It is a short musical composition of Greek origin. It is sung by a single singer to the accompaniment of a lyre. It expresses a single emotion of love, appreciation of beauty, surprise, grief. Therefore, a lyric appeals more to the heart than to the intellect. Edgar Allan Poe, an American poet, says that a long lyric is not possible. This is not possible because "that degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so-called at all, cannot be sustained through a composition of any great length." It turns on some single thought, feeling, or situation which flashes swiftly across a poet's mind. The words, accents, and sounds were so arranged in a lyric that it remained musical without the help of any external aid. A lyric must have three basic characteristics :
(i) It must be a short form.
(ii) It must have a musical quality.
(iii) It must express any one single emotion.
(D) The Idyll
Theocritus, a Greek poet, wrote the short poems called Idylls on a variety of themes such as country and town life along with the rustic pleasures and beautiful country scene as realistically or pictorially as possible: Often the idylls took the form of pastorals painting the simple life and pleasures of Shepherds and Shepherdesses tending their sheep and goats. Virgil, a Roman poet, also adopted the same form in his Eclogues or Bucolics. The Idylls of Theocritus and Virgil became popular in England and a large number of poets in England wrote idylls during the Renaissance.
(E) The Pastoral
The Pastoral and the Idyll originated from the small rural poems of Theocritus, the Greek poet of the Third Century B.C. Later, Virgil imitated Theocritus in his Latin Eclogues and established the enduring model for the traditional pastoral. In Latin, the word 'Pastor' means 'Shepherd'. So, a 'Pastoral' drama or poem deals with the life and doings of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, farmers and thatchers, and others who live in the lap of nature. A feeling for the charms of nature, an appreciation of the simplicity of life are the very essence of a pastoral drama.
With the advance of urban civilization, the blessed pastoral life became a lost world. "Classical poets often described pastoral life in terms of the last Golden Age." In the Renaissance period,
the traditional pastoral was also adapted to satirical and allegorical uses Spenser's 'Shepherd's Calendar is the most representative pastoral poem, embodying all the forms and varieties of pastoral
poetry of the Renaissance period.
Pastoral poetry became very popular in the Elizabethan age. Subsequently, not only the poems but plays and novels were also written in pastoral garb. Marlowe's Pastoral. lyric 'The Passionate Shepherd to His love is a superb example of its type. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a long pastoral romance written in very artful prose.
Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' and Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess' are remarkable pastoral plays. Thomas Lodge's 'Rosalynde' is also set in the Forest of Arden, a green refuge from the artificial courtly life. Equally important pastorals are Pope's "Pastorals', John Gay's 'Shepherd's Week', and Wordsworth's Michael, a pastoral poem.
OBJECTIVE TYPE OF QUESTIONS
1.Which of the following poems of Spenser is a pastoral?
(a) Epithalamion
(b) Astrophel
(c) The Shepherd's Calendar
(d) Amoretti
2.In As you like it, the name of the beautiful pastoral forest is :
(a) The Forest of Arcadia
(b) The Forest of Touchstone and Phebe
(c) The Forest of Windsor
(d) The Forest of Arden
3.Elizabethan lyrics are unrivaled for their word music and :
(a) Impersonal objective
(b) Intellectual quality
(C) Verbal melody
(d) Tragic effect
4.A lyric is meant to be sung by a single singer to the accompaniment of a :
(a) Lier
(b) Lair
(c) Lyre
(d) Lear
5. Name the writer of the famous lyrical poem L' Allegro?
(a) William Collins
(b) Milton
(c) Donne
(d) Robert Burns
6."When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain."
Whose popular lines are these ?
(a) Byron's
(b) Chatterton's
(c) Shelley's
(d) Keats's
7."Others abide our question-Thou art free ! We ask and ask : Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge !" Who does Matthew Arnold refer to in this poem ?
(a) Shakespeare
(b) Dryden
(c) Spenser
(d) Chaucer
8."The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more These are the concluding lines of a poem by Wordsworth. Which poem ?
(a) To the Cuckoo
(b) The Solitary Reaper
(c) The Daffodils
(d) The World is Too Much With Us
9.The Seasons is a long pastoral poem. Who is its writer ?
(a) Sidney
(b) Robert Herrick
(c) James Thomson
(d) Spenser
10. Eclogues or Bucolics is written by the Roman Poet :
(a) Leonardo
(b) Cowley
(c) Rodrigues
(d) Virgil
11. "For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crost the bar."These lines are quoted from Crossing the Bar by Tennyson. Who is the 'Pilotť in these lines ?
(a) Christianity
(b) Heaven
(c) Reward for noble deeds in this life
(d) God
12. John Donne, the renowned lyricist, belonged to :
(a) The Augustan Age
(b) The Romantic Age
(c) The Elizabethan Age
(d) The Pre-Romantic Age
13. A famous lyric opens with the following line :"Drink to me only with thine eyes.'
Who is the writer of this song ?
(a) Ben Jonson
(b) Marlowe
(c) John Donne
(d) Shakespeare
14. What kind of poem is Milton's Lycidas?
(a Lyric
(b) Epic
(c) Elegy
(d) Ode
15. Who is Alpheus in the words of Shelley whenhe says ?"Then Alpheus bold on his Glacier cold withhis trident the mountain struck" ?
(a) A Greek God
(b) A River in Arcadia
(c) A Roman chief
(c) A Mountain
16. Who has written the mystical poem Brahma ?
(a) William Barnes
(b) R.W. Emerson
(c) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(d) Thomas Hood
17: "O World ! O Life ! O Time !
On whose last steps I climb."
Who has written these popular lines ?
(a) Shakespeare
(b) Keats
(c) Arnold
(d) Shelley
18. "She lived unknown, and few could knowWhen Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
Who was Lucy about whom Wordsworth wrote five béautiful poems ?
(a) She was a real girl whom Wordsworth
loved and who died very young
(b) She was the daughter of his friend
Coleridge
(c) She was only an imaginary girl
(d) She was Wodsworth's classmate in school days
19. "Smiling they live, and call life pleasure-
To me that cup has been dealt in another
measure."
From which of Shelley's poems have these lines been quoted ?
(a) Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples
(b) Ozymandias
(c) Love's Philosophy
(d) A Lament
20. "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made."
These lines are quoted from W.B. Yeast's poem The lake Isle of Innisfree. Where is Innisfree ?
(a) It is a real island near the coast of France
(b)It is a real island near Ireland
(c) It symbolises England
(d) It is only an imaginary island
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