Literary Studies an der Universität Bochum

the voice that speaks in a lyric poem; also known as the “lyric speaker” or “lyric I.” The concept of poetic speaker allows us to distinguish between the voice that speaks in the poem and the author who wrote the poem

(covert) poetic speaker ≠ poet; overt poetic speaker (I)

what point of view is the poem written from?

for voice in the poem

speaking directly to an absent person or to an abstract or nonhuman entity (or the use of expressions like "oh")

sth. is personified (it acts like a human)

a figure of speech in which an animal, inanimate object, or abstract concept is spoken of as though it were endowed with life or with human attributes or feelings.

– a genre of poetry, broadly defined as any fairly short poem consisting of the utterance of a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought, and/or feeling. There are many different styles, forms, and varieties of lyric, and the bulk of all poetry falls into this category, which is generally understood to include all poems that are not narrative or dramatic

general term

private expression of emotion by an individual speaker; highly musical, can feature poetic devices

the sound of word(s) equals the meaning

dt.: Lautmalerei

– a stylistic device in which a word or a combination of words is used in such a way that their sound seems to resemble closely the sound they denote, or in which words are coined to emulate sounds

underlying message; what the story deals with