lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICALPOETRY.or even, what is more lyrical in character:I know a bank where the wild thyme blows.What is the difference? The obvious one is themetre. "Once dialogue had come in," says Aristotle," Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure,for the iambic is of all measures the most colloquial."That is it: "To be or not to be" is spoken verse, thelyric is sung. It may be, as we have said, that one doesnot sing it oneself, or wish it to be set to music, nonethe less one feels that it is intended to be sung. Itsings itself. Hence the shorter lines. A trainedsinger or choir may be taught to sing more elaboratemetres. "I know a bank" has been set to music, andsimilar pieces of as long or longer measures. Butsimple, natural singing has always required shortermeasures because of the necessity of pausing to drawbreath. A recent writer on metre (Andersen, TheLaws of Metre) has argued that the line or couplet ofeight feet represents the normal length of what achoir can sing without a definite pause:All people that on earth do dwell,Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.O where hae ye been, Lord Randell my son ?O where hae ye been, my handsome young man ?There is a sufficient pause to allow of a quick-takenbieath at the end of the first line as printed, but thefirst real pause in the sense comes after the eighthfoot. From this, the normal English lyrical measure,there are, he states, three main departures, each determinedby the distribution and length of the pause.Thus, Common Measure or ballad measure differsfrom the normal or long measure simply by dropping14.