(A) The Lyric
The lyric is the most delightful and
pleasing form of poetry. It is generally subjective. Lyric poetry, in its
original meaning, was poetry composed to be sung to the accompaniment of a
lyre. The lyre was a simple Greek musical instrument. The Greek idea of the
lyric suggests its intimate connection with music.
A lyric is defined as a poem that
expresses a single emotion. Over-elaboration of emotion results in the loss of
effectiveness. So a lyric is generally short. In a lyric the quality of emotion
is important. It must embody a worthy emotion and it must impress us by the
sincerity of its utterance. The language and imagery of a lyric must be
characterised by beauty, propriety and harmony.
Personal poetry touches almost all
aspects of experience. As a result there are various types of lyric poetry such
as the love lyric, the lyric of patriotism, the lyric of religious emotion, the
lyric of joy and so on. Though the essence of a lyric is the personality of the
poet, majority of world’s good lyrics express also what is typically human. The
reader finds in them the expression of experiences which he is able to share
with the poet. The reader finds this experience in the poetry of Keats, Shelley
and the metaphysical poets like Donne and Marvell.
In lyric poetry the poet is occupied
with himself. His thoughts, feelings and emotions constitute the subject matter
of his lyric. The lyric becomes a mirror to his personality. Even the titles of
poems are no indication as to their themes. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘An Ode
to a Skylark’ are not about birds. In highly composite poetry it is difficult
to draw the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. So it is
generally said that the epic, the ballad and dramatic poetry are objective and
lyric is subjective. Some forms of lyrics lead us to meditative and philosophic
moods as in them the elements of thought and reflection are dominant.
Another trait of a lyric is its
unity. A lyric is self-contained and everything in it is related to the central
idea. or emotion. So there is hardly any place for descriptions or elaborations
in a lyric. Since the lyric is a unified experience, generally, it is not very
long. Edgar Allen Poe said, “a long poem does not exist”. This is true of a
lyric.
It is difficult to identify the ‘I’
in a lyric poem. Though the poet expresses his own emotions and feelings, they
are also universal. Thus Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey Lines and Milton’s sonnet,
On His Blindness, express universal emotions. Most of the Elizabethan songs,
poems of the Metaphysical like Donne and the short poems and dramatic
monologues of Browning and Tennyson come under the category of lyric.
Structurally, a lyric can be divided
into three parts. The first is the motive. It states the emotion and comprises
the first few lines. The motive is the sudden provocation for the poet to
compose. It may be a nightingale’s song as in the case of Keats or the song of
a reaper girl as in the case of Wordsworth. In fact, the motive is only an
excuse for the poet to express his own emotions and feelings. The second part
of the lyric consists of the poet’s thoughts, emotions and feelings. This may
he termed as statement. In the Ode to the West Wind, Shelley muses over
revolution. In the Ode to a Nightingale, Keats meditates over the weariness of
life and the ease of death. The third part of a lyric is the Conclusion that
comes when the emotion subsides. It is a conclusion, reflection or resolution.
Keats reflects on beauty at the end of his famous Ode on a Grecian Urn; Herrick
reflects on the fragility of beauty and power of death towards the close of ‘To
Blossoms’.
Much of the beauty ofa lyric depends
on its expression. So the poet has to choose words and their arrangements with
great care. The combination of lines, rhythm and rhyme scheme are important.
Each stanza should correspond to the mood expressed. Smoothness or hardness of
the words, slownexus or rapidity of the movements, alliteration, rhyme, rhythm,
melody and even some irregularities get hold upon the reader’s imagination and
intensify his enjoyment of the lyric. Every lyric poet must be conscious of
this fact.
(B)
The Elegy
An elegy is a lyric of mourning or a
direct utterance of personal bereavement and sorrow. Elegy comes from the word
‘elegeid’ which in Greek means a lament. The Greeks judged an elegy by its form
and it included war songs, lamentations, love poems and political verses. The
only restriction was that the elegy should be written in the elegiac metre.
In modern usage the theme is more important
in the elegy than the form. It should be mournful and reflective. It is usually
a lamentation for the dead though it may be inspired by any other sombre theme.
