Introduction
Lyric poetry tends to be characterized by the difficulty of its characterization: it is marked by intentional experimentations with genre that enable one to speak of pastoral lyrics, of Petrarchan lyrics, of elegiac lyrics, of lyrics that engage in dialogue or that shroud themselves in psalm translations, resulting in generic couplings and mutations of form. To a great extent, this flexibility results also in a transhistoricity that challenges periodization. Early modern lyrics that draw their material from Orphic tradition recall Medieval antecedents, and nineteenth-century verse can be seen as further developing the subjectivity one can see substantially reflected in earlier verse. So, too, later poetry reinvestigates lyric genres, continuing to participate in a long tradition of intertextuality as the verse engages with concerns contemporary to its own compositional period.
This volume explores lyric poetry in English from the early modern period through the present, while attending to the ways in which earlier poetry deeply informs lyric’s evolution over time. From the early modern lyric’s assertion of selfhood and engagement with more ancient form, to Romanticism’s focus on innovation and personal expression, to the dramatic monologues of the Victorian period and Modernism’s confrontation with war, destruction, and the need to keep going despite despair, we will trace the “voice” in poetry as it moves, hides, surfaces and changes. Encountering the contemporary period – the “now” that is still being formed – offers an exciting opportunity to think about how the idea of genre works (or doesn’t), and how our own voices might contribute to this evolving expressive art.
This book is both in progress, and a working project to be used as a textbook for the Spring 2022 semester EN 291/EN 495 course at Wagner College also titled “Reading Voice: an Introduction to Lyric Poetry”.
All materials contained herein are intended for use in that course and are published for academic purposes only.
