Elegy

Elegy refers to a particular pattern of poetry that addresses topics such as love, longing, and mourning; more often, elegy encompasses a variety of formats that address death and dying. The deathrelated elegy is the lyrical approach to loss and grief. Sorrowful lamentation, idealization of the deceased, and provision of solace are among the elegy's identifying traits. Though they vary across cultures and eras, elegies commonly convey mourners' melancholic emotions, memories, and struggles to grasp meaning from the demise of their beloved. They may be written for and about the dead, on the nature of death and life, or in anticipation of one's own expiration. Though elegies promote knowledge about the life and character of a particular decedent, they also assure that bereavement is a common and survivable human experience. They range in tone from visions of bright and glorious afterlife for the deceased to gruesome description of a body during or after death.

This entry examines the origins and use of elegy over time. Notable poets who have produced elegies include John Milton, John Donne, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, and W. H. Auden. The tradition of elegy is self-referential in that elements developed by ancient-era elegists have been invoked by their successors.

Origins of Elegy

In ancient Greek civilization, several centuries B.C.E., one rhythm or meter of poetry was the elegiac distich. It was a constraint of format rather than topic, as elegies tended to focus on intense subjects, such as politics, love, and loss. Poets, including Callinus, Tyrtaeus, and Archilochus, wrote song-like elegies to be accompanied by [Page 402]musical instruments. Antimachus's “Lyde” was a collection of elegies written to assist the poet's recovery from the loss of his wife. Theocritus's idylls, featuring nature, deceased and grieving shepherds, and the shepherds' protective nymphs, were harbingers of the later English tradition of pastoral elegy. Roman/Latin elegists, including Ennius, Gallus, Propertius, and Ovid, devoted their efforts to love and eroticism.

During a pre-Islamic period starting in the 6th century C.E., an Arabic elegiac tradition arose; tearful weeping at graveside, participation in grief by the entire universe, and the incontrovertible role in death of Dahr, a fateful destiny, were all prominent. Females were believed to be especially emotional and advantaged as elegists. One praised example was al-Khansa, a contemporary of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, who wrote about her brother Sakhr's passing for the rest of her life. In the Muslim Spain of the 10th century, Hebrew poets such as Solomon ibn Gabriol and Moses ibn Ezra were encouraged to contribute to cultural tradition and did so in elegies that heavily echoed Arabic motifs.

European Elegy

The Middle Ages offered many elegies for royals that included contact with the dead and prophetic dreams. For instance, Geoffrey Chaucer's “The Book of the Duchess” probably honored the wife of John of Gaunt and portrayed a poet's dream of a hunt interrupted by a darkly clad grieving knight.

Only two 16th-century French poets received any acclaim for their elegies, the majority of which were not about death or grieving. Clement Marot's “Suite de l'Adolescence Clementine” included both love epistles and the “Complaintes,” which lamented the passing of contemporaries. Marot may be best known for invoking tragic catastrophe, such as the burning of one elegy subject's bed and the drowning of another by river gods envious of his talent. Charles Fontaine also wrote many love elegies but later integrated a few examples of mourning in “Les Ruisseax de Fontaine.” German poets of this era also produced elegy that rarely addressed death and loss.

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