Lyric Poetry: Expressing Emotion through Verse

What Is a Lyric Poem?

A lyric poem is a short, emotionally expressive poem with a songlike quality that is narrated in
the first person. Unlike narrative poetry, which recounts events and tells a story, lyric poetry
explores the emotions of the speaker of the poem. Lyric poetry originated in ancient Greek
literature and was originally intended to be set to music, accompanied by a musical instrument
called a lyre, which resembles a small harp. Lyric poetry traditionally follows strict formal
rules, but because there have been many different types of lyric poetry over centuries, there are
now various different forms of lyric poetry.

Key Takeways: Lyric Poetry

 A lyric poem is a private expression of emotion by an individual speaker.

 Lyric poetry is highly musical and can feature poetic devices like rhyme and meter.
 Some scholars categorize lyric poetry in three subtypes: Lyric of Vision, Lyric of
Thought, and Lyric of Emotion. However, this classification is not widely agreed upon.

What Are the Origins of Lyric Poetry?

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle created three distinctions of poetry: lyrical, dramatic, and
epic. The lyric poem, in ancient Greece, was specifically meant to be accompanied by music
from a lyre. The Greek poet Pindar was one of the first famous lyric poets. When Romans
translated lyric poetry to Latin in the classical period, and the poems came to be recited and not
sung, the meter and structure of the poems remained. In Europe, during the Renaissance, poets
created lyric poetry with influence from ancient Greece, Persia, and China.

In the sixteenth century, William Shakespeare popularized lyric poetry in England. It remained
dominant in the seventeenth century thanks to poets like Robert Herrick, and later, in the
nineteenth century, through the work of poets including Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and
later on in the century, Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Lyric poetry only began to go out of style with the arrival of modernist poets like Ezra Pound,
T. S. Eliot, and William Carlos Williams, who questioned its relevance and rebelled against its
constraints.

Types of Lyric Poetry

Of the three main categories of poetry—narrative, dramatic, and lyric—lyric is the most
common, and also the most difficult to classify. Narrative poems tell stories. Dramatic poetry is a
play written in verse. Lyric poetry, however, encompasses a wide range of forms and
approaches.

Nearly any experience or phenomenon can be explored in the emotional, personal lyric mode,
from war and patriotism to love and art.
Lyric poetry also has no prescribed form. Sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus, and pantoums are all
considered lyric poems. So are elegies, odes, and most occasional (or ceremonial) poems. When
composed in free verse, lyric poetry achieves musicality through literary devices such
as alliteration, assonance, and anaphora.

Each of the following examples illustrates an approach to lyric poetry.

William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much With Us"

The English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) famously said that poetry is "the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility." In "The World Is Too Much with Us," his passion is evident in blunt exclamatory
statements such as "a sordid boon!" Wordsworth condemns materialism and alienation from
nature, as this section of the poem illustrates.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"

Although "The World Is Too Much with Us" feels spontaneous, it was clearly composed with
care ("recollected in tranquility"). A Petrarchan sonnet, the complete poem has 14 lines with a
prescribed rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, and arrangement of ideas. In this musical form,
Wordsworth expressed personal outrage over the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

Christina Rossetti, "A Dirge"

British poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) composed "A Dirge" in rhyming couplets. The
consistent meter and rhyme create the effect of a burial march. The lines grow progressively
shorter, reflecting the speaker's sense of loss, as this selection from the poem illustrates.

"Why were you born when the snow was falling? 

You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling, 

Or when grapes are green in the cluster, 

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster 

For their far off flying 

From summer dying." 

Using deceptively simple language, Rossetti laments an untimely death. The poem is an elegy,
but Rossetti does not tell us who died. Instead, she speaks figuratively, comparing the span of a
human life to the changing seasons.

Read the Poem below and write an appreciation.

LOVE, a child, is ever crying;

Please him, and he straight is flying;
Give him, he the more is craving,
Never satisfied with having.
His desires have no measure;
Endless folly is his treasure;
What he promiseth he breaketh;
Trust not one word that he speaketh.
He vows nothing but false matter;
And to cozen you will flatter;
Let him gain the hand, he’ll leave you
And still glory to deceive you.
He will triumph in your wailing;
And yet cause be of your failing:
These his virtues are, and slighter
Are his gifts, his favours lighter.
Feathers are as firm in staying;
Wolves no fiercer in their preying;
As a child then, leave him crying;
Nor seek him so given to flying.