LYRIC GENRE: ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, ELEMENTS, STRUCTURE - LITERATURE - 2024

The lyrical genre is a form of literary expression in which an author expresses and transmits his emotions or personal sensations in relation to someone or something that awakens his inspiration.

This genre is usually expressed in poems, that is, through verses, although it can also be in prose through poetic prose. An example of a poem is El País del Sol, by Rubén Darío. An example of poetic prose is The Little Poems in Prose, by Charles Baudelaire.

In the lyrical genre the poet or author transmits what he feels through poetic stanzas or prose. Source: pixabay.com.

Historically the lyrical genre is known in this way because in Ancient Greece the settlers used the musical instrument known as the lyre to accompany their songs. Furthermore, this type of poetic manifestation is visible in the biblical episodes related to the psalms of David and the songs of Moses.

The lyrical works stand out mainly for the melody, rhythm and harmony, which are mixed in a balanced way to connect the reader with the most intimate emotions of the author. The content of the lyrical genre is based on literary images or rhetorical figures, such as metaphor, allegory or simile.

For a text to belong to the lyrical genre, it must meet certain characteristics and have some elements, among which the lyrical speaker, the lyrical object and the lyrical motif stand out. In modern literature there are innumerable authors who have developed this expressive form.

Origin

The lyrical genre has its origin in Ancient Greece. The singers gathered around an audience to sing their most emotional songs accompanied by the lyre as a musical instrument. Hence the lyrical term is related to the lyre.

Etymologically, the lyrical word comes from the Latin word lyricus, which in turn was derived from the Greek. So, the lyric is the ability to express feelings and emotions through poetry as a form of manifestation.

General characteristics

Expressiveness

One of the main characteristics of the lyric genre is expressiveness and the way in which feelings, emotions, thoughts and sensations are transmitted. The content of this literary genre can express joy, sadness, hopelessness, joy, happiness, among others.

Authorship

The lyrical genre stands out because the author -that is, who announces what he feels- does it in the first person, that means that he gets involved with what is expressed.

Thematic

The lyric or lyrical genre can deal with a wide variety of topics, all of which will depend on the feelings of the author or speaker. The content of this type of expression can be related to life, nature, the end of existence or the landscape.

Structure

The works developed within the lyrical genre are structured or developed in verses, but there is also the particularity of being written in prose and is called “poetic prose”. The meter and rhythm are subject to the author and are what give intonation and musicality to the work.

Elements

Lyrical speaker

It is the character that the author of poetry creates to express his feelings and emotions. Its main objective is to make the reader connect with their most intimate and personal world.

Lyrical object

This element is related to the person or object that inspires the poetic speaker. This type of muse is usually something that can be seen and felt, be it a person or an animal.

Lyrical motif

The lyrical motif refers to the main theme of the work, the type of emotion or feeling that is awakened in the author through the lyrical speaker. It is usually related to some kind of circumstance or experience.

Temper

This element of the lyrical genre is associated with the state of mind that the main character of the work or lyrical speaker goes through.

Lyrical attitude

The lyrical attitude is associated with the way the lyrical speaker expresses what he feels. This element comprises three varieties:

Declarative attitude

In this type of attitude the situations revolve around the lyrical object and not the speaker. In this case the poetic narration or the verses are exposed in the third person, therefore the lyrical speaker is more distant and objective.

Apostrophic or appellative attitude

The apostrophic or appellative attitude refers to the fact that the speaker or fictitious character has a conversation with the lyrical object, and, generally, involves the reader. In this variety of attitude the second person singular predominates, that is, the “you”.

Carmine or song attitude

This attitude is closely related to what the lyrical speaker feels and expresses it with passion and a reflective character. The carmine attitude mixes the feelings of the speaker or the fictitious character with the lyrical object. The poetic content is developed in the first person singular that is none other than the "I".

Structure of the lyric genre

Source Pixabay.com

Remember that the lyrical genre is expressed mainly through poems. The poem is made up of a certain number of verses that are grouped by stanzas.

On the other hand, in the lyrical genre poetic prose is also presented, that is, the text that is not written in verse. However, it has the same characteristics of a poem in terms of rhythm, emotions, expressiveness and sensitivity.

Verse

A verse is each of the lines that make up the poetic work, they are endowed with meter and rhythm to give sound and meaning.

Stanza

It refers to the part of the poem that groups two or more verses, which can have a similar measure and rhyme. In the case of poetic prose it is called a paragraph.

Metrics

The metric refers to the set of rules that determine the number of syllables that the verses of a poem have.

Cadence

Cadence is related to the proper distribution of pauses and accents within the poem. In poetic prose, cadence is associated with the balanced proportion of sentences and words.

Rhythm

Rhythm refers to the way the pauses, sounds, and verses are distributed throughout the poem to make everything blend harmoniously. Within the rhythm there are three phases: anacrusis, interior and conclusive.

Rhyme

Rhyme refers to the times that a sound is repeated from the stressed vowel that makes up the last word in the verse. The rhyme can be of two forms: consonant and assonance.

Subgenres

The lyrical genre is made up of the following subgenres:

- Major genres

Song

A song is a poetic text loaded with expressiveness and feeling, it is accompanied by one or more instruments and deserves someone to use their voice in a melodic way to recite what is written.

Anthem

This lyrical subgenre is presented in the form of a song or song and its content is usually patriotic, religious or national.

