The term ‘lyric’ has evolved, been revised, redefined and contested over the
centuries. In this fascinating introduction, Scott Brewster:
* traces the history of the term: from its classical origins through
the early modern, Romantic and Victorian periods and up to the.
twenty-first century.
* demonstrates the influence of lyric on poetic practice, literature,
music and other popular cultural forms
* uses three aspects—the lyric ‘self’, love and desire, and the
relationship between lyric, poetry and performance - as focal
points for further discussion
* not only charts the history of lyric theory and practice but
re-examines assumptions about the lyric form in the context Co)
recent theoretical accounts of poetic discourse.
Offering clarity and structure to this often intense and emotive field, Lyric
offers essential insight for students of literature, performance, music late}
cultural studies. [From the back cover]
Author(s): Brewster, Scott
Series: The New Critical Idiom
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2009
Language: English
Commentary: Uploaded by (a still sad but more hopeful) Astrophel on the 7th of July 2023
Pages: 167
City: London
Tags: Lyric Poetry; Literary Criticism; Literary History
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii
1. Introduction 1
Lyric and Genre 2
Lyric and History 7
2. Origins and Definitions 15
The Roots of Lyric 16
From Speech to Writing 18
Getting Personal: The Lyric ‘I’ 30
Speaking of Lyric: Voice and Address 34
3. Lyric and the Art of Persuasion 43
The Courtly lyric 45
Speaking Plainly: Dramatising the Self 52
Society and Seclusion 62
The Ode and Expressive Theory 68
4. ‘| wandered lonely’: Romantic and Post-Romantic
Lyric 72
The Romantic Lyric 73
Through Another’s Lips: The Dramatic Monologue and
Dramatic Lyric 84
Modernism: The Poetry of Things 92
After Modernism: Performing the Self 101
5. Love, Loss and the Beyond: Lyrics of Desire 112
The Love Lyric 113
Elegy and Lyric 123
Devotional Lyrics 128
6. Lyric, music and performance 134
Babble and Doodle 135
Song and Dance: lyric and popular culture 138
GLOSSARY 150
BIBLIOGRAPHY 154
INDEX 163
