What is the genre of Divine Comedy and The Waste Land?

Question:

What is the genre of Divine Comedy and The Waste Land?

Please be specific, dont just say poetry, I mean is it elegy, epitaph, epic, ode, etc... Please cite your sources too if possible. Thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Okay, first ignore your other respondents: they are simply wrong. In real life I am a widely published poet and know whereof I speak. Dante's "Divine Comedy" is an epic allegory written in a complex rhyme scheme called "terza rima." Eliot's "Waste Land" is a long symbolist poem--not an epic because it lacks a narrative line. Furthermore its length is pretty modest compared to standard epics. "The Waste Land " employs a variety of verse forms--notably blank verse, rhyming songs and incantations. It also displays a variety of tones --sometimes somber and formal, sometimes frivolous and jazzy, often packed with sad allusions to the works of earlier, greater writers. Because the poem brings together so many different forms and styles it can be called a collage. And that's that. So long.