Scholarly lyric is a lyric poem incorporating academic analysis, research, critical interpretation, or intellectual investigation into its expression while maintaining lyric's characteristic emotional intensity and musical qualities. This form demonstrates that scholarship and feeling need not be opposed, combining rigorous thought with aesthetic beauty. The scholarly lyric may cite sources, engage with critical debates, analyze texts or ideas, or employ research-based content, yet transforms these materials through lyric's subjective, musical mode. This hybrid form appears increasingly in contemporary poetry where poets hold academic positions or where art engages explicitly with intellectual work, proving that poetry can think deeply while singing.

A Scholarly lyric blends intellectual inquiry with personal emotion—often allusive, intertextual, and reflective; found in metaphysical or academic poetic traditions.