(_γγ_) The class of the _ballad_, in contrast to the above, includes for the most part, if in less degree than the truly epic poem, the completeness of an independent event, whose reflection, of course, it merely embodies in the most conspicuous of its phases, while it seeks at the same time to give full, if concentrated and ideal emphasis, to the depth of the sentiment with which it is throughout interwoven, and therein the plaint, dejection, joy, and so forth, of the soul. English literature above all contains many such poetic compositions in the early and more primitive epoch of its history; and, generally, popular poetry delights in the narration of such histories and collisions, usually unfortunate, with a true and emotional emphasis calculated to make both heart and voice thrill and falter with anguish. But in more recent times also among ourselves Bürger and, most famous of all, Goethe and Schiller, have composed masterpieces in this field; Bürger in virtue of his sombre tone of naïveté; Goethe through the impeccable clarity of his emotional, no less than imaginative vision, which forms the lyrical thread throughout; and Schiller, on account of his superb emotional emphasis on the fundamental thought which he seeks, in a wholly lyrical manner, to express under the form of an event, in order thereby to affect the hearts of his readers with a similar lyric movement of feeling and contemplation. (_β_) The purely _personal_ element of lyric poetry is rightly emphasized in those cases, when the fact of a given situation is taken by the poet as an effective means of expressing his _own_ individuality therein. Such is the case in the so-called poems _d'occasion._ So far back as the poems of Callinus and Tyrtaeus we find elegies of battle based on conditions regarded as real, which are made the stimulus of a personal enthusiasm, albeit the poet's own individuality, his purely private affections and feelings, are as yet not so much in evidence. The Pindaric Odes also bring to light in their panegyrics of particular contests, victors, and circumstances, a vein or impulse that is more private; and yet more in some of the odes of Horace we mark a definitely personal motive, or rather expressed thought to the effect, "I will as myself a man of culture and fame, write a poem on this subject." But the best illustration of all we have in our own Goethe, whose partiality for such a style was due to the fact that he discovered a poem in every incident of his life.