Overview
This lecture explores lyric poetry, defining its characteristics, historical development, main forms, essential elements, and providing notable examples and related song lyrics.
Lyric Poetry: Definition and Origins
- Lyric poetry expresses personal, often intense emotions without telling a story or narrative.
- The term "lyric" comes from the lyre, an instrument used in ancient Greek performances.
- Lyric poems are usually brief and written in the first person, emphasizing feelings over events.
- Aristotle distinguished lyric poetry from epic (which is cultural and long) and dramatic (story-driven but emotional).
Historical Development
- Ancient Greeks and Romans performed lyric poetry with musical instruments.
- China’s "The Book of Songs" contains early lyric poetry about daily life and emotions.
- Forms like the ghazal (Arabia), troubadour songs (Europe), and sonnet (Italy, later England) shaped lyric poetry’s evolution.
- Lyric poetry’s popularity has fluctuated, peaking with confessional poets in the mid-20th century.
Types of Lyric Poetry
- Elegy: Laments loss and explores grief, often structured in quatrains and iambic pentameter.
- Sonnet: 14 rhymed lines, usually with a turn or shift in tone, often on love.
- Ode: Praises a person, place, or thing sincerely and reverently.
- Ghazal: Composed of standalone couplets, usually featuring the poet’s name.
- Sestina: Seven unrhymed, fixed-verse stanzas with repeated end-words.
- Villanelle: Features repeated lines and rhyme schemes (e.g., ABA, ABAA).
- Pantoum: Interlocking quatrains with ABAB rhyme and repeating lines.
- Japanese Forms: Haiku (nature snapshot, little emotion) and tanka (emotional expression between lovers).
- Dramatic Monologue: Speaker addresses a listener, bordering lyric and dramatic forms.
Elements of Lyric Poetry
- Structural: Rhyme and meter (patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables).
- Performative: Verses, choruses, and refrains, especially in song lyrics.
- Literary Devices:
- Metaphor (comparing unlike things to convey feeling)
- First-person point of view (personal perspective)
- Confessional writing (deeply personal revelation)
- Dramatic irony (reader knows more than the speaker appears to).
Song Lyrics as Lyric Poetry
- Many song lyrics use metaphors, confessional tone, and personal emotion as in classic lyric poetry.
- Examples: Drake ("Little Bit"), Macy Gray ("I Try"), Elton John ("The Last Song").
Examples of Lyric Poetry
- Ocean Vuong’s "Toy Boat" uses brief lines and elegiac tone.
- Randall Mann’s "The Mortician in San Francisco" uses sestina form and eulogy.
- Margaret Walker’s "Love Song for Alex, 1979" is a sonnet about enduring love.
- Sappho’s Fragment 31 uses metaphor and enjambment to express intense attraction.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Lyric poetry — Poetry expressing personal emotion rather than a story.
- Elegy — Lamenting poem about loss.
- Sonnet — 14-line poem with a turn.
- Ode — Poem praising its subject.
- Ghazal — Poem of couplets, often with poet’s name.
- Sestina — Poem with repeated end-words.
- Villanelle — Poem with repeated lines and rhyme.
- Pantoum — Poem with interlocking repeated lines.
- Meter — Pattern of stressed/unstressed syllables.
- Rhyme scheme — Pattern of rhyming words at line ends.
- Metaphor — Comparing two unlike things for effect.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Read examples of lyric poetry mentioned (Vuong, Mann, Walker, Sappho).
- Review definitions of different lyric forms and their structures.
- Consider the use of personal emotion and literary devices in your own writing.