A lyric poem focuses on the emotions and feelings of the poet. This is different than the narrative poem and the epic. In epic poetry, the focus is on some hero who has to accomplish seemly superhuman feats in order to survive and complete his heroic journey. For example, in the Odyssey, Odysseus has the brave so many incredible obstacles, including the sirens, the cyclops, and Scylla order to safely return home. The narrative poem is written in metered verse and tells a story using characters. Often this type of poetry is designed with musicality in mind, so meters are important. By contrast, a lyric poem does not have a hero who faces superhuman challenges or meters as the most important element. Instead, this poem relies on the emotions and feelings of the poet and has a point of view.
Poetry is a literary form that combines the precise meanings of words with their emotional associations and musical qualities.
There are three main types of poetry:
Lyric - a short poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of a single reader
Narrative - a poem that tells a story; includes epics and ballads
Dramatic - a poem that presents the speech of one or more speakers in a dramatic situation
*This following stanza is an excerpt from a lyric poem by John Clare.
I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.
His thoughts and feelings stand out by the use of repetition (by repeating "I hid my love")
*The following excerpt is from Edgar Allen Poe's poem, The Raven. In this poem, the narrator experiences a conflict between the desire to forget and the desire to remember.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
The differences between the two poems are that Clare's poem expresses his own thoughts and feelings. No one else speaks in first-person either than him. It is short and very expressive as well.
In contrast, Edgar Allen Poe's poem tells a story. The poem has a theme and characters. This poem is immediately distinguishable from other poems as a narrative because of the first words "once upon."
