Lydia Gonzales

Lyrics are fairly short poems, usually no longer than fifty or sixty lines. They are written to express a person's intense feelings or profound thoughts. Originally lyrics were composed as songs for religious purposes. The earliest known lyrics were said to have originated in Egypt, in 2600 B.C. as funeral songs and often were used as incriptions on tombs. Early Greeks sung or chanted lyrics for religious ceremonies and were often accompanied by dance. By the beginning of the Renaissance period is when the term lyric began to be applied to unsung verse or poetry. J.A. Cudden, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Representational Genre: Narrator or Single Voice

Narrative Genre: Romance or Tragedy

Example: One of the Songs of Innocence by William Blake (1789)

Highlights: Reference to nature, song, happiness.

Additional Examples: Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth (1798)

Mariana by Tennyson (1830)

• Do you believe that modern lyrics have the same significance as those written for religious purposes?
• Which do you think are taken more seriously, those from the past or modern lyrics?

From SONGS of INNOCENCE

Piping down the valleys wild

Piping songs of pleasant glee

On a cloud I saw a child.

And he laughing said to me.

Pipe a song about a Lamb;

So I piped with merry chear,

Piper pipe that song again--

So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe

Sing thy songs of happy chear,

So I sung the same again

While he wept with joy to hear

Piper sit thee down and write

In a book that all may read--

So he vanish'd from my sight.

And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,

And I stain'd the water clear,

And I wrote my happy songs

Every child may joy to hear

William Blake, 1789