Lyric

Poetry and Drama in

Language Education

Prepared by: Sulastri Manurung, S.S., M.Pd

 Introduction
Lyric is a collection of verses and choruses, making up
a complete song, or a short and non-narrative poem

The term lyric originates from the Greek word “lyre,”

which is an instrument used by the Grecians to play
when reading a poem

Lyrical poets demonstrate specific moods and

emotions through words (from extreme to nebulous,
about life, love, death, or other experiences of life).
 Types of Lyric
Ellegy
• An elegy is a mournful, sad, or
melancholic poem or a song that
expresses sorrow for someone who
has been lost, or died.
• Originally, it followed a structure
using a meter alternating six foot and
five foot lines.
• However, modern elegies do not
follow such a pattern, though the
mood of the poem remains the
same.
• Where on the deck my Captain lies,
”O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman
"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is
done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the
prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the
people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the
vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Fallen cold and dead."
 Types of Lyric
Ode
• An ode is a lyric poem that
expresses intense feelings, such as
love, respect, or praise for someone
or something.
• An ode does not follow any strict
format or structure, though it uses
refrains or repeated lines.
• It is usually longer than other lyrical
forms, and focuses on positive
moods of life
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
Thou wast not born for death, immortal
Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was
heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a
path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick
for home,
 Types of Lyric
Sonnet
• A sonnet uses fourteen lines,
and follows iambic pentameter
with five pairs of accented and
unaccented syllables.
• The structure of a sonnet, with
predetermined syllables and
rhyme scheme, makes it flow off
the tongues of readers in way
similar way to a song on the
radio.
Dramatic
Monolog
• A dramatic monologue has
theatrical quality, which means
that the poem portrays a
solitary speaker communing
with the audience, without any
dialogue coming from other
characters.
• Usually, the speaker talks to a
specific person in the poem.
 Examples of Shakespeare’s
Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds, Octave
Or bends with the remover to remove: (state a problem, ask a
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark, question, or express an
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; emotional tension)
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Sestet
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (resolve the problem,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. answer the question,
If this be error and upon me proved, or relieve the tension)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Examples of Shakespeare’s
Sonnet CXVI
 .
oshuld

Stanza
The stanza is a group of lines in a repeated
pattern, forming part of a poem. A stanza
may consist of two, three, four or sometimes
more than twelve lines. It will interest you to
know that special names have been given to
some of these stanzas
Number of Special name Number of Special name
lines lines

Two Districh Five Quintain

(couplet) Six Sestet
Three Tercet Seven Rhyme
Three Triplet Eight royal
(rhyme) Ottava rima
four quatrain (Octave)
 .

Metre
The pattern of accented (or stressed) and
unaccented (unstressed) syllables in a line. In
poetry, accent means metrical accent, that is,
the stress placed on certain syllables in a line of
poetry. A foot is a group of syllables forming a
metrical unit of between two or three syllables
 Exercise

“The World Is Too Much With Us”: William Wordsworth

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!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.
See y o u next
lesson!