Poetry and song
The poet was not a writer back in ancient times. He became a musician, and his poems (for example, David's Psalms) were rendered with music to accompany him. Greek poets such as Sappho (6th century B.C.) sang their poems accompanied by a lyre, an instrument somewhat like a little harp. As a result, poetry that was neither epic* nor dramatic (that reflected the poet's emotions, in other words, himself) came to be called lyric.
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Ancient Greek figure of a poet playing harp.
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The Greek example was followed in Rome by poets such as Horace* and Catullus (84-54 B.C.) And in the Middle Ages, the troubadours traveled through southern Europe playing guitar-like instruments called lutes, writing of the affection they had for the courts ' high-born ladies of poetry. Minnesingers spread the custom of "wandering minstrel" to Germany and northern Europe
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Tannhäuser (left), and Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose traditional songs
sprang such song-verse forms as the "blues |
Most European poets no longer merged their poems with music with the advent of the Renaissance and the invention of printing (in the 15th century). (Some of today's younger poets have tried to reunite the arts, particularly in America, by experimenting with poetry and jazz. But their efforts have had a small influence.) The word "lyric," which once represented a single type of music, became a more inclusive concept. Now it's used to describe any poetry that reflects the intimate, private feelings and experience of the poet.
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Tannhäuser (left), and Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose traditional songs
sprang such song-verse forms as the "blues |
Notwithstanding this transition, lyrical poetry has maintained a certain standard of song, carrying over from the poet's old heritage as a musician. This consistency, coupled with a declaration of deep personal sentiment, is expressed almost perfectly in this song from a play by the English poet Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). A couple of examples below:
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair,
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die:
Lord have mercy on us.
The poet has a broad range of subjects or themes within the lyric form. Love has always been the most popular inspiration for such poetry, as with the troubadours, but faith would come a near second. The poems vary greatly, even within the boundaries of such topics. For example, religious lyrics may be as plain as many hymns, or as complicated and challenging as the contemporary poet T.S. Eliot*.
Aside from the themes of passion and faith, the lyrics vary from the rich nature poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin of Germany (1770-) to the troubling, imaginative poems of Arthur Rimbaud of France (1854-); from the contemplative poems of Robert Frost of America * to the fervently revolutionary poems of Gabriele D'Annunzio of Italy (1863-1938); from the exuberance of the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-96) to the melancholy of the French poet François Villon (1431-about 1462).
As well as poets like these, whose output was almost completely lyrical, there are the great figures who switched from other modes to the lyrical expression: dramatists like Shakespeare or Wolfgang von Goethe of Germany (1749-1832); or dramatic poets like Roman Vergil (70-19 B.C.) or Dante of Italy (*. And this is just a taste of the vast diversity of the lyrics.
The general genre of lyric contains many various literary forms; for example, the sonnet*, the ode, or the elegy. The word "ode" originates from a Greek word meaning "song" it was the name given to many ancient Greek poems, especially those of Pindar*. Yet most later odes weren't imitations of Pindar's intricate ode styles. The elegy has often been passed down from Greek and Latin poetry, and while some elegies use a meter called the "elegiac measure"-a hexameter line accompanied by a pentameter*-other elegy disobey this "rule." Instead, all odes and elegies can generally be classified partly by their intentions and partly by their moods.
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Many experiments in verse-writing have
recently been made by the so-called "Beat"
poets in America. Here, the influential San
Francisco poet Kenneth Patchen is seen
reading his verse to a jazz accompaniment. |
Odes are lengthy, dignified poems (sometimes written for public occasions), typically aimed at individuals or objects of uncommon beauty and importance: poems such as "Ode to Joy," by the German poet Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) or "Ode on a Grecian Urn," by John Keats*. Elegies, which typically express a gloomy mood, maybe the poetry of sorrow or even reflection. Of the most famous literary elegies is a set by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), entitled Elegies from the Castle of Duino.
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