Research on Comparison Between Poetry

and Lyrics

Xueyi Zhang(B)

Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China

passerazz@gmail.com

Abstract. The researcher of this paper has found that poetry and lyrics are similar
and can be compared in several ways. However, there are not many studies about
this. Learning the differences and similarities in poetry and lyrics can help writers
enhance their creative abilities and step up their understanding in musical ways
like tempo and in writing ways like words. Based on the previous literature review,
the researcher has generally summed them up and drawn some conclusions. In the
introduction, some relationships between poetry and lyrics were illustrated and
some existing problems were raised. It also generalized the study ways and aspects
of this paper, giving an overall view of the whole passage. This paper analyzed
imagery perspective at first and found that there are no obvious distinctions; in the
way of content, the researcher first listed some elements in poem writing and then
explained both differences and common grounds in the aspect of thought express-
ing, narrating content and interactions with readers or the audience, raising several
examples of lyrics in stage performing. The paper discussed their dissimilitude
in forms. Next, the researcher studied the language processing of the two issues,
analyzing poetry and lyrics from words using translation and a rhetorical skill:
repetition.

Keywords: poetry · lyrics · writing analyzing

1 Introduction
There is much research about poems and lyrics, respectively, while not much about the
differences and similarities between them; a combined analysis is lacking. Some lyrics
can be analyzed as a poem, though it seems like researchers are not so willing to treat
them seriously. Everything can also be found in the poems from their social meaning,
structure, and images. However, people cannot just read lyrics but appreciate them with
music, just as some poets like T.S. Eliot wanted people to listen to their poem recordings
because they had better understand a poem by both words and the tune. It is known
that ancient people sang poems, so they could remember and pass on the content to the
next generation with melody. As a result, the relationships between poetry and lyrics are
close, deep, and time-honored.
Modern poetry is rarely studied. Even for the lyrics, they are more likely to be studied
in the field of music rather than poetry. Wars or other social events may stimulate the

© The Author(s) 2023

L. F. Ying et al. (Eds.): ICELA 2022, ASSEHR 730, pp. 67–73, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-004-6_10
68 X. Zhang

boost of poems, but people attach more importance to their political effects instead of the
poems themselves. When it was the 60–70s, a lot of excellent musicians came up, and
people would not call them poets but lyricists. Moreover, the common thing is that these
songs have the same characteristics as the canonized poems: they use surrealist images
and irony, form a coherent unity despite their ambiguity, they communicate indirectly/by
implication only [1].
It is debatable whether the lyrics are equal to the poems because without the melody
and other embellishments, the words themselves can be silly. At the same time, it is also
said that the boundaries should not be so strict. Poetry and song lyrics are bridged and
blurred in practice. Some songwriters had written poems when they were young. For
example, the famous singer Lou Reed would combine poems with rock music. Moreover,
skills of writing poems can be useful in lyrics writing as well, and some songwriters
write poems when they want to create a song. Taking rock music as an example, the rock
lyrics themselves can be considered poems. What they are like in poems is that words
have liberated themselves from the duty of meaning something precise and concrete.
Due to that, words stimulate the imagination of the audience, which indicates rock music
has been described as a literary tradition that goes back to romanticism and symbolism,
nonsense poetry, and literary modernism [2].
Moreover, nowadays, many people are poets and lyric writers as well. Studying the
differences and similarities between poems and lyrics is necessary to enhance the quality
of the output in the two fields. As far as people know, the emphasis on the overlap of
poetry and lyrics fields is about educational research and computer techniques. Most
of the papers collected data and then established mathematical models to analyze and
calculate to find out if it is suitable to teach poetry by putting them in a melody, or they
tried to work out the best application for poems and lyrics in cyberspace, and more. They
are more likely to combine them with computer techniques or test the teaching method’s
acceptance. Rare papers are concerned with poems and lyrics themselves. This passage
is going to study something tightly related between the two things. By selecting some
concrete examples, this study will explore whether there are differences or similarities
between poems and lyrics in various aspects. Lines and words will be laid out; inherent
feelings will be analyzed well. The aim of this passage is mainly about generalized the
approximate opinions of several researchers. Images, content, and rhetoric of poems and
lyrics will be mainly discussed.

