Teaching Byron and Shelley to sing: Thomas Moore’s lyric example

Thomas Moore has not received the plaudits he deserved as a lyric pioneer. This article to aims to restore to Moore his status as a major influence that changed the direction of the Romantic lyric through his lyric experimentation. It is a critical truism that Moore is a poetic musician or a musical poet in his understanding of lyric. Less noted is that Moore’s musical lyrics formed a standard that Byron and Shelley chose to embrace. Focusing upon Byron and Shelley’s interactions with Moore’s lyric poetry, particularly ‘Odes to Nea’, I view Moore as a key figure in the development of the Romantic lyric voice.