Lyric poetry has long been regarded as the intensely private, emotional expression of individuals, powerful precisely because it draws readers into personal worlds. But who, exactly, is the "I" in a lyric poem, and how is it created? In Lyric Poetry, Mutlu Blasing argues that the individual in a lyric is only a virtual entity and that lyric poetry takes its power from the public, emotional power of language itself. In the first major new theory of the lyric to be put forward in decades, Blasing proposes that lyric poetry is a public discourse deeply rooted in the mother tongue. She looks to poetic, linguistic, and psychoanalytic theory to help unravel the intricate historical processes that generate speaking subjects, and concludes that lyric forms convey both personal and communal emotional histories in language. Focusing on the work of such diverse twentieth-century American poets as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and Anne Sexton, Blasing demonstrates the ways that the lyric "I" speaks, from first to last, as a creation of poetic language.

"These essays explore the history of the lyric poem, its rhetorical modes and strategies. It gives the contemporary reader a sense of the origin, evolution, and present status of the modes and means of lyric poetry."--BOOK JACKET.

A comprehensive reassessment of lyric poetry of the early 17th century directed at beginning and more advanced students of literature. It seeks to assimilate many of the theoretical concerns with readings of the authors of the period.

The Greek lyric, elegiac and iambic poets of the two centuries from 650 to 450 BCE produced some of the finest poetry of antiquity. This new poetic translation captures the nuances of meaning and the whole spirit of this poetry.

In this volume, first published in 1945, Mr Wilkinson writes primarily for students of the classics who are not Horatian specialists. His book falls easily within the scope of those who can read any Latin at all - and even of those who cannot, for most passages quoted are also translated. Horace - for Mr Wilkinson - is the poet of the Odes and the Epodes - the incomparable genius of the lyric form, and a sympathetic and engaging character into the bargain. He is especially concerned with Horace as the poetic craftsman. Like most Roman poets, Horace was not inventive in subject-matter: he generally wrote about what we now recognize as the eternal platitudes. But Mr Wilkinson focuses on the mastery of form, rhythm and cadence that have charmed readers for centuries.

"Love is a stranger and speaks a strange language," wrote Rumi, one of the world's most beloved mystical poets. His poems of spiritual love still speak directly to our hearts after more than seven hundred years. These classic selections contemplate separation and longing, intoxication and bliss, union and transcendence.