Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry

Origin:

           

        Lyric is one of the oldest forms of literature. It originated in ancient Greece with two characteristic,

1. It is an expression of single emotion

2. It is a musical composition.

        

        The word 'Lyric' comes from the word 'Lyre'. It was sung to the addition of lyre. The history of English lyric is very long. The Elizabethan poets were master of the art of lyrical poetry. Now lyric were no more sung with musical instrument in public. It became literary art for poets.

Definitions

According to Oxford dictionary Lyric is,

"The name for a short poem usually divided into stanzas and directly expressing the poet's own thoughts or sentiments"

"A musical thought" - Carlyle

"The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" - Wordsworth

"The rhythmic creation of brevity" - Poe

           It speaks the language of soul. It is an impassioned (emotional) speech. The basic quality of lyric is feeling rather than thought. It should be noticed that all lyrical poems are not suitable for singing. It is a short poem about feelings, an emotion, or a single idea.

Subject:

        Lyric appears more to the heart than to the intellect. It appeals to the intellect through heart. Therefore the subjects of Lyrical poetry have remained the same for ages - Love, Death, God, the beauty of nature etc.

        Love has been the favourite, the love between man and woman, likewise the love of man for God, men's love for beauty of the nature. On the other hand dark subjects like hatred, fear, grief, and death have also inspired poets. Subjectivity and briefness are the two essential features of lyric.

        There are four different poetic methods of lyrical poetry. These methods may be called direct, intellectual, formal, and musical. The lyric of romantic poets like Wordsworth, Scott, Shelly, Keats, Byron are the examples of direct types of lyric, they express poet's own feeling in the shortest and simplest form. They are easy to read and understand, but difficult to write.

 Characteristics:

1) A lyric turns on some single thought situation or feeling

2) It is characterized by brevity and rapidity of thought.

3) It is subjective

4) A good lyric sings and dances in the mind of readers, this happens because of its rhythm and rhyme

5) It is a poetic cry for the heart - of joy, sorrow.

6) A good lyric has generally three parts. In the first there is an emotional stimulation (motivation - inspiration), in the second, the emotion is developed to its almost capacity. In the third, the emotion is finally resolved into a thought or attitude.

The subjectivity of lyric:

      

        When we say that a lyric is subjective or personal, we do not mean that it is necessarily autobiographical. The poet, like other artists is capable for entering into the experiences of other people. Poets make the experiences of others to their own.

      

       English literature has a long history of lyric poets, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Shelly, Keats, Blake, Burns, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Tennyson, Hardy, Brooke and lots of others.

Types of Lyric:

       There are four quite different poetic methods. They have been widely used by English lyrical and reflective poets.

1) Direct lyrics:

      These types of lyrics are very simple. They give us poet's experience and the feeling connected with it. In the simplest and shortest form, they are easy to read and understand but difficult to write. They seem to come directly from the heart of the writer and to go straight to the heart of the reader. But this simplicity requires a great deal of deep thought by the poet. Wordsworth's 'Rainbow' and Robert Burn's 'Red Rose', are the best example of direct types of lyrics.

2) Intellectual lyrics:

      All good lyrical poets are not simple, some of them are highly intellect and complicated. They can be understood after several readings and poetry of this kind is not 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings' but 'powerful feelings' are 'recollected in tranquillity'. To put these feelings in proper order and expression quietness is necessary. Metaphysical poetry is a kind of these lyrics.

     

      Metaphysical poetry is difficult. Dr. Johnson gave the name "metaphysical" to a school of poets in which John Donne. Sex, love, and religion were their subjects. They were revolutionary poets.

3) Formal lyrics:

       

      Every writer has his own way of writing and that's why he can use different forms of lyric. He can write in the form of an ode, a ballad, or a sonnet. Formal is related with forms and form is all about technical skill. The poem is composed to a set of rules. In this method poet experiments lyrics with different types of forms.

4) Musical lyrics:

      

      All poetry ought to have some musical qualities, but there are some poems in which sound is as important as sense. Sometimes the sound is carefully planned to add the sense through 'Onomatopoeia'. In this the words and the sounds are the same. For example - Cuckoo, Tennyson's 'Break, Break, Break'

      

     There are wide divisions of four types of lyrical poetry - direct, metaphysical - intellectual, formal and musical. But they are not ever fixed. Even the simplest direct lyric for example must also have some formal quality; otherwise it could not be a poem at all.

     

      The lyric appears to be very simple but it is not able to understand easily. It comes from the vibrations of the soul. It is written in an artistic mood of mind. It is the 'happiest expression of happiest moment of life'. It is in this state of mind the poet catch the inspiration, his mind starts singing immediately and the result is a good lyric. Shelly has aptly described it as 'an unpremeditated art', so much so that poet himself is surprised by his own composition.