Theories of Lyric

Abstract

The general theory of lyric is a developing field of study. Approaches to lyric are, however, reputedly stuck in »the impasse of an impressionistic and narrowly formalistic critical debate on the genre« (Müller-Zettelmann/Rubik 2005, 8). Such claims may be paired with a call for raising the theory of lyric to higher levels (cf. Culler 2015, 2sq.; Zymner 2009, 8sq.; Gibson 2015, 1sq.), including the proposal of formulating, in analogy to the well-established field of narratology, a formal ›lyricology‹ (»lyricologie« or »Lyrikologie«, as it is called in French and German respectively; cf. Zymner 2009, 7–9; Rodriguez 2009; von Ammon 2015). More particularly, it has been suggested that parts of lyric theory should be reconceptualized with the help of narrative theories (cf. Müller-Zettelmann 2000, MüllerZettelmann/Rubik 2005). However, the influx of concepts from different theories into the analysis of lyric entails some problems. It appears that the practices of analyzing lyric have become heavily influenced by generic models and approaches drawn from the theories of drama and narrative (for critique, cf. Culler 2015,108–112; Hempfer 2014,16–21). There are various issues here; for instance, one may ask whether the lyric concepts of voice or persona can be grasped in terms of fictional characters or narrators, or whether lyric typically develops structures that are similar to narrative discours and story. More importantly, narratological approaches tend to see lyric as a defective or residual form of the narrative mode (cf. Hempfer 2014, 19–21; Hillebrandt 2015). Various theoretical issues in the theory of lyric have been taken up with renewed vigor in the last years, including several proposals with respect to the