Secondly, we shall consider the particular characteristics which make the lyric work of art and the types of the same worthy of attention in their more direct relation to the lyric poet.
Thirdly, we shall conclude the survey with a few remarks upon the historical development of this class of poetic work.
Generally I may remark that this survey will be extremely restricted, and for two reasons—first, because I am compelled to reserve the necessary space for the discussion of the dramatic field; secondly, because I must limit myself exclusively to general considerations, inasmuch as the detail embraced by it possesses far more incalculable resources of manifold complexity than in the case of the Epos, and could only be treated in greater fulness and completeness if viewed historically, which is not within the aim of the present work.
[1. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE LYRIC.]
In the stimulus of epic poetry is the desire to hear the thing or matter which is unfolded on its own account, and independently of the poet,[2] as an objective and essentially exclusive totality. In the lyric, on the contrary, it is the converse need which finds its satisfaction in self-expression and the coming to a knowledge of the soul in this expression of itself. With regard to the nature of this effusion,[3] we may enumerate its most important constituents as follows:
First, there is the content in which soul-life is aware of itself and reflects itself in idea.
Secondly, there is the form, in virtue of which the expression of this content becomes lyric poetry.
Thirdly, there is the stage of conscious life and culture from which the person thus lyrically viewed discloses his feelings and ideas.
(a) The content of the lyric work of art cannot comprise the development of an objective action in its possibilities of expansion into all the breadth and wealth of a world. It is the single person, and along with him the isolated fact of situation and objects, no less than the mode and manner in which the soul is made aware of itself in such content, with its private judgments, its joy, its wonder, its pain, and its feeling, which it presents to our vision. Through this principle of division and particularity, as present in the Lyric, the content may be of the greatest variety, associated with every tendency of national life. There is, however, this essential distinction, that whereas the Epos combines in one and the same work the spirit of a people in all its breadth, and in its actual deed and fashion, the more definite content of lyrical poetry limits itself to one particular aspect, or at least is unable successfully to attain to the explicit completeness and exposition which the Epos ought at least to possess. The entire wealth of lyrical poetry in a nation may, therefore, no doubt embrace the collective exuberance of national interest, idea, and purpose; but it is not the single lyrical poem that can do this.