Theory of the Lyric

by Jonathan D. Culler

What sort of thing is a lyric poem? An intense expression of subjective experience? The fictive speech of a specifiable persona? Theory of the Lyric reveals the limitations of these two conceptions of the lyric—the older Romantic model and the modern conception that has come to dominate the study of poetry—both of which neglect what is most striking and compelling in the lyric and falsify the long and rich tradition of the lyric in the West. Jonathan Culler explores alternative conceptions offered by this tradition, such as public discourse made authoritative by its rhythmical structures, and he constructs a more capacious model of the lyric that will help readers appreciate its range of possibilities.“Theory of the Lyric brings Culler’s own earlier, more scattered interventions together with an eclectic selection from others’ work in service to what he identifies as a dominant need of the critical and pedagogical turning readers’ attention to lyric poems as verbal events, not fictions of impersonated speech. His fine, nuanced readings of particular poems and kinds of poems are crucial to his arguments. His observations on the workings of aspects of lyric across multiple different structures are the real strength of the book. It is a work of practical criticism that opens speculative vistas for poetics but always returns to poems.”—Elizabeth Helsinger, Critical Theory

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Writing, Criticism, Theory

406 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 8, 2015

About the author

Culler's Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature won the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association of America in 1976 for an outstanding book of criticism. Structuralist Poetics was one of the first introductions to the French structuralist movement available in English.

Culler’s contribution to the Very Short Introductions series, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, received praise for its innovative technique of organization. Instead of chapters to schools and their methods, the book's eight chapters address issues and problems of literary theory.

In The Literary in Theory (2007) Culler discusses the notion of Theory and literary history’s role in the larger realm of literary and cultural theory. He defines Theory as an interdisciplinary body of work including structuralist linguistics, anthropology, Marxism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism.

Reviews

[Jeremy Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonathan Culler tries here to do something arguably impossible: to unify ways of thinking and discussing Western lyric poetry across historical periods in order to create a general theory. The sheer divergence of lyric poetry in any single era, let alone throughout history and across cultural differences, renders the project daunting, to understate it, and I think Culler might be the first person to admit that he wasn't entirely successful. But unassailable success doesn't appear to be his objective in Theory of the Lyric, as much as to begin a reorientation in the ways we consider lyric poems. Culler has a corrective impulse, working against what might be called a dominant historicist approach to contemporary literary criticism (and which replaced a dominant mode of post-structural / deconstructivist criticism, for which he was something of a mouthpiece, interestingly enough), as well as against a somewhat residual New Critical approach to lyric poetry in particular. While this book will not displace the historicists, or push aside leftover tendencies from New Criticism, Theory of the Lyric does succeed in showing some of the limitations of viewing lyric poetry through the sole frame, for example, of the imagined utterance of a supposed speaker, or as the pure expression of the poet's inner life.

What Culler offers, instead, is a returning emphasis on poetics, with a turn away from interpretation and toward the techniques employed by lyric poems and their effects. This will not satisfy all readers, either for the way it puts interpretation aside, or for its lack of completion as a poetics. Certain readers will likely take exception to how Culler elevates the status of certain lyric techniques, such as apostrophe, in a manner that might appear subjective.

On the other hand Theory of the Lyric does begin to make compelling, if only introductory arguments for reading the lyric poem as an event, operating in a ritualistic mode, and making particular claims on the present, differentiating it (to a degree) from other literary practices, such as narrative fiction, epic, and drama. This, I believe, will be of lasting value, even if it might serve most as a point of leverage for future attempts to theorize the lyric (which would probably require more accommodation for the ideas of New Lyric Studies as they exist today), and it will certainly have a strong influence on my own thinking.

It's a shame, however, that a publisher as established as Harvard University Press, publishing what is likely to be the last major work from an important academic, and demanding nearly $40 for the cover price (I paid 37€), couldn't manage to produce a book without typographical errors.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really struggled with understanding this book. It wasn't until class discussion after each chapter that I understood what I had read. I do think that in comparison to someone like Frye, Culler is more accessible in terms of language and understanding, but I still struggled. I honestly felt pretty dumb reading this as a grad student and struggling with grasping the concepts. BUT I got there in the end. I think.

[Emily Strom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really stretched the limits of my understanding but did have some thought-provoking points. I'm still a bit confused as to what Culler's understanding of the lyric is because he addressed so many other people's differing conceptions of it, but I will say that I liked I lot of the poems he included.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly useful and practical as an introduction although the final section has certain assumptions it rests on that may not serve everyone

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's the beginning of my review, the rest of which can be read here: https://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/20...