So its basis is absolute sincerity of emotions and expression. Any hint of
artificiality destroys the essence of an elegy. Most elegies grow into memorial
poems containing the poet’s tribute to the dead person and a study of his life
and character. Milton’s Lycidas, Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’ and Arnold’s ‘Rugby
Chapel’ are such elegies. ‘Lycidas’ is a pastoral elegy on the death of
Milton’s university friend Edward King; ‘In Memoriam’ laments the untimely
death of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam and ‘Rugby Chapel’ are such elegies.
‘Lycidas’ is a pastoral elegy on the death of Milton’s university friend Edward
King; ‘In Memoriam’ laments the untimely death of Tennyson’s friend Arthur
Hallam and ‘Rugby Chapel’ mourns the death of Arnold’s father. Gray’s famous
‘Elegy written in a Country Churchyard’ is distinctly reflective in character
with a pronounced melancholy strain. It does not mourn the death of any person
but expresses sorrow at the fate of men who die in obscurity, unwept and
unsung.
An acute sense of loss, a delicacy
of feeling and a melancholy strain are the outstanding features of an elegy.
Ben Jonson’s Memorial verses on Shakespeare, Milton’s Lycidas, Arnold’s Rugby
Chapel, Shelley’s Adonais, Auden’s ‘In Memory of W.B.Yeats’ and Tennyson’s
‘Break, Break, Break’ and ‘In Memoriam’ are some of the most well-known elegies
in English. The loss of a dear person is often only an excuse for the poet to
indulge in speculative and. philosophical musings as in Adonais, Lycidas and In
Memoriam.
In some elegies the poet not only
laments the death of a dear person hut also includes some criticism of his
literary work. Such elegies are called critical elegies. Sir William Watson’s
‘Wordsworth’s Grave’ and Arnold’s ‘Heine’s Grave’ are the best examples.
Another type of elegy is the pastoral elegy in which the poet expresses his
sorrow under the guise of a shepherd mourning for his companion. This form
originated from the Sicilian Greeks probably with poet Theocritus. In Latin,
Poet Virgil perfected this form of elegy. Later it passed on to English poetry
during the Renaissance. Here the manner of speech and setting are borrowed from
rustic life. Spenser’s ‘Astrophel’. Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ and Arnold’s ‘The
Scholar Gipsy’ and ‘Thyrsis’ are the most well-known pastoral elegies in
English.
(C)
The Ode
The ode may be defined as a ‘rhymed
lyric often in the form of an address, generally dignified or exalted in
subject, feeling and style’. It is also defined as any ‘strain of enthusiastic
or exalted lyrical verse directed to a fixed-purpose and dealing progressively
with a dignified theme’. An ode is noted for its logical evolution of thought
and it has a certain amount of complexity and elaboration unlike a simple
lyric.
An ode usually begins with an
address to somebody or something. Sometimes the opening line or lines may
contain an apostrophe as in the case of Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ or
Tennyson’s ‘To Virgil’. An ode may be written on an important public event or
on the death of a distinguished person. Marvell’s ‘Ode upon Cromwell’s Return
from Ireland’ belongs to the first category and Tennyson’s ‘Ode on the Death of
Duke of Wellington’ belongs to the second category.
The ode is of Greek origin. There
were two traditions of odes in Greece. The first type is the Dorian ode so
called from the district and dialect in which it arose. It is also called the
Pindaric ode because Pindar, the ancient Greek poet, was its greatest exponent.
The second type of ode is the Lesbian ode so called because it flourished at
first in the island of Lesbos. It is also called Horatian ode because the great
Latin poet Horace was its best practitioner. Thomas Gray’s odes ‘The Progress
of Poesy’ and ‘The Bard’ belong to the Dorian or Pindaric school. Marvell’s
‘Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ is the best example of a Horatian ode
in English.
A Pindaric or Dorian ode consists of
three parts - the strophe, the anti-strophe and the epode. They correspond to
the three stages of the recital of an ode during a dance. The Horatian ode
consists of a number of short stanzas similar in length and arrangement.
