Content and form indexes of lyrical literature

Lyrical literature is the delicate expression of the poet’s emotions such as love, friendship, pains, failures and everything which affects the human soul. What distinguishes this genre from the other ones is the prevailing element of emotion and feeling on other poetic elements, the deeper the poets’ emotions, the more pleasant their words will be. Another outstanding feature of poetic and lyric literature is more variety of levels; it is considered as the oldest, purest and most fantastic genre. This study has been carried out on the basis of comparisons of content and formal features of major lyrical, epic and educational works, and also it benefits from immediate views of experts and analysts. Familiarity with these characteristics will help us to recognize different genres, with classification of them, scientific and specialist view towards literature, and also a better understanding of many lyrical works. The overall result is that the content and form characteristics (language, imagery, music, poetry, grammar, figures, etc.) of a work can be effective on its style and genre.
Keywords: genres, lyrical literature, form and content
1.1.Introduction
Lyrical literature has specific content and form indexes which determine its borders and distinctions with other types. Some of them are considered as the main conditions for lyrical literature and lack of them reject literariness of literary text, and some others are minor indexes. Content indexes are emotionality, being romantic, being a mystic, having a negative perspective about the world, having a sad atmosphere, descriptiveness, paying attention to inability and moral characteristics of man, introspection, etc. Form indexes, too, include delicacy and softness of language and expressions, affluence of imagery, application of soft words, elements, combinations, interpretations and images which are appropriate for romantic atmosphere, musical romance, metaphors, using soft, romantic and delicate similes and kennings, high frequency of vowels, abstract elements, noun groups, questions that require no answers, etc.
Familiarity with these indexes makes it possible to classify literary works in terms of content and form in limited and determined groups, and it has the following benefits as well: as much as not classifying literary works leads to confusion of the researcher, classifying them leads to a better identification of a work, better vision of its topic or general structure for them, and provides better understanding of values of a literary work to some extent. This helps both to measure as well as evaluate literary works in comparison with other literary works of the same type. It also makes it possible to study weak and strong points of one type of literary work in a specific period.
1.2.Methodology
This survey has been carried out on the basis of comparing content and form features of great lyrical, epic and educational works as well as on the basis of studying perspectives and opinions of thinkers and direct reception from them with content analysis method.
1.3.Discussion
Content and form indexes of lyrical literature, subjects that create the lyrical field of poetry in Persian literature are almost all common subjects except epic and educational poetry. Lyrical poetry is related to different personal emotions and feelings, and generally to the “I” of the poet. In this way, it includes a wide range of poetic meanings and subject matters i.e. non-romantic dialogues, expression of different states of youth to oldness, longing, description of farness and living together, biographical poems, other meanings such as description of wine, carpe diem, description of beautiful countryside landscapes, spring, fall, night, morning, death, happy and sad moments because of worldly events, man’s love for God and for creatures, religious poems, critical and ironic poems, patriotism, appraisal, elegy, congratulation, satire, wisdom, mysticism, paradox, oaths, complaints, Saki poems, Anacreontic verse, brotherhood, literary entertainments such as riddles, puzzles, history, debates, boasting, description of cities, etc. Because of this, lyrical poetry has the widest spiritual and emotional horizon and is the most extensive type of Persian poetry. In Persian literature, these concepts have mostly been mixed with each other and in most poetic forms, there are collections of these concepts. What differentiates lyrical poetry from other types is the dominance of emotion and feeling over other poetic elements in lyrical poems, however, some believe that only personal emotions are creators of lyrical poems; some others apply personal emotions in a wider area which includes emotions and feelings of the characters in a fiction work, too. There is a direct relationship between poetry, emotion, and feeling, the deeper poet’s emotions and the more delicate their feelings are, the higher literariness of the poetry grows, the more influential and appealing their words will be. Therefore, lyrical poetry which is the result of overflowing of personal feelings and emotions is more outstanding than other types of poems. Emotionality of a literary text is one of the main features and a required condition for lyrical literature; lack of emotionality eliminates lyrical feature of a literary text.
Huzzah love, huzzah love that we have oh God
How delicate and how nice it is oh God
It is from that water of life that we are moving
It is neither from flute and nor the daffs that we move around
(Rumi, 1995; vol. 1, 61)
1.4.Conclusion
Lyrical literature has specific content and form indexes which differentiate it from other types; some of these features are main features which are required and sufficient conditions for lyrical literature and lack of them terminate the lyrical nature of the text, and some of them are minor features. What differentiates this literary type from other types is domination of the elements of emotion and feeling over other poetic elements; the deeper emotions of the poet and the more delicate his feelings are, consequently, the more influential and the sweeter their words will be. Educational literature raise intellectual aspects and lyrical literature raise emotional aspects and feelings of the audience. Lyrical poetry has included an extensive range of poetic meanings and subjects in it and deals with love, friendship, sufferings, failures and whatever influences human soul. In this sense, it is different from other literary forms. In this literary form, what oozes out of the poet’s inner world and from their soul is directly expressed as it has come, and the goal is not to educate or tell a historical event (poems naturally overflow and do not come by effort). In most Persian lyrical works, there is a negative perspective about the world and the dominant conditions, the sense of sorrow overruns happiness, which is required for a sad atmosphere. In the lyrical literature, words are connected both in terms of phonetics as well as in terms of meanings. Their tones, compared to tones of other poetic forms, have greater roles in the induction of the poet’s meant feeling. In relation to syntax and semantics, sentences are more fluent and normal compared to epic, and the language is in such a way that it can be accompanied with music and song. Words, elements, compounds, expressions, and images are soft, delicate and appropriate for lyrical atmosphere. The ultimate conclusion of the article is that content and form features (language, imagery, music, grammatical points, literary devices, etc.) of a work can be effective in the style and form of that work.