Lyric poetry is the most common form of poetry; it does not tell a story as the epic and narrative forms do; the lyric poem has grown into many forms since ancient times.

Origin of Lyric Poetry

On the ancient Greek stage, a dramatic production often featured a chorus, which was a group of speakers, who commented on the action of the play. When a single individual sang or spoke more personally and accompanied himself on a lyre, the verse was called lyric. Thus, our present designation of lyric poetry includes personal, individual emotion. The lyric does not tell a story as an epic or narrative poem does. Most poetry as we think of it is lyric poetry.

Song

There are many subdivisions of lyric poetry. The most common is the song, including popular songs that are heard frequently on the radio. The words to songs are often inaccurately referred to as “lyrics.” The entire song is the lyric.

Sonnet

The next best-known lyric is the sonnet, which may be in the Petrarchan or Italian form, Elizabethan or Shakespearean or English form, or the American or innovative form. The Petrarchan takes its name from the 13th century Italian poet Petrarch. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of two stanzas: an octave of eight lines with the rime scheme ABBAABBA and a sestet of six lines with a varied rime scheme CDE.

The Elizabethan sonnet also has fourteen lines but is divided into three quatrains and a couplet; the standard rime scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Shakespeare is the poet most associated with this form, so much so that is also called the Shakespearean sonnet.

A third sonnet form is the innovative sonnet or American sonnet, which is usually a free verse poem written in fourteen lines. Rime is usually infrequent and often quite accidental, but the American sonnet is often driven by rhythm and individual speech patterns. Wanda Coleman’s “American Sonnet” exemplifies the innovative sonnet.

Villanelle

The villanelle is a widely used form. It consists of nineteen lines, five tercets and a final quatrain. It has only two rimes which appear in the first and third lines of the tercets and then make up the couplet in the final two lines of the quatrain. The most widely read and studied villanelle is without a doubt Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”

Hymn

The lyric poem known as a hymn is ironically intended to by sung by a chorus, departing greatly from the Greek tradition that distinguished choric from lyric. The hymn’s main distinction is it subject, which is spiritual. The hymn is offered to the Divine; it is an outpouring of emotion, love, and devotion to Divinity.

The form of a hymn is often written in quatrains with a rime scheme ABAB or ABCB. A modern hymn is “How Great Thou Art,” words and music by Carl G. Boberg and R.J. Hughes.

Ode

The ode usually exalts it subject. It is dedicated to one theme to honor its subject usually an important person or idea such a freedom. There are three subdivisions of odes: the Pindaric, the Horation, and the irregular. Allen Tate’s “Ode to the Confederate Dead” exemplifies a modern ode.

Elegy

The elegy is a highly formal verse focusing on death or any other solemn subject. Most noted elegies are Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Milton’s “Lycidas” is an example of a pastoral elegy.

Other Lyric Forms

Other lyric forms of poetry include occasional verse or vers de société, the rondeau, and the rondel.

Occasional verse is written for a special event. Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” which is also a sonnet, is an occasional poem, because she wrote it to help raise funds to buy a pedestal for the new statue that was given the United States by France in 1886.

The rondeau is light verse poem used for fanciful subjects. It consists of fifteen lines with lines nine and fifteen acting as a refrain. The rime scheme is AABBA AABC AABBAC

The rondel is similar to a sonnet; it consists of thirteen or fourteen lines with a rime scheme ABBAABABABBAAB

Most Poetry Lyric

Most poetry that we experience is some form or combination of lyric poetry, resulting in many varieties of poetry. Emily Dickinson’s poems often employ the form of the hymn. Often fond of the elegy, Walt Whitman wrote sprawling catalogues of people and things, but his basic form is still lyrical.

Each poet expresses his/her voice through the varying forms of poetry, and most of it can truly be defined as lyric as opposed to epic or narrative. Poets do tell stories but seldom in what we have come to think of as the story form.