In the early stages the English ode
was infinenced by the two Greek models. But gradually the English ode began to
pursue a course of its own. There are two types of odes in English, the regular
and the irregular. Regular odes have a series of exactly similar stanzas as in
the odes of Keats. Other examples of regular odes are Collins’s ‘Ode to
Evening’ and Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’. Irregular odes have stanzas of
different length and arrangement. There are sudden changes of versification,
metre and mood. Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality from
Recolletions of Early Childhood’ and Coleridge’s ‘Dejection: An Ode’ are good
examples of irregular odes.
In English, Ben Jonson, Milton and
Gray wrote ‘Pindaric odes. Marvell wrote Horatian odes. Other important poets
who wrote odes were Spenser, Collins, Keats, Shelley and Tennyson. Perhaps the
ode is the most popular lyric form except the sonnet.
(D)
The Sonnet
Sonnet is a lyric in fourteen lines
in iambic pentameter governed by certain prescribed rules in general and in the
arrangement of the rhymes. It aims at concentrated expression, but a fairly
complex development of a single theme also is possible. It derives its name
from the Italian ‘sonnetto’ which means ‘a little song’ or sound sung to the
strain of music. It has only one leading thought or emotion as in Milton’s ‘On
His Blindness’ or Keats’s ‘On first Looking into Chapman’s Homer’.
Sonnets were first written in Italy
in the latter half of the thirteenth century. This form of composition is
associated with. the name of Petrarch, though the form had been used even by
Dante before him. A Petrarchan sonnet is composed of two parts, the octave
comprising the first eight lines and the sestet comprising the last six lines.
The octave has two rhymes ‘a’ and ‘b’ arranged in the abab, abab scheme. The
sestet has three rhymes arranged in various forms as cde, cde or cde, dcd or
cde, dce. The octave may be divided into two stanzas of four lines each called
quatrains and the sestet into two of three lines each called tercets. At the
end of the eighth line, there is a pause called cuesura followed by a turn of
thought called volta. Milton wrote some of his sonnets in this manner.
The sonnet was introduced in England
by Wyatt and Surrey in the 16th century. They discarded the Italian form and
adopted a new rhyme scheme. Surrey wrote his sonnets in three quatrains in
alternate rhymes followed by a concluding couplet.- a b a b, c d c d, e f e f,
g g. This form was later used by Shakespeare with marvellàus success in his
series of sonnets dedicated to Mr. W.H, So it came to be known as the
Shakespearean sonnet. Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats followed the
Shakespearean pattern. Spenser adopted a slightly altered form of the
Shakespearean sonnet. He used an intermixture of rhyme to connect each of the
quatrains making it a b a b, b c b c c d c d, e e.
The common theme of a sonnet is love
as in the sonnets of Shakespeare, Philip Sidney and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
However several poets have used other themes also in their sonnets. Milton’s
sonnet ‘On His Blindness’, Wordsworth’s sonnet addresed to Milton, Keats’s
sonnet ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ and Arnold’s sonnet on
Shakespeare are examples.
(A)
The Ballad
The ballad is a simple narrative poem
in short stanzas telling a story. It may be called a short story in verse.
Originally it used to be sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument like
the harp by strolling bands of singers or minstrels. The word ‘ballad’ is
derived from the Latin ‘ballare’ which means ‘to dance’. This shows its
connection with tribal dance.
A ballad deals with some episode of
simple motif written in a stanza suitable for oral transmission. In ancient
ballads, often, the authors were unknown. The themes were commonly furnished by
the elementary aspects of life. Large space was given to tales of adventure and
love, fighting and valour. Generally supernaturalism was an essential element
of such ballads.
The ballad began to appear in
England even before Chaucer’s time. The earliest English ballad is the
fragmentary ‘Judas’ of the 13th century. The central characteristics of the
ballad are narrative presentation, simplicity and spontaneity of expression.
The most popular ballad measure used to be the ‘quatrain stanza’ with rhyme at
the end of the second and the fourth lines.
There are mainly two kinds of
ballads - the traditional ballad or the ballad of growth and the modern ballad
or the literary ballad.
The traditional ballads originated
from the folk culture of each nation. Most of these ballads are of unknown
authorship. They are the authentic ballads that have grown naturally among a
primitive race and are transmitted orally from generation to generation. They
are impersonal in character because they are not concerned with the subjective
feelings of the narrator.
