Theory of the lyric

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.