The word lyric comes from the Greek kithara, a seven-stringed instrument used to accompany verse in ancient Greece. Ancient scholars defined this form as melic poetry because it was sung with musical backing rather than recited like drama or epic.
Greek musician-poets like Sappho and Alcaeus composed strophic works performed live before audiences in archaic times. Scholars at Hellenistic Alexandria selected nine poets including Pindar and Anacreon for critical study of their craft.
Persian ghazals emerged in the 10th century as couplets sharing rhyme and refrain with subjects focused entirely on love. Hafiz and Omar Khayyam became notable authors whose works introduced this form to European readers through German translators Schlegel and Goethe.
Petrarch wrote Rime sparse beginning in 1327 after seeing Laura in Sainte-Claire d'Avignon church. His collection of 366 poems later became known as Il Canzoniere or The Song Book.
William Wordsworth wrote more sonnets than any other British poet during the 19th century revival of traditional forms. Romantic lyric poetry consisted of first-person accounts describing thoughts and feelings from specific moments with extreme personal intensity.