Lyric poetry is often defined as any short poem with one speaker (the speaker does not necessarily have to be the author) that expresses personal thoughts and feelings. It is one of the three main types of poetry, the other two being dramatic and narrative.
The word Lyric comes from lyre, the name of a harp-like instrument played by the ancient Greeks during the recital of their shorter poems. For this reason, a lyric poem should have the ability to flow with or without music.
Lyric poetry is made of two main groups: elegy and ode.
An elegy is a poem of mourning or reflection on the death of an individual. An ode is a serious or thoughtful poem, usually with a formal structure. Both elegies and odes can be sub-divided into several different forms of poetry.
An Elegy is written in elegiac couplets, most often composed as a lament for a deceased person (A couplet is a pair of lines of verse. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter) (Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry). An elegy has no set structure and can be written in any form such as a sonnet.
The ode is a serious, elaborate lyric full of high praise and noble feeling. It normally carries an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure. An ode usually aims at loftier thought, more dignified expression, and more intricate formal structure than most lyrics. Another characteristic of odes is that they are often addressed to someone or something. The ode was originally a Greek form used in dramatic poetry, in which a chorus would follow the movements of a dance while singing the words of the ode. Those odes often celebrated a public occasion of consequence, such as a military victory.
There are two main types of odes:
Irregular odes: have no set rhyme scheme and no set stanza pattern.
Horatian odes: follow a regular stanza pattern and rhyme scheme (see the ode “Autumn,” by John Keats)
To Autumn by John Keats wrote: 1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Today, almost all short poems are considered lyric poetry; the shortest form being the Japanese Haiku (Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 Japanese on (a phonetic unit identical to the mora) or syllables, in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively, and typically containing a kigo, or seasonal reference. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to equate to the Japanese haiku's three metrical phrases).
The sonnet is the most popular form of Lyric poetry. A sonnet is a poem consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter (pentameter is a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet). Iambic pentameter is the most common meter in English and German verse. It consists of a line ten syllables long that is accented on every second beat. To speak, it is the iambic foot, which is an unstressed syllable followed a stressed syllable (as in rěpeaṫ). William Shakespeare is famous for his well-structured sonnets.
William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” wrote:
Ĭn sóoth,/Ĭ knów/nŏt whý/Ĭ ám/sŏ sád.
Ĭt wéa/riĕs mé;/yŏu sáy/ĭt wéa/riĕs yóu....
There are two types of Sonnets; the Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet, and the Shakespearan (English or Elizabethan) Sonnet.
The Italian Sonnet has two parts: an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines), usually rhyming with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba, cdecde. Often a question is raised in the octave and answered in the sestet.
The English, sonnet consists of three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet (A quatrain is a poem, or a stanza within a poem, that consists always of four lines). The rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Usually the question or theme is set forth in the quatrains and while the answer or resolution appears in the final couplet.
A ballad is a poem that is usually set to music. It is the most basic form of lyric poetry that can range from structured verse to free verse. It usually has foreshortened, alternating four-stress lines, and simple repeating lines, often coupled with refrain. A poem written with ballad meter has stanzas of four iambic lines (An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry). Ballad meter is often less regular and more conversational than common meter and does not necessarily rhyme on both sets of lines. Only the second and fourth lines must rhyme in ballad meter in the following pattern: a-b-x-b. Often, Myths and fairytales are told as ballads.
The villanelle is known as one of the most difficult types of Lyric poetry. The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains (refrain is the repetition of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals, especially at the end of each stanza). The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain (A tercet is three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or complete poem. Haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem.). The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's two concluding lines. Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1- b- A2 / a- b- A1 / a- b- A2 / a- b- A1 / a- b- A2 / a- b- A1- A2.
Do not gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (Villanelle) wrote:Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Lyric poetry is often made up of several forms. A common feature in all lyrical forms is the refrain. The refrain is one or several lines that end or follow a strophe. (Strophe is a concept in versification which properly means a turn, as from one foot to another, or from one side of a chorus to the other) The refrain is then repeated throughout the poem, either exact or with a slight variation.
In some cases, the form and theme of lyric poetry inter wed with other forms of poetry. However, it is just as common for the form and theme to be opposites, which brings the readers interest on whether the poet can successfully bridge a union between the two.
Rhyme is one of the most important factors of lyric poetry. Rhyme has multiple functions; aside from being enjoyed simply as a repeating pattern that is pleasant to hear, it also serves as a powerful mnemonic device, facilitating memorization. It accompanies meter, which helps to give the overall short, or long, flow to the poem. It is the correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse and is often defined as the
Most often, Lyric poems are not free verse. They are often structured, preferably to rhyme.
Dr. Hitesh Sheth once said regarding Lyric poetry: “Poem without rhyme is the greatest crime.”
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