The nine lyric poets (nine melic poets) were a canon of archaic Greek composers esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of critical study. The archaic period in Greece is the period during which the ancient Greek city-states developed, and is normally taken to cover roughly the 9th century to the 6th century BCE. The Archaic period followed the dark ages, and saw significant advancements in political theory, and the rise of democracy... A composer is a person who writes music. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... This article is about the city in Egypt. ...

They were:

• Alcman (choral lyric, seventh century BC)
• Sappho (monodic lyric, c. 600 BC)
• Alcaeus (monodic lyric, c. 600 BC)
• Anacreon (monodic lyric, sixth century BC)
• Stesichorus (choral lyric, sixth century BC)
• Ibycus (choral lyric, sixth century BC)
• Simonides (choral lyric, sixth century BC)
• Pindar (choral lyric, fifth century BC)
• Bacchylides (choral lyric, fifth century BC)

In most Greek sources the word, melikos, is used (from melos "song"), but some authors have, lyrikos, which eventually becomes the regular word in Latin (lyricus) and in the modern languages. Alcman (also Alkman, Greek ) (7th century BC) was an Ancient Greek choral lyric poet from Sparta. ... For other uses, see Sappho (disambiguation). ... Alcaeus (Alkaios) of Mitylene (ca. ... Anacreon (born ca. ... Stesichorus (, lit. ... Ibycus (), of Rhegium in Italy, Greek lyric poet, contemporary of Anacreon, flourished in the 6th century BC. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. ... Bold textil8jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjpooSimonides of Ceos (ca. ... For the PINDAR military bunker in London, please see the PINDAR section of Military citadels under London Pindar (or Pindarus, Greek: ) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia; died 443 BC in Argos), was a Greek lyric poet. ... Bacchylides, Ancient Greek lyric poet, was born at Iulis, in the island of Ceos. ...

The ancient scholars defined the genre on the basis of the metrical form, not the content. Thus some types of poetry which would be included under the label, lyric, in modern literary criticism are nevertheless excluded, namely the elegy and the iambus. For other uses, see Elegy (disambiguation). ... An iamb is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ...

The poetry of these poets is traditionally divided into choral poetry and monodic lyric. This division is, however, contested by some modern scholars.^[1] Caccini, Le Nuove musiche, 1601, title page In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments anothers death. ... // Lyric poetry refers to either poetry that has the form and musical quality of a song, or a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music. ...

Footnotes

1. ^ See especially M. Davies, "Monody, Choral Lyric, and the Tyranny of the Hand-Book," Classical Quarterly NS 38 (1988), pp. 52-64.