Between musicality and visuality: lyric theory in the 18th century European poetics and G. Derzhavin’s “Discourse on lyric poetry”

Lyric theory in the 18th century European poetics very often used musical analogies. Lyric poetry treated as a “singing of the soul” (J.G. Herder) was no longer understood as a mimetic art: it is an expression, but not depiction or imitation. G.R. Derzhavin’s “Discourse on lyric poetry” represented another trend in poetics. Derzhavin acquired modern notions of lyrical “feeling” and “expression”, but refused to regard music as a model for lyrical expression (as the majority of European theorists did). He preferred to associate lyrics with visuality and to treat lyrical poem as a chain of expressive “pictures”. Derzhavin turned out to be very close to the late Herder who had brought back the visual component to the lyric theory and even defined this genre as an “inspired painting of fantasy”. However, the lyrical visuality as understood by Derzhavin and Herder had as little in common with mimesis as the lyrical musicality: lyric poet did not describe the reality, but created pictures in his own imagination. Thus, Horatian topos “ut pictura poesis” in reference to lyrics was completely renewed.