The ballad mostly deals with love
and adventure. The narrator generally begins with a climactic episode and tells
the story by means of action and dialogue. There is no attempt to give the
details of place and time and no introductions are given. Most traditional
ballads have a sudden and abrupt beginning as in the famous ballads ‘Sir
Patrick Spens’ and ‘The Wife of Usher’s Well’. These ballads use refrains and
repetitions. Many of these ballads have immense dramatic power and metrical
beauty. Most of the ancient English ballads are collected in Bishop Percy’s
‘Reliques of Ancient English Poetry’ published in 1765, Majority of them are of
Scottish origin. There are several ballads dealing with the legend of Robin
Hood. Some other important traditional ballads are ‘Chevy Chace’, ‘Edom O’
Gordon’, ‘Thomas, The Rhymer’ and ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter of lslington’.
Modern or Literary ballad (Ballad of
Art) is generally written by a learned poet in conscious and sophisticated
imitation of the traditional ballad. Many of the conventional features like the
stanza form are retained in the literary ballad. Bishop Percy’s collection of
songs and ballads gave a powerful impetus to the writing of ballads. Some of
the greatest literary ballads were written during the period of the Romantic
Revival. The most well-known among them is Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient
Mariner’ in which the ballad metre is used. Wordsworth wrote two ballads — ‘We
are Seven’ and ‘the Tables Turned’. Keats’s famous ballad ‘La Belle Dame Sans
Merci’ represents a variation on the traditional ballad stanza.IHowever, the
theme strongly resembles that of the traditional ballads.
Literary ballads show an enlargement
of description, psychological interest and a more finished style. In ballads
like Tennyson’‘The Revenge’, Browning’s ‘Herve Riel’ and Rossetti’s ‘The King’s
Tragedy’ we see not only the sterling qualities of the old ballads but also
traits of originality which make them modern and original poems.
Some other important literary
ballads in English are Scott’s ‘Eve of St. John’, Kingsley’s ‘The Sands of Dee’
and William Morris’s ‘Shameful Death’.
A minor form of literary ballad is
the mock-ballad in which a comic theme is treated with the seriousness
appropriate to a regular ballad. It follows the ballad conventions in all
respects except in the choice of the theme. Cowper’s ‘John Gilpin’ is a fine
example of a mock-ballad. Another is William Maginn’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient
Waggoner’ an excellent parody of Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.
(B)
The Epic
Impersonal poetry can be divided
into two groups - the narrative and the dramatic. In the first group the epic or the heroic
poem is the most important. An epic is a long narrative in verse en a great and
serious subject related in an elevated style. An epic tells a generally
well-known story and is centred round a heroic or semi-divine figure on whose
actionsdepends the fate of a tribe, a nation or the human race. The action in
an epic is serious and there is a good deal of physical and spiritual conflict.
The characters and events are portrayed in detail, elaborate descriptions of
places and actions are given, figures of speech are used and usually an
elevated and ornate style is adopted. Aristotle ranked the epic second only to
tragedy. It was the norm of great poetry in the 16th and 17th century England.
Dryden wrote, “A heroic poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest work
which the soul of man is capable to perform”.
Historically, there have been two
types of epics - the primitive epic or the epic of growth and the topic of art
or the literary epic. The epic of growth is not entirely, the work of a single
author but is evolved from pre-existing legends, folk poems and sagas. It is
the final product of a long series of accretions and synthesis shaped by the
conscious intervention of some great poet Well-known examples of this type of
epic are Iliad and Odyssey, the English Beowulf and the Indian epics The
Ramayana and The Mahabharata. All epics
of growth deal with the same subject matter - deeds of heroes. These heroes
belong to the race and their exploits form the core of a mythology. As such the
epics of growth contain supernatural and religious elements. The style of such
epics is marked by directness and simplicity. Stylistic devices may be repeated
but they are never obscure.
The epic of art or the literary epic
is the product of individual genius. Of this kind, the earliest was Virgil’s
‘Aenid’. It became a model for the later epic ports. In English, the supreme
example of a literary epic is Milton’s Paradise Lost. Arnold’s Sohrab and
Rustom’, the fragmentary epic Hyperion by Keats and Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queen’
also belong to this category. A literary epic is the result of the poet’s
erudition and scholarly research though it shares several of its characteristic
with the epic of growth. Most traits of the traditional epic are found in the
literary epic also.
