What is lyric poetry?
1 Answer
Lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which reveals the poet's personal emotions or feelings, state of mind or perceptions. It is usually written in the first person.
Explanation:
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is Not Love at All" is a good example of lyric poetry:
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Notice how the highlighted portions indicate the poet's thoughts on love.
Some other examples would include William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", and Shakespearean sonnets.
Hope this helps :)
