Lyric
Lyric
In the most common use, as well as in the modern sense, the term lyric means any fairly short poem expressing the personal mood, feeling, or meditation of a single speaker who may or may not be the poet himself.
Apollo Seated With Lyre
Source: https://www.arthistoryproject.com/timeline/the-ancient-world/greece/apollo-seated-with-lyre/
In ancient Greece, a lyric was a song to be sung on a lyre. A lyre is a small harp-like musical instrument used especially in the ancient Greece. Some of these lyrics were also sung by a chorus. They were choral lyric such as a dirge (a song of lamentation in mourning for someone’s death) or hymn (a song of praise for a divine or respectful being).
In the modern sense, as in vogue since the Renaissance, the term lyric refers to a song-like quality of a poem. Lyric poetry is the most extensive and the broadest category of verse, especially after the decline of other principle kinds (narrative and dramatic), since the 19th century.
Lyrics may be composed on almost any meter and on almost every subject. However, the most usual emotions presented in lyrics are those of love or grief. The most common lyric forms are the sonnet, ode, haiku, and the more personal types of hymns.
In short, we can say that lyricism is the emotional or song-like quality—the lyrical property of lyric poetry. A writer of a lyric poem may be called a lyric poet, a lyricist, or a lyrist.
Some most popular examples of lyric poems are John Donne’s Canonization, Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey, Robert Burn’s A Red, Red Rose, Andrew Marvels To His Coy Mistress, Shakespeare’s sonnet no. 18, 116, Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Milton’s L’ Allegro and Il Penseroso, Arnold’s Dover Beach, W.B. Yeats Sailing to Byzantium, etc.
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