Handbuch Lyrik. Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte by Dieter Lamping (review)

This handbook undertakes the ambitious project of offering wide historical and conceptual argumentation and information together with in-depth analysis of the function, form, and situatedness of lyric poetry in cultural, medial, and institutional contexts. A very short foreword (D. Lamping) gives an overview of each section. It also explains the volume's heterogeneity, with the rationale that "[e]ine nicht bloß äußerliche Standardisierung verbietet sich in der Sache [ . . . ] angesichts der Komplexität der Lyrik und der Pluralität der Zugänge zu ihr" (x). In consequence, the volume is made up of 41 articles by 36 contributors from "Altphilologie über die Anglistik, Germanistik und Romanistik bis zur Komparatistik" (x).

This heterogeneity is one of the volume's strengths but also creates some of its drawbacks. The Handbuch develops useful categories that link historical trajectories and conceptual relations; rather than seeking a single and all-encompassing definition of the lyric, the volume acknowledges both central characteristics and borderline phenomena (prose poems, found poems, pop songs, etc.). Finally and most importantly, it enhances previously underdeveloped arguments about the embeddedness of lyric in historical, cultural, and medial contexts. At the same time, the components are not sufficiently integrated: the lack of cross-referencing between articles (a feature of many Metzler handbooks) detracts from the volume's usefulness; the index is insufficient, omitting not only works listed in individual article bibliographies but also important themes and names in articles (e.g. New Criticism). The table of contents is inconsistent in the amount of information given—it would have been preferable to make it slightly more unwieldy to enable the reader to navigate the volume.

The volume's first and weakest section, "Theorie und Poetik der Lyrik," undertakes to present "sowohl vor-und nebenwissenschaftliche Poetiken wie auch wissenschaftliche Theorien" (x) of the lyric, a topic ill-suited to the handbook format. The unexplained organization of the section exacerbates this problem: the reader is at a loss as to why an article on "Poetiken der Lyrik: Von der Normpoetik zur Autorenpoetik" (Brandmeyer), which continues through the twentieth century, is followed by "Aktuelle poetologische Diskussion" (Lampart), and then "Theorien der Lyrik seit dem 18. Jahrhundert" (Zymner). Perhaps the distinction between "poetics," "poetology," and "theory" motivates this choice, but this difference is not reflected upon and the articles refer to several of the same authors.

In the second section, "Lyrikanalyse," which treats "vor allem Aspekte der Form, der Sprache, der Medialität und der Veröffentlichungskontexte" (x), the table of contents' inconsistencies become particularly problematic: the first article ("Methoden der Lyrikinterpretation," D. Lamping) includes very useful sub-sections on "Interpretation," "Lyrikinterpretation," and "Methoden der Lyrikinterpretation," which follows the successful strategy of listing a method, a paradigmatic example of it, and the works featured in that example (e.g. "Roman Jakobsons linguistische Analyse eines Gedichts von Brecht," 40), but the reader has no way of knowing any of these sub-sections exist. Section II.3, "Das lyrische Ich" (Müller), is extremely short and does not explain why this single term receives its own section (56-58), while II.5, "Lyrik und Figur" (Winko), is well constructed and goes helpfully beyond identification of lyric prosopopoiea. Finally, sections II.8, "Die Medialität der Lyrik" (Kohl), and II.9, "Kontexte der Lyrik" (Hölter), contribute greatly to the volume's attention to the situatedness of the lyric.

The third section, "Typologie der Lyrik," is divided into "Funktionen," "Themen und Verfahren," and "Relationen"; it is unclear why the first category is treated separately here, since much of the material is covered in the articles treating rhetoric (Rudek and Detering); moreover, it seems clear that different kinds of lyrical texts would have different functions best treated in the types of articles on themes and relations that make up the rest of the section. All of sections III.4, "Naturlyrik" (Braungart), III.10, "Lyrik in Erzähltexten" (Hillebrandt), and III.12, "Lyrik und Musik" (Eckel) are particularly strong, due largely to skillful use of examples (as...