| I. Introduction V. Hymn Singing in the Early Chruch
VI. What do some HYMN WRITERS have to say about HYMNS
V. Quotes concerning: What is a Hymn? VI. Modern Definitions Carl F. Price, 'What Is a Hymn' [Paper of the Hymn Society of America, 1937] A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper's attitude toward God, or God's purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it. [Used by permission.] The essential ingredients of this definition are:
Harry Eskew and Hugh McElrath, 'The Hymn -- A Distinctive Literary Form,' Sing with Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Hymnody, Second Edition, Revised, (Nashville: Church Street Press, 1995), p. 27. It was the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson who said, “A good hymn is the most difficult thing in the world to write.” This statement highlights the nature of the hymn as one of the most rigorously limited types of literature. Its first limitation is that it must possess qualities of lyric poetry: it must sing! But its strictures are even greater since it must also express religious truth. Furthermore, when it must be a medium of concerted action and feeling simple enough to be performed congregationally, its restraints are compounded and multiplied. Therefore, in the final analysis, the hymn represents a unique form of literary art, sustaining a relationship to poetry somewhat akin to that of prayer to prose. It is a type of poetry existing of and by itself, having qualities that are distinctly its own. Some would go so far as to affirm that the hymn 'per se' is not to be considered a subdivision of lyrical poetry at all. Rather, they claim that it is so distinct that it fits into categories neither of poetry nor of prose. Hymns are, after all, 'sui generis'--the products of an art having its own qualities and requirements. They may indeed be poetry-like; however, they do not have to be true poems to achieve status as true hymns. Be that as it may, the purely artistic appreciation of hymns as poems has a legitimate place in worship and devotion. The capacity to discern and appreciate the highest good and artistic best can and should be cultivated by those seeking through hymns and their singing to glorify God, the author of all art and beauty. Though hymns do not have to exhibit all the characteristics considered above to qualify as poems, they have both religious and aesthetic values when they do. The literarily informed critical faculty is not the opponent but, the friend of true religion. [Used by permission.] Some sites which have general introductory material on Hymns, Hymnody, and Hymnology.
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