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Literature vocabulary · Poetry

Lyric poetry

Meaning in literature, with examples

phraseCommon term

In literature, lyric poetry means: Poetry that expresses personal feeling, mood, or thought, often in a musical and concentrated form rather than telling a long story.

In Turkish: lirik şiir

How it is used

Used for poems focused on inner experience, voice, and emotion. It is often contrasted with narrative, dramatic, or epic poetry.

Example sentences

  1. For the midterm, our professor grouped the love sonnet with lyric poetry because its main force is private feeling, not plot.

    The term identifies a poem whose center is emotional expression, even when it still follows a formal structure like a sonnet.

  2. In the anthology meeting, the translator defended the short piece as lyric poetry, noting how sound and mood matter more than action.

    Here the phrase shows that the poem is valued for concentrated feeling and musical texture rather than narrative development.

Common collocations

  • lyric poetry tradition
  • modern lyric poetry
  • lyric poetry collection
  • poetryLiterary writing arranged in lines that uses rhythm, sound, imagery and often rhyme to express feelings and ideas in a concentrated way.
  • poemA single piece of writing in lines, often with a regular rhythm or rhyme, that expresses an experience, feeling or idea through carefully chosen language.

More terms: Poetry

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