2 Images
2.1 Images in Poetry
The concept of poetry can be various. Except for the well-formed words, it attaches
great importance to the sound as well. Meters and rhymes are also emphasized, and it
can be seen as imaginative literature in general [3]. Poetry is a language harmony that
is read with rhyming and tempo. Imagery can be considered as a picture so direct that
the readers can experience and feel the content of the poem [4].
“Although the definition of poetry is slightly blurred, the definition of lyrics is very
clear. Unlike the poem, the lyrics have to be intertwined with the music, even comple-
menting it. According to Starrett, songwriters are the new poets with all the privileges
 Research on Comparison Between Poetry and Lyrics 69

that come with the title. The study of lyrics becomes more reasonable when we realize
that lyrics have taken the place of poetry in the last few decades [5].”
When it comes to the period 1909–1917, to protest the number of emotional expres-
sions in poems and the attitude to making a fuss about imaginary illness, some poets
like Ezra Pound wanted poetry to concentrate entirely upon “the thing itself” [6], to
encourage people to use imageries in their poem, namely, some picture in mind, which
can depict feelings directly and vividly.

2.2 Images in Lyrics

To make a song have a similar atmosphere as a poem, some writers would like to choose
images frequently used images in poetry—for example, the imagery of the “moon”
in Chinese classical poems. “Moon” is the symbol of nostalgia and reunion; in ancient
times, the Book of Songs used the moon to express the feeling of missing between young
lovers; in Li Bai’s In the Silence of Night, “moon” created an atmosphere of sadness
and loneliness, to better express Li’s nostalgia [7]. Therefore, the feelings of this kind
of imagery are common, so the songwriters extract and adapt these images to their own
works.

2.3 Similarities in Imagery

Lyrics do not have the historical development as poems do, and nor do they have some
critics to discuss their forms and contents, such as the rising of Imagism. It seems that
lyrics have more freedom than poems because there are no certain demands for them.
Therefore, in the aspect of images, except for the history and standard of imagery, no clear
difference between poetry and lyrics. Both of them use images to build a corresponding
atmosphere that adapts the feelings of the works.

2.4 Differences in Imagery

In general, poems attach importance to building artistic conception, while lyrics pay
attention to the use of images. Most poems have their own implications, which need
people to reflect and care about beauty as a unity. In comparison, lyrics use images to
express feelings directly. Poetry is reading words, as a reader, people can have various
understandings, and there is no time limit, while lyrics are combined with tunes and
melodies, which distract people’s attention to the words and make people move in a
short time [8].

3 Content

3.1 Elements for Expressing

Emotional expression is one of the main functions of poetry. From the aspect of content,
poetry can be divided into lyric poetry, narrative poetry and philosophical poetry, and
more. Poets may express their feelings directly, depict something vividly, or appeal to
70 X. Zhang

some far-reaching thoughts. Each poem has its unique context. Different times, spaces,
cultures, and customs in different cultural environments of different times and regions
can also have some impact on the thinking mode of poets and the content, structure,
and logic of poems. The poet expresses their feelings through its objective counterpart,
namely image, which can be enhanced by rhythm as well. The emotional content and
rhythmic form make poetry a unity of social value and artistic value.

