Though they may deviate from the Greeks in style, modern lyric poets still capture many of the emotions present in ancient lyric poetry. This and many many other free verse poems use creative methods to express complex thoughts and feelings. This type of poetry cannot be defined strictly in terms of a formal structure as a sonnet, villanelle, or sestina can but rather in terms of tone. William Carlos Williams’s 16-word poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”, for example, leaves the reader to interpret the emotional significance of the red wheelbarrow on which “so much depends”. Lyrical poetry is a deeply felt, personal style of poetry that is romantic in subject matter and strongly emotional in delivery. They range from quiet reflections on hope as in Langston Hughes’ “Dreams” to impassioned elegies like Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” Lyric poets may express emotions in overblown, dramatic language, or choose to reveal their emotion in less overt ways. Lyric poems can vary in length from a single stanza of a few lines, to lengthy odes hundreds of lines long. Most poems that simply explore a thematic idea, express a strong emotion, or attempt to convey an important truth fall into the lyric category. By the 19th century, lyric poetry had become the dominant poetic genre, a reality that remains true to this day. The greatest poets are those that find perfect words to capture the feelings they wish to convey, and then arrange them in a way that, as readers, we are drawn in. Later, the Romantic poets, like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge, used the lyric poem as a medium to express the exuberant sentimentality that characterized that movement. Poets like Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Milton perfected the lyric poem through their sonnets. Renaissance troubadours reflected an evolution of the ancient forms by singing poetic songs of courtly love. In the centuries since, fewer poems are designed for musical accompaniment, but poems with a strong emotional focus have retained the name “lyric”. The lyric poem originated among the ancient Greeks, whose lyre accompanied poems followed a strict meter and expressed sentiments of love, celebration, praise, or bitterness. Common forms include sonnets, odes, and elegies, but lyric poems may just as well be written in free verse. The lyric poem has few restrictions and may take many structural forms. Copy down lyrical lines from the prose and poetry you read. The poetic speaker, though distinct from the author, is portrayed as someone emotionally invested in the subject matter. This collection offers free verse translations of 75 lyric poems from the mid-fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries, along with the Ottoman Turkish texts. It is distinguished by its use of a personal voice and subjective point of view. Although it derives its name from the lyre, an instrument which accompanied Greek lyrical poetry, lyrical poetry does not need to be set to music. Lyric poetry expresses personal thoughts and emotions.
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