Different Forms Of Rap And Rap By Edgar Allen Poe

Poetry and rap, two literary works that can be very different, yet they are extremely similar. Poetry is a literary work that may use rhyme, which expresses feelings or ideas in a distinctive style. Rap is a literary work that always uses rhyme, which expresses feelings or ideas in a distinctive style. Poetry however, came first and greatly influenced early rap and still influences rap and rappers today. Because of poetry, rap is what it is today. This is not to say however that some forms of rap are as similar to poetry as other forms of rap. Edgar Allen Poe is much more similar to the artist Kendrick Lamar than Poe is to someone such as Tyga. According to Merriam-Webster, poetry is defined as “Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative …show more content…
One of the greatest stories in rap is Eminem’s song “Stan”. This song tells the story of a man named Stan. Stan is depressed and has issues, many of which are mental. He is depressed, but the pictures of Eminem on Stan’s wall remind him that things are not all that bad. That is referenced in the use of the line “And even if I could it’ll all be gray, but your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it’s not so bad, it’s not so bad.” (Eminem) Throughout the song, Stan wrote letters to Eminem talking about Stan’s life. One major thing that follows through all of these letters is that Stan refers to Eminem as Slim. This shows how Stan cannot differentiate from what is real and what is not and it shows how delusional Stan is. Throughout each of the letters, Stan’s anger builds and builds because Eminem does not write him back. This leads to Stan killing himself and his wife by driving off of a bridge. Then Eminem finally wrote Stan back and at the end of Eminem’s letter he realizes that it was too late to help Stan. This entire song is a message to Eminem’s fans. Eminem is telling his fans not to look up to him, he is a normal person with problems just like everyone else. While the purpose and meaning of the story is different, Eminem’s Stan is like how Edgar Allan Poe told his story “The Raven.” They both open and already let the listener know what the story is going to be about, and it builds until a dramatic …show more content…
Most rap follows the instrumental music, or the “beat,” while poetry relies on the words spoken to give the rhythm. Sometimes rappers will use poetic means for rhythm though. One example of this is Eminem’s song “Lose Yourself”. Eminem’s song loosely follows a method of rhythm known as iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is where there are five sets of an unstressed word and a stressed word with ten total syllables in the entire sentence. Looking at the beginning of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” the first line “His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy” (Eminem) the use of iambic pentameter can be seen. The words palms, sweaty, knees, arms, and heavy are stressed and each of the stressed words with two syllables, the second syllable is unstressed. This continues for the majority of the beginning of the rap. Someone else who also uses iambic pentameter is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter can be seen in Shakespeare’s poem “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The first two lines of Shakespeare’s poem read “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”(810) In these lines every other word is stressed however, unlike Eminem, Shakespeare stresses the beginning and end of the syllables in a repeating fashion. Shakespeare also wrote those lines with a perfect ten syllable amount, while Eminem bounces closely to ten, occasionally