionally celebrated characters, and a general reworking of standards set by the literary tradition. This revision is noted especially by feminist critical work that analyzes how women are given a new voice and story through the transformation of a previously "masculine" form.Cultural commentary
Lynn Keller notes that the long poem enabled modernists to include sociological, anthropological, and historical material. Many long poems deal with history not in the revisionary sense but as a simple re-telling in order to prove a point. Then there are those who go a step further and recite a place's or people's history in order to teach. Like revisionary mythopoesis, they may attempt to make a point or demonstrate a new perspective by exaggerating or editing certain parts of history.Concerns and controversies
Writer's problem
Long poem authors sometimes find great difficulty in making the entire poem coherent and/or deciding on a way to end it or wrap it up. Fear of failure is also a common concern, that perhaps the poem will not have as great an impact as intended. Since many long poems take the author's lifetime to complete, this concern is especially troubling to anyone who attempts the long poem. Ezra Pound is an example of this dilemma, with his poem The Cantos. As the long poem's roots lie in the epic, authors of the long poem often feel an intense pressure to make their long poems the defining literature of the national identity or the shared identity of a large group of people. The American long poem is under pressure from its European predecessors, revealing a special variety of this anxiety. Walt Whitman achieved this idea of characterizing the American identity in Song of Myself. Thus, when the author feels that their work fails to reach such a caliber or catalyze a change within the intended audience, they might consider the poem a failure as a whole.Poets attempting to write a long poem often struggle to find the right form or combination of forms to use. Since the long poem itself cannot be strictly defined by one certain form, a challenge lies in choosing the most effective form.
Generic conundrums
Lyric intensity
Some critics, most emphatically Edgar Allan Poe, consider poetry as a whole to be more closely tied to the lyric. They complain that the emotional intensity involved within a lyric is impossible to maintain in the length of the long poem, thus rendering the long poem impossible or inherently a failure.In his article "The long poem: sequence or consequence?" Ted Weiss quotes a passage from M. L. Rozenthal and Sally M. Gall's "The Modern Poetic Sequence" inspired by Poe's sentiments, "What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones.... It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating, the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal-necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the Paradise Lost is essentially prose—a succession of poetical excitements interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions—the whole being deprived, through the extremities of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity, of effect. In short, a poem to be truly a poem should not exceed a half hour's reading. In any case, no unified long poem is possible."
Naming and subgenres
Critic Lynn Keller also expresses concerns about the genre in her essay "Pushing the Limits". Keller states that because of the debate over and prevalence of subgenres and forms within the overarching genre of long poem, critics and readers tend to choose one subgenre, typically the epic form, as being the "authentic" representative form of the genre. Therefore, this causes the other equally important subgenres to be subject to criticism for not adhering to the more "authentic" form of long poem. Other critics of the long poem sometimes hold the belief that with long poems, there is no "middle ground." They view long poems as ultimately being either epics or lyrics.Many critics refer to the long poem by various adjective-filled subgenre names that often are made of various components found within the poem. These can lead to confusion about what a long poem is exactly. Below you will find a list describing the most common subgenre categories.
Advantages of the genre
The long poem genre has several advantages over prose and strictly lyric poetry. The most obvious difference between the long poem and other literary genres is the sheer difficulty of composing a long work entirely in verse. Poets who undertake the long poem face the serious problem of creating a work that is consistently poetic, sometimes taking strict forms and carrying them through the whole poem. However, the poets who do choose the long poem turn this liability into an advantage—if a poet can write a long poem, they prove themselves to be worthy. The very difficulty gives the genre an implicit prestige. Long poems have been among the most influential texts in the world since Homer. By writing a long poem, a poet participates in this tradition and must prove their virtuosity by living up to the tradition. As discussed below, the traditionally difficult long poem's prestige can be revised to serve radical purposes.Additional benefits of the long poem:
- The long poem provides the artist with a greater space to create great meaning.
- A long poem allows the author to be encyclopedic in their treatment of the world, as opposed to the potentially narrow focus of the lyric.
- A long poem poet can work on a long poem their entire life, weaving in their impressions gleaned from the span of several generations ; it can be an ongoing work.
- A long poem can encapsulate not just traditional poetry, but incorporate dialogue, prose passages, and even scripting.
- A reader can absorb an entire world view from a long poem.
Female authors in the genre