Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry refers to either poetry that has the form and musical quality of a song, or a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics, contrasted lyric poetry with drama and epic poetry. An example would be a poem that expresses feelings and may be a song that could be performed to an audience. Although arguably the most popular form of lyric poetry in the Western tradition is the 14-line sonnet, either in its Petrarchan or its Shakespearean form, lyric poetry appears in a variety of forms. Ballades and villanelles are other forms of the lyric. Ancient Hebrew poetry relied on repetition, alliteration, and chiasmus for many of its effects. Although much Greek and Roman classical poetry was written in forms with set meters and strophes, Pindar's odes seem as formless to the ear accustomed to rhyme and meter as such modern poetry as Rilke's Duino Elegies. In some cases, the form and theme are wed, as in the courtly... full article at wikipedia