Lyric Poetry

Reflective Lyric.— The Line between this group and the preceding is often a slight or arbitrary one; but in general the reflective lyric may be distinguished as arising from meditation on a personal experience rather than from the spontaneous impulse to express it musically. In modern practice it is read rather than sung. But in ancient times, when the lyric art was more largely musical, the same distinction can not be observed; thus many of the Greek lyrics are reflective, though intended for song. The forms of Greek poetry called "'elegiac" (repre sented by Tyrtmus and Mimnermus) and (represented by Archilochus) may be distinguished in this way from the ''inelic,* as less closely associated with song. Among the Romans the chief masters of the lyric were Catullus, in the first half of the 1st century ac., and, in the second half of the cen tury, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid. Horace's most familiar poems, the "odes;) were originally called carmina, or songs, but appear to have been much more commonly read than sung; in the he was less lyrical and more reflective. Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid are classed as the "elegiac" lyrists, but in Latin literature even more than in Greek the term has reference to traditional form rather than to distinctive subject-matter. In the mediaeval pe riod the formal lyric was less important than narrative poetry, but with notable exceptions among the courtly poets, particularly in France; to these are traced the lyrics in "fixed forms,' like the rondeau, the ballade and the villanelle. The Renaissance brought about an immense revival of literary lyric, especially in Italy under the influence of Petrarch (died 1374), and in France under the leadership of the "Pleiade poets'— Ronsard, du Bellay, etc.— of the 16th century. The most important re sulting type was the sonnet, the vogue of which in France, and Italy was carried into England, reaching its height toward the close of the 16th century. This, with other forms of lyric of the Italian school, was introduced to Eng lish readers by the posthumous publication, in 1557, of the poems or Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey (see under Torm's MIS CELLANY). In the Elizabethan period there ap peared not only many collections of son nets, but a number of poetical miscellanies in dicating the growing interest in lyric poetry of a cultivated character. Of the sonneteers, the chief are Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare and Spenser. Spenser also contributed to the Elizabethan lyric the pastoral poems of his

the mid-19th century the reflective lyric finds equally notable representation in the poems of Tennyson's (1850). Tenny son also wrote a number of "dramatic lyrics,' — that is, lyrical utterances of imagined per sonalities — and the same type was developed even more brilliantly by Robert Browning. The personal sonnet-sequence was revived by Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her

On lyric poetry in general, consult Gummere's 'The Beginnings of Poetry> (New York 1901), especially chapter IV. For Greece, consult Farnell's 'Greek Lyric Poetry' (London 1891) ; Smyth's 'Greek Melic Poets' (London 1900) ; Fairclough's article on °Tyr taeus, Archilochus, and their Successors° (in the Warner Library of Universal Literature, Vol. XXXVII, 1897) ; and 'Ancient Gems in Modern Settings' (versions of the Greek Anthology), edited by Grundy (Oxford 1913). For Rome, consult Seliar's 'Roman Poets of the Augustan Age) (Oxford 1892), and Mac kail's 'Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical) in the Latin Language> (London 1906). For the Eng lish lyric, consult Reed's 'English Lyrical Poetry' (New Haven 1912) ; Rhys' 'Lyric Poetry' (London 1913) ; Schelling's 'The Eng lish Lyric> (Boston 1913) ; Wright's 'Old Christmas Carols' (London 1841) and 'Songs and Carols> (1847) ; Schelling's 'Elizabethan Lyrics and Seventeenth Century Lyrics' (Bos ton 1895, 1899) ; Lee's 'The French Renais sance in England' (London 1910) ; Bullen's 'Shorter Elizabethan Poems' and Lee's 'Elizabethan Sonnets> ('New English Garner' 1904) ; Erskine's 'The Elizabethan Lyric' (New York 1903); Bullen's 'Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists> (1889) ; 'Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books> (1889) ; and 'Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances' (1890) ; Padel ford's 'Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics> (Bos ton 1907) ; Cox's 'English Madrigals in the Time of Shakespeare' (London 1899) ; Pal grave's 'Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics' (many editions). For America consult Knowles' 'Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics> (Boston 1897), and Rickert and Paton's 'American Tics> (New York 1912). For France, consult eanroy's 'Origines de la Poesie Lyrtque en ranee au Moyen Age> (Paris 1889) ; Fonsny and Van Dooren's 'Anthologie des Poites Lyriques (Verviers 1902) ; Wyndham's 'Ronsard and La (London 1906) ; Brunetiere's 'Evolu tion de la Poesie Lyrique au XIXe (Paris 1889) ; Lang's 'Ballads and Lyrics of Old France' (London 1872). For Germany, consult Lee's 'The German Lyric' (London 1914), and Miinsterberg's 'Harvest of German Verse' (New York 1916).