II.

Forms

The troubadours and trouvères of medieval France developed lyric forms such as the canzone and rondeau for singing. In Germany the earliest lyricists were the minnesingers. Although most medieval lyrics were written anonymously, two names are notable. The 15th-century poet François Villon was the greatest French lyric poet after the troubadours; the earliest English lyrics were by the 14th-century master Geoffrey Chaucer. Ballads, often classed as narrative poems, are considered lyrics by some scholars because they are sung.

By the beginning of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century) the term lyric also was applied to verse that was not sung. The sung lyric, including the madrigal, may be found in poetry of the Elizabethan era (16th century)—for example, in the work of the English musicians Thomas Campion and John Dowland—as well as in the songs in the plays of the English writer William Shakespeare. Italian poets such as Petrarch developed the sonnet, a lyric form that became popular for the treatment of both secular and religious themes in late Renaissance and early 17th-century Europe. Notable sonnet writers of the time in France included Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. The great sonneteers of England included Sir Thomas Wyatt, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, and John Donne; lyrics in other forms were contributed by John Skelton, Ben Jonson, and Robert Herrick. The shorter poems of John Milton and the odes of John Dryden were important additions to the lyric mode in the 17th century.