Lyric

 Lyric is a collection of verses and choruses, making up a complete song, or a short and non-narrative poem. A lyric uses a single speaker, who expresses personal emotions or thoughts. Lyrical poems, which are often popular for their musical quality and rhythm, are pleasing to the ear, and are easily put to music.

In other words 

A lyric is a fairly short poem which is the expression of strong feelings of thoughts or perceptions of a single speaker in a meditative manner. The lyric was originally in Greek poetry; the kind of poem which was to be set to the lyre; hence the word lyric. But even today the word still retains the sense that lyric poems are musical.

 

The term lyric originates from the Greek word “lyre,” which is an instrument used by the Grecians to play when reading a poem. Lyrical poets demonstrate specific moods and emotions through words. Such moods express a range of emotions, from extreme to nebulous, about life, love, death, or other experiences of life. Read on to learn more about lyric in literature.

Types of Lyric

There are several types of lyric used in poems such as given below:

Elegy

An elegy is a mournful, sad, or melancholic poem or a song that expresses sorrow for someone who has bee lost, or died. Originally, it followed a structure using a meter alternating six foot and five foot lines. However, modern elegies do not follow such a pattern, though the mood of the poem remains the same.

Ode

An ode is a lyric poem that expresses intense feelings, such as love, respect, or praise for someone or something. Like an elegy, an ode does not follow any strict format or structure, though it uses refrains or repeated lines. It is usually longer than other lyrical forms, and focuses on positive moods of life.

Sonnet

A sonnet uses fourteen lines, and follows iambic pentameter with five pairs of accented and unaccented syllables. The structure of a sonnet, with predetermined syllables and rhyme scheme, makes it flow off the tongues of readers in way similar way to a on song on the radio.

Dramatic Monologue

A dramatic monologue has theatrical quality, which means that the poem portrays a solitary speaker communing with the audience, without any dialogue coming from other characters. Usually, the speaker talks to a specific person in the poem.