1. Lyrical Poetry

2. A Brief History of Lyrical Form  Dates back as far as Classical Greece  Composed to be recited to the sounds of the lyre, flute, or other instrument.  Song-like origins are central to an understanding of this type of poetry.  They concern great ideas and the histories of peoples and countries.  Examples: The heroic narratives of epic poetry, such as Beowulf or Homer's Odyssey and Illiad

3. Lyrical…  Lyrical refers to certain intangible qualities in an art form—emotional, melodic, harmonious, rhythmic, heartfelt.  The term lyric or lyrical applies to music compositions, paintings, architecture, and other works of art in addition to poetry and prose.  Keep your eyes and ears open and see if these works sing to you in some way. What are they saying? Do they leave you with a single impression that you can put into words, or even one word?

4. Lyrics are…  Honest and direct  An emotional outpouring from the poet's heart  Spontaneous  Very human  Conversational  Simple, yet very moving  Emotional responses to an event  Reflective, trying to make sense of an experience and applying it to a broader field of life.  Almost always, create a pulse of a deep river of feeling.

5. Lyrics are…  Subjective, but can certainly touch on some of the great themes of life:  love  death,  war  loss  identity  loneliness  friendship  Nature  spirituality  meaning, and purpose.  However, in the lyric realm, expect to find insights regarding these great themes, not lengthy arguments or dramatic events.

6. Lyrics Are Not…  Intended to impress with erudition  Overly clever  Comprised of an elaborate construction of intellectual or poetic conceits.

7. Format  Definitive stanzas  Identifiable rhyme scheme  Identifiable meter  Focuses more on feelings than plot

8. Classifying Lyrical Poetry: Content  1. Content: what is the poem about?  Some of the most frequent kinds of lyric poems can be identified by content  The love poem  The aubade (a dawn poem in which one of the lovers is woken by the sun)  The nocturne ( a night scene)  The pastoral (a poem spoken by a shepard or a poem about the countryside)  The elegy (a poem mourning death)  The epithalamion (celebrating a wedding)  The prayer  The autobiography  The flower poem  The sea poem  The birthday poem

9. Classifying Lyrical Poetry: Speech Acts  Manner of expression (how are they told rather than what they are about)  Apology  Apostrophe (addressing someone of something that is not present)  Declaration  Boast  Command  Interrogation  Description  Hypothesis  Rebuttal  Meditation  Confession

10. Classifying Lyrical Poetry: Form (obviously)  Meter  Rhyme  Images  Diction  Rhythm  Narration (your narratology comes back)  Stanza form  Line width  Poem length  Sentences (pay attention to tenses)  Enjambment

11. Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds about the sky, And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind. Read the lyrical poem and classify the content, speech act and one aspect of form.

12. Why would a poet choose to utilize the lyrical form? Rather than a sonnet?