Elegy
A poem of serious reflection or lamentation, typically for someone who has died.
About the Elegy
An elegy is a meditative poem of mourning, traditionally for an individual who has died, though the form has expanded to include reflections on loss of any kind, youth, faith, love, a way of life. The voice is grave, considered, and often consoling.
Structure
Modern elegies have no required form, though the classical tradition used elegiac couplets (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines). Many elegies move in three stages, lament, praise of the deceased, and consolation.
Modern elegies have no required pattern. What defines them is their purpose, mourning a loss, and often a movement from lament to praise to consolation.
A Short History
- 1st century BCRoman poets like Propertius write in elegiac couplets.
- 1638John Milton publishes Lycidas, a pastoral elegy.
- 1751Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
- 1865Whitman mourns Lincoln in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.
- TodayPoets write elegies for people, places and ways of life.
Famous Elegies
- 01"Lycidas"John Milton
- 02"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"Thomas Gray
- 03"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"Walt Whitman
Questions About the Elegy
The things people ask most, answered in a sentence or two.