Discuss the literary tradition of narrative poetry, placing “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” within that tradition. Compare and contrast “The Pied Piper” and “The Mayor” in the narrative poem “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”.

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Discuss the literary tradition of narrative poetry, placing “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” within that tradition. Compare and contrast “The Pied Piper” and “The Mayor” in the narrative poem “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”. Discuss the morality of The Pied Piper’s actions 

In this essay I am going to look, at the literary traditions of Narrative poetry. I am going to look at the Pied Piper of Hamelin in this context and I am going to compare and contrast the two main characters in this poem and I will discuss the morality of the Pied Piper’s actions.

Narrative poetry is poetry that tells  a story about anything from, The Pipe Piper of Hamelin, to The ‘Green Eye or the Little Yellow God’. They were stories that were written for simple people, and not many people could read, or write, so the only way for news and stories to travel were by wondering minstrels. Who wrote ballads for people. They used simple and strong rhymes, rhythm, repetition and word choice. Most ballad were written in four line stanzas, for easy rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. Professional minstrels. They were a present to the people at all sorts of venues, like wakes, markets, feasts, fairs, town meeting, etc, where people would hear about the latest news and stories.

People then took it upon themselves to learn the ballad off by heart. They were then passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. But they only passed it down from word of mouth from the 14th century to the 16th century, this was because in about 1920 the printing press was invented. This is when poets could print their poems on broadside sheets. This shows that the Pied Piper of Hamelin is a narrative poem because minstrels, only printed poems that tell stories i.e. narrative poetry.

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The Pied Piper’s physical appearance can be describe as “the strangest figure,” ( line 56)because of what he wore “ His queer long coat from heel to head was half of yellow and half of red,” (lines 57 to 58) and “ a scarf of red and yellow stripe, to match with his coat of the self same cheque; and at the scarf’s end hung a pipe.” ( lines 81 to 83 ) This shows that he was not from Hamelin, because on line 25 it says that people wore ermine gowns and things that are plain “ to ...

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