In Theory of the Lyric (Harvard University Press, 2015), Jonathan Culler does not attempt to provide a definition of what the lyric poem is. Instead he gives us new ways to approach the lyric poem, as Culler believed previous methods were ineffective or lacking. For instance, in the past, some scholars and teachers of poetry have tried to reconstruct the poet’s/speaker’s experiences or motives for writing the poem, even though the poem does not benefit from or need those reconstructions, especially since it doesn’t address what the poem and its language are doing; or the New Critics approach – “[Culler] was no longer oriented by the New Critical assumptions that poems exist to be interpreted. It [his chapter on the apostrophe in particular but the book in general] sought, rather, to explore the most unsettling and intriguing aspects of lyric language and the different sorts of seductive effects that lyric may have” (viii). Culler throughout suggests the reader address the lyric poem as an experience, and he provides many ways to do that. Because of this, perhaps, Culler uses accessible language (as opposed to high-academic or obfuscating language that we often encounter when reading literary criticism). Even with the accessible language, my reading was fully engaged and slowed as I wrote plentiful amounts of marginalia and would often to pause longer than normal to contemplate what he wrote or to re-read his poem examples to see how poem worked with his ideas. The book is a concentrated study of the “Western lyric tradition” (3) from the ancient Greeks to Modern poetry, and on one occasion, contemporary hip hop.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

You probably already know, based on your personality, whether you would like a book of theory about lyric poetry. With that said, this was one of the best theory books I’ve read in a long time for being both accessible and insightful. The author’s subject, the currently ascendant “lyric” genre of poetry, is a vague construct that he defines admirably, based on historical precedent, formal characteristics, and boundary conditions. With this as the anchor, he goes through a wide range of ways to frame and focus his subject.

Culler identifies several distinctive elements of lyric poetry, and taken together, these constitute the “theory” of the book’s title. They are concrete enough that they can be evaluated and really seem to give some shape to an open ended subject. These include its fluid way of addressing the reader via an intermediary (which he calls triangulated address), the way it creates meaning in both visual and aural dimensions, and the way it establishes a special present tense, which is eternal, rather than instantaneous.

Elaborating on these points, Culler references several other theorists, often adapting their ideas to his own project. This background reading is itself interesting, and provides an added bonus above and beyond the original theory that Culler is proposing.

Needless to say, I found a lot to appreciate here. I think I have a more robust understanding of and relationship with lyric poetry, both as a reader and a writer. Two thumbs up.

[Austin Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of the Western lyric is an interesting and refreshing departure from New Critical and historicist methodologies. Most impressive here is the breadth of Culler’s theoretical foundation; this book alone provides an essential conspectus of the past two hundred or so years of lyric theory. This is matched only by the concision and clarity of analysis he brings to a truly bewildering number of lyrics in Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, and English. Regardless of its flaws—and this book is not without them—this is clearly the culmination of a lifetime of dedicated study.

I’m not fully convinced by certain aspects of Culler’s theory (especially his emphasis on apostrophe), but it’s essential reading nevertheless.

[Reuben Woolley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a couple of things about it that ought to be critiqued (too politically lax, too cursory in the chapter on lyric and society), but this is undeniably a really impressive work that gives both a broad summary and a clear line of argument on the nature of lyric poetry and its criticism throughout history. For what could be quite a dry subject matter, Culler also writes very nicely, so it’s a pleasure to read. The chapter on lyric address, and who we see poems as being spoken by or to, is particularly great, and picks up on something I’ve struggled with in discussions about poetry right back since GCSE.

[Fran Cantero Soriano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written, Theory of the Lyric offers the main attributes of lyric western poetry, all in a single volume. Its interrogations create a rich framework for not only beginners who are interested in the power and manifestation of the lyric, but also for those more advanced on theory. An entertaining must-read for those passionate on history, poetry and literary criticism.

[Helen Lemus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revealing and attentive review of what makes lyric poetry tick. Contains many example poems and draws from the most interesting thinkers in the field of literary theory. It is great beginning. I recommend this book for students of literature. I enjoyed reading it.

[kami · Rating 4 out of 5]

saggio dell'anno, per me

[Natálie Buriánková · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like it veeeery much!
Jonathan Culler is baller,
makes Barthes look smaller.
I will probably read it again,
‘cause theory never felt this zen.
Braaaaaap

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

Jo Culler is a theoretician.

Alan Ginsberg is a practical person. He goes into the World and expresses that. He probably never understood what made his poems work. He certainly had an idea. But that is less important, as his works have so much power.

Jo Culler has nothing from above. He doesn't even have the vague feeling of "that's it" that every practical person has. Jo is below Joe the Plumber. Joe the Plumber [the character, not the person] has a trade. He can do plumbing. Jo can fence with meaningless words so he can defend a chair. And hopefully a good pension plan.

Jo is nothing. And he knows it. That is why he spends so much time obfuscating the paragraphs. Nobody will make a song from this junk. Not even from a paragraph. Nobody will recite a chapter of his crap while shaving his legs.

The bureaucrat has no clothes!

[Vasile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic insight to lyric poetry.

[Jordan Magnuson]

A sweeping, historical, pragmatic, and inductive look at how and why lyric poems work, how and why we enjoy them. "I am not attempting to develop new and ingenious interpretations so much as taking note of what this or that poem seems to accomplish and relating that to the techniques that I am exploring."

I like Culler's approach, and this is probably the most helpful and thought-provoking book I have read on poetics.