Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

LYRICAL POETRY

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 181 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

LYRICAL See also:

POETRY , a See also:general See also:term for all poetry which is, or can be supposed to be, susceptible of being sung to the See also:accompaniment of a musical See also:instrument. In the earliest times it may be said that all poetry was of its essence lyrical. The primeval oracles were chanted in See also:verse, and the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries, which were celebrated at See also:Eleusis and elsewhere, combined, it is certain, See also:metre with See also:music. See also:Homer and See also:Hesiod are each of them represented with a See also:lyre, yet if any poetry can be described as non-lyrical, it is surely the archaic See also:hexameter of the Iliad and the Erga. These poems were styled epic, in See also:direct contradistinction to the lyric of See also:Pindar and See also:Bacchylides. But inexactly, since it is See also:plain that they were recited, with a plain accompaniment on a stringed instrument. However, the distinction between epical and lyrical, between Ta "em7, what was said, and Ta hX,7, what was sung, is accepted, and neither Homer nor Hesiod is among the lyrists. This distinction, however, is often without a difference, as for example, in the See also:case of the so-called See also:Hymns of Homer, epical in See also:form but wholly lyrical in See also:character. See also:Hegel, who has gone minutely into this question in his Esthetik, contends that when poetry is See also:objective it is epical, and when it is subjective it is lyrical. This is to ignore the metrical form of the poem, and to See also:deal with its character only. It would constrain us to regard See also:Wordsworth's Excursion as a lyric, and See also:Tennyson's_ Revenge (where the subject is treated exactly as one of the Homeridae would have treated an Ionian myth) as an epic. This is impossible, and recalls us to the importance of taking the form into See also:consideration.

But, with this warning, the See also:

definition of Hegel is valuable. It is, as he insists, the See also:personal thought, or See also:passion, or See also:inspiration, which gives its character to lyrical poetry. The lyric has the See also:function of revealing, in terms of pure See also:art, the secrets of the inner See also:life, its hopes, its fantastic joys, its sorrows, its See also:delirium. It is easier to exclude the dramatic See also:species from lyric than to banish the epic. There are large sections of See also:drama which it is inconceivable should be set to music, or sung, or even given in recitative. The tragedies of See also:Racine, for ex-ample, are composed of the purest poetry, but they are essentially non-lyrical, although lyrical portions are here and there attached to them. The intensity of feeling and the See also:melody of verse in Othello does not make that See also:work an example of lyrical poetry, and this is even more acutely true of Le Misanthrope, which is, nevertheless, a poem. The tendency of See also:modern drama is to See also:divide itself further and further from lyric, but in See also:early ages the two kinds were indissoluble. Tragedy was See also:goat-See also:song, and the earliest specimens of it were mainly composed of choruses. As Prof. G. G.

See also:

Murray says, in the Suppliants of See also:Aeschylus, the characters " are singing for two-thirds of the See also:play," accompanied by tumultuous music. This See also:primitive feature has gradually been worn away; the See also:chorus See also:grew less and less prominent, and disappeared; the very verse-See also:ornament of drama tends to vanish, and we have plays essentially so poetical as those of See also:Ibsen and See also:Maeterlinck written from end to end in See also:bare See also:prose. To return again to See also:Greece, there was an early distinction, soon accentuated, between the poetry chanted by a See also:choir of singers, and the song which expressed the sentiments of a single poet. The latter, the js Xos or song proper, had reached a height of technical perfection in " the Isles of Greece, where burning See also:Sappho loved and sung," as early as the 7th See also:century B.C. That poetess, and her contemporary See also:Alcaeus, divide the laurels of the pure See also:Greek song of Dorian inspiration. By their See also:side, and later, flourished the See also:great poets who set words to music for choirs, See also:Alcman, See also:Arion, See also:Stesichorus, See also:Simonides and See also:Ibycus, who Iead us at the See also:close of the 5th century to Bacchylides and Pindar, in whom the magnificent tradition of the dithyrambic odes reached its highest splendour of development. The practice of Pindar and Sappho, we may say, has directed the course of lyrical poetry ever since, and will, unquestionably, continue to do so. They discovered how, with the maximum of art, to pour forth strains of personal magic and music, whether in a public or a private way. The See also:ecstasy, the uplifted magnificence, of lyrical poetry could go no higher than it did in the unmatched harmonies of these old Greek poets, but it could fill a much wider See also:field and be expressed with vastly greater variety. It did so in their own See also:age. The gnomic verses of Theognis were certainly sung; so were the satires of See also:Archilochus and the romantic reveries of See also:Mimnermus. At the See also:Renaissance, when the traditions of See also:ancient life were taken up eagerly, and hastily comprehended, it was thought proper to divide poetry into a diversity of classes.

