The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex.
Although those examples use medieval and Arthurian materials, romances may also tell stories from classical mythology.
Sometimes, these short narratives are collected into interrelated groups, as with Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
Historically, much of poetry has its source in an oral tradition: in more recent times the Scots and English ballads, the tales of Robin Hood poems all were originally intended for recitation, rather than reading.
It has been suggested that some of the distinctive features that distinguish poetry from prose, such as metre, alliteration, and kennings, at one time served as memory aids that allowed the bards who recited traditional tales to reconstruct them from memory.