3.2 Differences from Three Aspects of Content

First, in general, lyrics are more likely to have a preference for expressing positive
thoughts. The images in the lyrics should be analyzed with their cultural context. How-
ever, the attitudes of poems always remain multiple and mingled and sometimes can be
ironic [9].
Second, lyrics build the intertextuality among history, biography, culture and pop
music, and more. Meanwhile, the content of lyrics can be inserted with the writer’s own
experience and feelings, and sometimes they also make lyrics mingled with literary and
film works, making them equipped with literariness [10].
Third, lyrics without melody are actual poems in a broad sense instead of real lyrics.
This is the main point that decides the differences between lyrics and modern poems
in contents and forms. A song would be performed in public, so the lyrics must be
popularized to meet the demand of the masses. Most of them are moving and use simple
words rather than choosing scads of delicate words. Compared with lyrics, poems cannot
reach the same effect that songs have because they only have words to build a mental
world [11].
There are several examples. Swedish melodic doom metal band Draconian adapted
Wordsworth’s poem “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”, and that indicates poems can be
transferred into lyrics without any movement of the words. Meanwhile, when combined
with emotions and melodies, something would change. The outlook of the poem and the
lyrics can be different: they do share the same words, but they express so differently; while
the poem is created with some emotions and atmosphere, and with musical instruments
and stage performance, this kind of atmosphere of a poem can be amazingly presented.
Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris also adapted Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner”, and this adoption indicates that the progression of the story of the poem can
be presented by instrumental arrangement. Even if the words are changed, it still tells
the complete story in a multidimensional way, with another kind of form.
There is another example of Yeats’ “A Dream of Death”. Circle of Ouroborus is
an experimental black metal band hailing from Finland, and it adapted the poem. This
indicates that through the instrumental arrangement, the atmosphere and emotion of the
poem can be changed. The audience can feel different when hearing the song and the
poem reading. Some images in the original poem may be endowed with other meanings,
under the condition that there is no word changing [12].

3.3 Connections and Differences in Forms

First, the definition of lyrics can be wide enough to cover some famous writers’ works,
so they do not need to be so strict with the forms of lyrics only if they have their own
 Research on Comparison Between Poetry and Lyrics 71

content to show. However, some lyricists are not satisfied with writing random words.
Instead, they are eager to write lyrics as poems, weighing every single word carefully.
Poetry is an art of language, and it can be read as well as voiced and listened to. Singing
is a way of voicing, and it can help poems to be created, spread, and remembered. As a
result, some songwriters use their poems as lyrics, composing music for them [13].
Second, if one listens to recordings of poets such as Robert Browning, Alfred, Ten-
nyson or W.B. Yeats, the musical, oratorical and incantatory nature of their recitation is
clearly apparent in their delivery. Like singers today, this allowed the words’ meanings
to live in the listeners’ minds in their remembered state and further meanings to emerge
through this interaction.
Third, lyrics are usually combined with other musical things, and then together,
they make some impact. To coordinate with melodies, the length of the lyrics must be
considered, but poems can be very short or very long. Moreover, lyrics can build a more
intimate relationship with the audience rather than sole musical instruments playing.
The lyrics are more concrete [14].

4 Language
4.1 Differences in Word Choosing
The adjectives used in lyrics are more rhyming than that in poems, although sometimes
they are the same in the semantic aspect. It is inferred that lyrics must consider compati-
bility with melodies, musical instruments, tempos, vocals, and the quality of recordings,
but poems do not have such problems. Sometimes people use more obscure words or
infrequently used words in poems while using common words in songs. That is because
some poems are written for literature lovers, not for the public [15]. Sometimes lyrics
use simple words to build communication with the audience, and because poetry can
elicit strong emotional responses, and this is analogous to people’s responses to music,
lyrics can do the same [16].
Then, lyrics emphasize the expression of subjective emotions, so there are two roles
of sender and receiver. They always have the intention to tell, to narrate, and need a
response from the audience, so they use the first person and the second person obviously.
However, poetry is not as direct as lyrics [9].

4.2 Differences in Translation

Another aspect is translation. Lyrics translation belongs to literary translation, so it must
obey the rules of literary translation. The closest form to lyrics is poetry; some songs
are just poetry with melody, and others have the same sense of beauty as poems. In this
field, lyrics translation can refer to poetry translation, but the musicality should not be
ignored [17].

4.3 Common Points

Furthermore, repetition is an important form of art used both in poems and lyrics, so as
ambiguity, which can arouse people’s radioactive thoughts of the text even if it may also
lead to misunderstanding [18].
72 X. Zhang

5 Conclusion
To sum it up, this paper has compared poetry and lyrics from three perspectives in general,
and it is obvious that they have many common grounds in most parts, but there are still
subtle differences that make them recognizable and distinctive from each other. When
people talk about these two things, many of them regard them as the same. However, it
is worth and necessary to analyze the slight differences because it will deepen people’s
understanding of these two historic art forms, thus they can do better in one field with
skills used in the other field.

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 Research on Comparison Between Poetry and Lyrics 73

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