The earliest See also:

English critic who enters into a discussion of the See also:laws of See also:prosody, See also:William See also:Webbe, See also:lays it down, in 1586, that in verse " the most usual kinds are four, the heroic, elegiac, See also:iambic and lyric." Similar confusion of terms was See also:common among the critics of the t 5th and 16th centuries, and led to considerable See also:error. It is plain that a border ballad is heroic, and may yet be lyrical; here the word " heroic " stands for " epic." It is plain that whether a poem is lyrical or not had nothing to do with the question whether it is composed in an iambic measure. Finally, it is undoubted that the early Greek " elegies " were sung to an accompaniment on the See also:flute, whether they were warlike, like those of See also:Tyrtaeus, or philosophical and amatory like those of Theognis. But (see See also:ELEGY) the See also:present significance of " elegy," and this has been the case ever since See also:late classical times, is funereal; in modern parlance an elegy is a See also:dirge. Whether the great Alexandrian dirges, like those of See also:Bion and of See also:Moschus, on which our elegiacal tradition is founded, were actually sung to an accompaniment or not may be doubted; they seem too See also:long, too elaborate, and too ornate for that. But, at any See also:rate, they were composed on the See also:convention that they would be sung, and it is conceivable that music might have been wedded to the most complex of these Alexandrian elegies. Accordingly, although Lycidas and Adonais are not habitually " set to music," there is no See also:reason why they should not be so set, and their rounded and limited although extensive form links them with the song, not with the epic. There are many odes of See also:Swinburne's for which it would be more difficult to write music than for his See also:Ave See also:algae Vale. In fact, in spite of its See also:solemn and lugubrious regularity, the formal elegy or dirge is no more nor less than an See also:ode, and is therefore entirely lyrical. More difficulty is met with in the case of the See also:sonnet, for although no piece of verse, when it is inspired by subjective passion, fits more closely with Hegel's definition of what lyrical poetry should be, yet the rhythmical complication of the sonnet, and its rigorous uniformity, seem particularly See also:ill-fitted to See also:interpretation on a lyre. When F. M. degli Azzi put the See also:book of See also:Genesis (1700) into sonnets, and See also:Isaac de See also:Benserade the See also:Meta-morphoses of See also:Ovid (1676) into rondeaux, these See also:eccentric and laborious versifiers produced what was epical rather than lyrical poetry, if poetry it was at all.

But the sonnet as See also:

Shakespeare, Wordsworth and even See also:Petrarch used it was a cry from the See also:heart, a subjective See also:confession, and although there is perhaps no See also:evidence that a sonnet was ever set to music with success, yet there is no reason why that might not be done without destroying its sonnet-character. See also:Jouffroy was perhaps the first aesthetician to see quite clearly that lyrical poetry is, really, nothing more than another name for poetry itself, that it includes all the personal and enthusiastic See also:part of what lives and breathes in the art of verse, so that the divisions of pedantic See also:criticism are of no real avail to us in its consideration. We recognize a narrative or epical poetry; we recognize drama; in both of these, when the individual inspiration is strong, there is much that trembles on the See also:verge of the lyrical. But outside what is pure epic and pure drama, all, or almost all, is lyrical. We say almost all, because the difficultyarises of knowing where to See also:place descriptive and didactic poetry. The Seasons of See also:Thomson, for instance, a poem of high merit and lasting importance in the See also:history of literature—where is that to be placed? What is to be said of the See also:Essay on See also:Man? In primitive times, the former would have been classed under epic, the second would have been composed in the supple iambic trimeter which so closely resembled daily speech, and would not have been sharply distinguished from prose. Perhaps this See also:classification would still serve, were it not for the See also:element of versification, which makes a See also:sharp See also:line of demarcation between poetic art and prose. This complexity of form, rhythmical and stanzaic, takes much of the place which was taken in antiquity by such music as See also:Terpander is supposed to have supplied. In a perfect lyric by a modern writer the instrument is the metrical form, to which the words have to adapt themselves. There is perhaps no writer who has ever lived in whose work this phenomenon may be more fruitfully studied than it may be in the songs and lyrics of See also:Shelley.

The See also:

temper of such pieces as " See also:Arethusa " and " The See also:Cloud " is indicated by a form hardly more ambitious than a See also:guitar; Hellas is full of passages which suggest the See also:harp; in his songs Shelley touches the See also:lute or See also:viol de gamba, while in the great odes to the " See also:West See also:Wind " and to " See also:Liberty " we listen to a verse-form which reminds us by its See also:volume of the See also:organ itself. On the whole subject of the nature of lyric poetry no commentary can be more useful to the student than an examination of the lyrics of Shelley in relation to those of the song-writers of ancient Greece. See Hegel, See also:Die Phanomenologie See also:des Geistes (1807); T. S. Jouffroy, Cours d'esthitique (1843); W. See also:Christ, Metrik der Griechen and Romer, 2te. Aufl. (1879). (E.

End of Article: LYRICAL POETRY

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
LYRE (Gr. Xupa) 		[next]
LYSANDER (Gr. Abcavdpos)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries