Overview

Lyric, traditionally grouped since Aristotle’s Poeticswith narrative and drama as one of the three main literary kinds or genres, hasbeen the subject of much definitional head scratching. As Scott Brewster notesat the start of a discussion which considers the many difficulties in arrivingat a single, clear-cut sense of the word, ‘the term derives from theGreek word lurikos (“for the lyre”)’, andits associations with music and with the expression of strong feeling, in astructure considerably briefer for the most part than plays or narrative poems,are at the centre of this chapter’s re-consideration of the form. Lyriccan co-exist with other forms and can emerge from narrative poetry, as in‘Tears, Idle Tears’ sung in the midst of Tennyson’sThe Princess (1847), or it can contribute to a drama, as inFeste’s songs in Twelfth Night; it can sustain, as inJohn Berryman’s Dream Songs (first group published 1964)or Tennyson’s In Memoriam, much longer structures, whoseessential unit is the short poem (as will be discussed in the final section ofthe chapter); it can overlap with forms such as elegy or, rather, elegy can be apoetic form that participates in the generic nature of lyric.