Ode

An ode is a type of poem that is characterized by exalting an object from meditation and reflection.

Elegy

The elegy is almost always a long poem that stands out for its nostalgic and reflective content.

Eclogue

An eclogue is a poetic work that is characterized by being peaceful or placid.

Satire

Satire as a lyrical genre stands out for being a poem with an ironic character.

- Minor genres:

Madrigal

A madrigal is a poem that revolves around the theme of love and sometimes has a simple character.

Letrilla

It is a type of short poem, whose verses can be hexasyllables or octosyllables, that is, minor art. The letrilla is divided into stanzas, at the end of each of them the ideas are usually repeated.

Works and authors of the lyrical genre

Below are some of the most outstanding works of the lyrical genre with their respective authors:

- Twenty love poems and a desperate song by Pablo Neruda.

Pablo Neruda, one of the great exponents of the Latin American lyrical genre. Source: Unknown (Mondadori Publishers), via Wikimedia Commons

- Rayito de estrellas and The President of Miguel Ángel Asturias.

- Poetry, A la luna and A Cali by Jorge Isaacs.

- The other, the same and El Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges.

- Parole and Wild Moon by Octavio Paz.

- To Buscón and Salicio and Nemeroso de Garcilaso de la Vega.

Supposed portrait of Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the most important exponents of the Spanish lyrical genre. Source: Jacopo Carucci Pontormo, via Wikimedia Commons

- Letters from my cell and El miserere by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.

- The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes.

- Platero y yo by Juan Ramón Jiménez.

- The mayor of Salamanca and Life is a dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

- Art of Forgetting, Poetry and Letters to Silvia by Mariano Melgar Valdivieso.

- Fruits of Felipe Pardo y Aliaga's education.

- Desolation by Gabriela Mistral.

- Profane prose and Azul by Rubén Darío.

- The outlaw and American Silvas by Andrés Bello.

- A summer night and Campos de Castilla by Antonio Machado.

- Brief fragments of some works

Twenty love poems and a desperate song (Pablo Neruda)

“In its mortal flame the light envelops you.

Absorbed, pale aching, thus situated

Against the old twilight propellers

that revolves around you.

Mute, my friend, alone in the lonely of this hour of death

and filled with the lives of fire, pure heir of the destroyed day.

A cluster of sun falls on your dark dress.

Of the night the great roots

they grow suddenly from your soul… ”.

The President (Miguel Ángel Asturias)

Tears rolled down his motionless face. She wept until she fainted, forgetting about her husband, who was threatened with starvation in the penitentiary if she did not confess; ignoring her physical pain, sore hands and breasts, burning eyes, bruised back; postponing the worries of her abandoned business, inhibited from everything, brutalized…

“… The joy of women who buried themselves with their lovers in the sacred East was his. And to a greater extent, because she did not bury herself with her son; she was the living tomb, the ultimate cradle of earth, the mother's lap where both, closely united, would remain in abeyance until they were called to Jehoshaphat…

"… Without wiping her tears, she fixed her hair like the one preparing for a party and pressed the corpse against her breasts, between her arms and legs, curled up in a corner of the dungeon…".

Letters from my cell (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer)

“… When the wind blows, the snow falls, or the rain hits the windows of the balcony of my cell, I run to look for the reddish and cheerful light of the flame, and there, having at my feet the dog, which curls up next to the fire, seeing the thousand sparks of gold shine in the dark back of the kitchen with which the pots and dishes of the spit are polished to the reflection of the fire…

“… How many times have I interrupted reading a scene from The Tempest, by Shakespeare, or Byron's Cain, to hear the noise of the water that boils in gush, crowning with foam and lifting with its plumes of light blue steam the metal lid that hits the edges of the pot! I've been away from here for a month, and everything is the same as before I left… ”.

Desolation (Gabriela Mistral)

Strong woman

"I remember your face that was fixed in my days, woman in blue skirt and toasted forehead, which was my childhood and on my land of ambrosia

I saw the black furrow open in a fiery April.

He raised in the tavern, drunk, the impure cup

the one who attached a son to the breast of a lily, and under that memory, that it was a burn, the seed fell from your hand, serene.

… And the mud on your feet will still kiss,

because among a hundred mundanes I have not found your face

And even your shadow in the furrows I follow with my song! ”.

Silvas americanas (Andrés Bello)

Silva to the agriculture of the torrid zone

"Hail, fertile zone, that you circumscribe to the sun in love

the vague course, and how much being is encouraged

in every various weather

caressed by its light, you conceive!

You weave the summer its garland

spike grenades; you the grape

you give to the boiling Cuba,

not of purple fruit, or red, or yellow, to your beautiful forests ”.

A summer night

"A summer night

-the balcony was open

and the door of my house-

death entered my house…

Silent and without looking at me, death happened again

in front of me what have you done?

Death did not respond… ”.

References

1. Lyric. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Lyric. (2011). (N / a): Educational Portal. Recovered from: portaleducativo.net.
3. Calderón, G. (S. f.). Lyric. (N / a): Euston 96. Recovered from: euston96.com.
4. Characteristics of the lyrical genre (poetry). (2015). (N / a): Characteristics. Org. Recovered from: caracteristicas.org.
5. Lyric. (2011). Colombia: Literary Corner. Recovered from: elrinconliterariodelilo.blogspot.com.