Lyric and Its ›Worlds‹

Abstract The article gives a metatheoretical definition of ›lyric‹. The definition pinpoints that lyric is either scriptural and visual or vocal and something that you can hear; it can be fictional or non-fictional, and it belongs to the social system, which modern ›westerners‹ call ›literature‹, but it can also be part of cultural practices, which are outside of any social system of ›literature‹. One can differentiate analytically with regard to the graphic type as well as to the vocal type of ›lyric‹ between the ›material How‹ and the ›semantical What‹. The ›How‹-side and the ›What‹-side provide each and together special signals for the hearer or for the seer or reader, which attract and bind his or her attention and which inform the hearer or the seer and the reader basically that language itself (which is understood as a cognitive system or tool) is something with which you can develop or create meaning; in doing this the signals of lyric constitute aesthetic evidence (the reader, seer or hearer will be ›convinced‹ or ›made sure‹ or emotionally satisfied in a way by the aesthetic qualities of the lyric: non-propositional, as if looking through the ›veils of poetry‹. In the next step the article discusses some types of lyrical ›worlds‹ and lyrical ›world-making‹ with regard to this definition. Finally, the article presents a couple of theses.