The center of any lyric work becomes a person. If there is no people in the song or story, then each item is described through the prism of the feelings of the author or a fictional hero.
Lyrical image
In a fiction, musical work there is a character whom the author describes, endowing it with some characteristic features. In the lyrics - a kind of work based on the emotional disclosure of the narrator himself and his character - he completely exposes the soul and heart.
The reader or listener can identify all the feelings that lyrical images are fraught with. Only an attentive audience will read the author’s message through his work.
What is lyrics?
This is a genus of works of art that came from ancient Greece. It was named after the string instrument - lyre. During such concerts, ancient artists conveyed their sensitive side through music. The most common misconception was that the lyrics are based on melancholy motives. It is not true. It can focus on one emotion, but most often it reflects a whole spectrum: grief, joy, sadness, fun. Whatever feelings a person experiences, if they are brought to the fore in art, it becomes lyrical.
The main types of works - poetry, music, message. The most ancient lyric texts are considered the "Song of Songs" written by the legendary king Solomon, and the Psalms of David. The first work is a poem, the second relates to religious lyrics.
This type of creation can simply be a segment or a retreat in a large work, during which the main character experiences a series of feelings and shares them with the public.
What makes the lyrics unique?
The main feature of such works is that, in addition to feelings and personal feelings from some phenomena, the author does not describe anything. As if an individual confession sounds from the stage. There is no development of active events.
Key Features:
- inaction
- feelings and emotions,
- mood.
Ancient times
The lyrics began its development in ancient Greece. Bright representatives of this style at that time were considered Stesichore and Alkman, who glorified heroes and the state. The greatest dawn of the lyrics reached in the first century, during the period of activity of Virgil, the author of "Aeneid", and Ovid with his "Metamorphoses". The main topics of moral experience, the authors chose love. She had a variety of dramatic images: love for her father (like Aeneas), love for her homeland, for loved ones.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
In the Middle Ages, the main lyrics were troubadours. They traveled to different villages, sang, read poetry, played flutes. With their creativity, troubadours combined various types of lyrics into one. They even gave theatrical performances.
The Renaissance has brought the flowering of love lyrics to world art. Of the poets, the most famous were Dante, Petrarch, Lorenzo Medici. At the same time, musical ballads appeared. A prominent representative of the genre was Karl Orleans.
The lyrics were not only love in the specified period. With Ulrich von Gutten, it was entirely polemical. Lyrical images, examples of which were taken from philosophers and musicians of the classical era, had to be made more modern, less emotional. But nevertheless, the unfortunate love of the hero of Petrarch for his lovely Laura dominated all further works. His poems were taken as a basis.
In England, the lyrics developed little. A song about Robin Hood in the style of a lyrical ballad arose among the people. William Shakespeare, as the discoverer of this literary kind in his country, brought to the fore the dramatic images of the sufferer and martyr Hamlet, harboring the truth of Macbeth and other heroes.
Recent past
The nineteenth century is replete with the names of the lyrics: Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Victor Marie Hugo, Alfred de Musset ...
In Russia, famous poets working in this style were Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Kondraty Ryleev,
Peter Vyazemsky, Vladimir Odoevsky.
Description of the hero in the lyrics
In a work of this kind, not necessarily the main character will be a person. The lyrical hero is a man, a woman, a child, an old man, nature, a heavenly luminary, a season. Only the author can choose the object that will endow with emotions. The creator of the work tries to put his own thoughts into the mouth of his lyrical images. He does not completely transfer himself to the hero, but endows with those feelings that he experiences.
Even if the author was not going to bring his personal experiences to the show, he cannot avoid this. The main lyrical image will be a reflection of the worldview, perception of a musician or writer. The main character shows all those features that are characteristic of a person of the present time, his social class. In this image, everyone can take a lesson for himself, hidden by the author inside the work.
Lyrical images in music
The lyrics are transmitted through music. She is closest to her. Music without words can express all the feelings that are not so difficult to understand for an attentive person. Lyrical images in a melody can be transmitted using an instrument or vocals.
Among instrumental lyric works, the classical works of Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and other
famous composers stand out
. With the help of melodies, they formed lyrical images. A striking example is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The composer focuses on the whole people, the whole ethnos appears in a lyrical way. In music, there are attempts to reconcile warring people.
Beethoven throughout his life tried to bring positive features to all his images. He said: "That which proceeds from the heart must lead to it." Many researchers take this statement into service when forming the definition of the lyrical image as a whole. In "Spring Sonata" the melody tells about nature, about the awakening of the world after a winter dream. Lyrical images in the music of the composer embodied in abstract concepts - spring, joy, freedom.
In Tchaikovsky’s cycle, “Seasons,” nature also becomes paramount. Debussy has a lyrical image centered on the moon in the composition “Tenderness”. Each maestro found inspiration in nature, man, at some point. All this later became the main theme in music.
Among the most famous romances with lyrical images are:
- “The Beautiful Mill”, “Winter Way” by Schubert,
- “To the distant lover” of Beethoven,
- “Romance about romance” - lyrics by Akhmadulina, music by Petrov,
- “I loved you” - the words of Pushkin, the music of Sheremetev,
- "Thin mountain ash" I. Surikova.
Lyrical images in the literature
Most of all, this literary genre manifested itself in poetry. It is in it that the lyrical images of the characters are most often revealed by describing their worries. Poets brought their own “I” to the works. The hero became a double of the author of the lines. A description of the fate of man, his inner world, as well as some characteristic features and habits appeared. Such - special - poetry was forever immortalized by Byron, Lermontov, Heine, Petrarch, Pushkin.
These great geniuses secretly invented the basic rules in the chosen genre, according to which lyrical images were formed. The works became softer, individual, intimate. Literati call these poets romantics, which once again emphasizes the subtle connection with style. Nevertheless, the lyric poem may not have a self. So, an example can be Blok's poems, where the author does not transfer himself to the work. The same goes for Fet.
Pushkin in the verses "The Cart of Life", "Towards Chaadaev" did not focus on "I", but on "we" - in them he acts on a par with his characters.
In Russian literature, a hero may even be the antipode in his poet's spiritual worldview. Vivid examples of this stylistic trend are the images in Russian literature in the works:
- "Borodino" by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov,
- “Black Shawl”, “I am here, Inesilla ...”, “Page, or the Fifteenth Year”, “Imitation of the Quran” by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin,
- “Philanthropist”, “Moral Man”, “Gardener” by Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov.
This is not a complete list of works. The lyrical images in them became iconic for Russian literature.
In Sergei Yesenin's poems, such a surge of emotions was shifted to the horse. And Marina Tsvetaeva has heroes in the form of birds. Poets endowed characters with their own feelings, combining in one image.
Many researchers of the lyrical hero in Russia, including Gudkovsky, Ginzbursh, Rodnyanskaya, believe that the audience itself complements it with their perception. Each person can imagine the feelings that the hero of the work experiences in his own way. He is guided by those emotions that were caused by music or a poem, a ballad or theatrical action. Eternal images in the literature confirm this theory. The author of the lyrical image tries to convey his vision, relying on the fact that the public will understand it.