Lyric Poetry

Lyric poetry is a poem used to express feelings. Lyric poems have specific rhyming schemes and are often, but not always, set to music or a beat. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, mentions lyric poetry (kitharistike played to the cithara, a type of lyre) along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis. The lyric poem, dating from the Romantic era, does have some thematic antecedents in ancient Greek and Roman verse, but the ancient definition was based on metrical criteria, and in archaic and classical Greek culture presupposed live performance accompanied by a stringed instrument.