The
main traits of an epic are the following
1. The subject matter of an epic is
heroic or mythical kind. The hero is aflgure of national or even
cosmicimportance as Achilles in Homer’s Iliad, Aeneas in Virgil’s Aenid, Adam
or Christ in Milton’s ParadiseLost and, Rama in the Ramayana
2. The setting of an epic is vast
and comprises several worlds In Odyssey the whole known world is the scene of
action of Ulysses. In Virgil’s Aenid and Dante’s Divine Comedy, earth, heaven
and hell are the scenes of action. In Paradise Lost also the scene of action
has cosmic dimensions rnhracing earth, heaven and hell.
3.The action in an epic involves
superhuman deeds such as the deeds of Achilles or the journeys of Ulysses.
Paradise Lost presents the war in heaven, Satan’s journey through chaos and his
audacious attempts to outwit God by corrupting mankind. The Ramayana presents
several wars and the prolonged wanderings of the hero.
4. The action of an epic is often
controlled by supernatural agents. Gods and goddesses mingle with the humans
and fight on both sides. In Homer the Olympian gods participate in all
activities and in Paradise Lost devils, angels and God himself are involved.
5. The epic contains a number of
thrilling episodes like battles, duels, wanderings, ordeals and the like.
6. In most epics there is a moral
purpose. The hero represents a cause and the victory of good over evil is
ensured. Sometimes characters themselves are personifications of good or evil.
7. In the narration of an epic
certain conventions are followed. It is narrated in an ornate, ceremonial
andgrand style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary speech. Epic
similes, figures of speech, classical allusions and references, and repetitions
are used. The characters are given set speeches. The narration usually begins
with an invocation to the Muse or a guiding Spirit, Both ‘Aenid’ and Paradise
Lost begin with such invocations. Usually, the narrative starts. in the middle
of the story as in Paradise Lost which begins with the fallen angels gathering
their forces for revenge. Only later Milton tells us what happened before the
Fall.
8. The epic is usually divided into
12 books though Iliad and Odyssey have 24 books each. Spenser’s ‘Faerie
Queen’
was planned in 12 books and Milton’s Paradise Lost also has 12 books.
(C)
The Idyll
The Idyll derives its name from a
Greek word meaning ‘a little picture’. It is a description generally in verse
of some scene or event which is strikingly picturesque and complete in itself.
The idyll is not a distinct species of poetry; it may take the form of a short
lyric, a longer poem, a passage in a play, epic, ballad or any other kind of poem.
The idyll has its origin with
classical poets like Theocritus and Virgil. They wrote pastoral idylls. A
pastoral idyll avoids the mournful tone of a pastoral elegy and confines itself
to description of placid and happy existence. In classical times idylls dealt
with a variety of themes like mythology, country itid town life and the poet’s
own experiences. But the English idyll, generally, has limited its scope to the
treatment of low and simple life.
Two important characteristics of the
idyll are its relative brevity and pictorial effect. The poet presents a
picture in a few worth and the pictorial effect is achieved by
graphicdescription., One of the earliest idylls in English is Marlowe’s The
Passionate Shepherd to his Love’. Milton’s L’Allegro can be considered a series
of idylls, each one a picture of happy life.Wordsworth’s ‘Lines Written in
March’ is a beautiflul idyll depicting a spring scene in England, The pastoral
scenes in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ and ‘The Winter’s tale can be
considered idylls of country life. However, Tennyson used the term ‘idyll’ for
short and pleasing narratives in his ‘English Idyils’ and Browning wrote, a
series of dramatic idylls.
The idyll keeps relatively close to
ordinary life and gives an idealised version of it. It is an imaginative
rendering of a picturesque scene or experience. The language used is simple,
direct and straightforward. It is free from literary ornament. For example,
Longfellow’s ‘The Village Blacksmith’ is an idyll written in a simple style.
Since idylls idealise ordinary existence, Tennyson was justified in using the
term in the title of his ‘Idylis of the King’ because these poems give
idealised pictures of medieval chivalric life.
