 For Susman, the “lyrical I” is the particular form the poet creates with poetry: “the ‘lyrical I’ [is] a form […] the poet creates from the given I” (1910: 16). It is different from the poet’s empirical I and not to be confused with subjectivity. Distancing herself from the idea that poets express their innermost, authentic selves, Susman highlights the “purely formal character” of the lyrical I that is given its symbolic articulation “completely independently of its individual and general aspects” (1910: 18). According to Susman the lyrical I is the “expression” or “form of an I”. Like the artwork it retains its formal character completely independent from its individual or general content because it is created rather than given. In other words, the poet does not find the lyrical I in her- or himself but, like “the speaking and acting figures of a drama, [the poet] first must create the lyrical I out of what he finds in his given I” (1910: 18).