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lyric poetry

1. Greek. Lyric poetry, meaning poetry ‘sung to the lyre’, existed in Greece from earliest times. Although it was, strictly speaking, song, the words were of primary importance and are now all that remain, knowledge of the accompanying music having been lost in antiquity. The Alexandrian scholars of the third century BC drew up a canon of nine great lyric poets: Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonidēs, Pindar, and Bacchylidēs. Some added a tenth, Corinna. Lyric poetry is also found in the Attic drama of the fifth century BC, in the choruses (so called; see CHORUS), but towards the end of the fifth century the chorus was relegated to a subordinate role (see COMEDY, GREEK 5). In relatively modern times, Greek lyric poetry outside drama has been divided into two kinds, choral lyric (also known as choral odes) and monody (Gk. monōdia, ‘solo song’). Both kinds of lyric were written in a great variety of metres; for examples of possible kinds see METRE, GREEK 8. Elegy and iambic poetry, written in their own particular (non-lyric) metres, are both occasionally included with lyric poetry (strictly speaking erroneously and despite incompatibility of metre) when the subject-matter seems to suggest this grouping.

Choral lyric was sung (and often danced) by a chorus (or by a leader answered by a chorus) to a musical accompaniment usually played on the lyre, occasionally on the flute (aulos, a wind instrument like the oboe). It was composed from earliest times and throughout Greek history for public religious ceremonies. To this fact are attributable the predominantly elevated tone and the inclusion of myth and moralizing. Homer mentions many varieties of choral lyric: dirges, hymns, hyporchemata, maiden-songs (see PARTHENEION), and wedding-songs (see EPITHALAMIUM and HYMENAEUS). The procession-song (prosodion) is another very ancient form. Later developments were the dithyramb (accompanying the worship of Dionysus), the nome, and the encomium and epinikion, the two last written in praise of men, and indicative of the increasing secularization of this form of poetry. The earliest choral ode of which a substantial part survives is a partheneion by Alcman (seventh century BC) which seems to be composed in metrically corresponding stanzas known as strophēs and antistrophēs. In later choral lyric the form became triadic (see TRIAD), reputedly the innovation of Stesichorus, and of an increasing metrical complexity which reached its culmination in the odes of Pindar. The material of a choral ode was relatively standardized and included praise of the gods, mention of the occasion and the personalities involved, moral maxims, and mythical narrative, this last providing the main subject-matter.

The development of choral lyric is associated with the Doric-speaking Peloponnese, especially Sparta, and with the names of Thaletas, Eumelus, and Arion, whose works are all but lost. The association is indicated by the ancient convention that choral lyric was written in the Doric dialect; Doric elements were retained even in the choral lyric of Attic tragedy. The great poets of choral lyric, some of whose works survive, are Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides. For choral lyric as an element in Attic drama see CHORUS, TRAGEDY 1, and COMEDY, GREEK 2.

Of monody relatively little survives. It was sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. The intimate nature of the subject matter—friendship, love, and hate—suggests that it was performed by a single individual on private occasions, for example after a banquet among friends (see SYMPOSIUM and SCOLIA). The surviving lyric of Sappho, Alcaeus, and Anacreon is mostly monody. The fact that a poem is triadic in form is usually taken as an indication that it is a choral rather than a monodic ode; monody is generally simpler than choral lyric in form, metre, and expression. Attic tragedy contains a small amount of monody in the lyrics occasionally sung by individuals (rather than by the chorus). See also ARCHILOCHUS.

2. Latin. Comparatively little lyric poetry was written by the Romans. There exist in Latin some fragments of folksongs, hymns, and religious incantations which indicate the existence in early times of an indigenous lyric poetry, but the earliest Latin lyric deserving of the name was modelled on Greek forms, mostly the simpler forms of monody, and it was entirely a literary product, not rooted in social practice, and intended to be read and not sung. Two notable exceptions are, first, the maiden-song composed for Juno at a time of crisis in 207 BC by Livius Andronicus, based presumably on Greek models; and secondly, Horace's elegant Carmen Saeculare (17 BC). Laevius was another early writer of lyrics (probably at the beginning of the first century BC), but only fragments of his work have survived. The two chief writers of literary lyric were Catullus and Horace. Catullus experimented with lyric metres in poems of great verve (11, 17, 30, 34, 51, and 61), and wrote other equally lively poems in hendecasyllables and scazons (see METRE, LATIN 3 (iii)) which it is natural to regard as lyrics, even if the metres are not strictly speaking those of song (see 1 above); their style and subject-matter both recall the manner of Greek monody. Horace in the Odes uses a fair variety of lyric metres found in Greek monody, frequently combining lines of different metres into couplets or four-line stanzas; he also expresses a range of sentiments, from deep seriousness in Pindaric vein (though not attempting the complexities of Pindar's triadic structure), to love poems and drinking songs in a more subjective style (exquisite, but lacking the spontaneity of Greek monody). The iambic metres of the Epodes (see ODES) do not strictly belong to lyric, although the subject-matter in most cases makes them close to it. Horace's technical mastery seems to have deterred later poets from attempting to follow him, and lyrical subjects tended to be treated in the elegiac metre. Statius' Silvae include two lyrics (4. 5 and 4. 7), Martial occasionally used lyric metres, and Seneca (2) included choral lyrics in his tragedies. The note of true inspiration is not heard again until the Christian hymns of Prudentius and Ambrose (to which should perhaps be added the emperor Hadrian's poem to his soul).