Definition of Elegy
An elegy is typically a poem of lament which expresses
gloomy thoughts of a person who is no more. It is commonly written in praise of
the deceased and has an air of melancholiness around it.
The word elegy originated from the Greek word
'elegeia,' which means to lament or to be sorrowful. In Greek and Roman
literature, any poem which was written in elegiac meter, meant irregular
hexameter and pentameter lines was denoted by the term 'elegy’. However, it was
also referred to as the subject matter of conversion and loss regularly
articulated in the elegiac stanza form, particularly in themes of love. With
this concept in mind, there are certain poems which are referred to as 'elegies
such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer.
An elegy usually brings comprises of three stages of
grief which are as follows:
• Grief
• Praise of the dead
• Consolation towards the loss
In countries such as Europe and England, the term
'elegy’ continued to have altering meanings throughout the period of Renaissance.
The elegies written by John Donne, in the later part of the sixteenth century
and the early part of the seventeenth century, are poems which are based on the
themes of love. Even though they are related to the essence of elegy as sorrow,
many of them stress upon variability and forfeiture.
In the 17th century, the term 'elegy’ meant a formal
and sustained laments in verse on the demise of a specific individual which
generally concluded with a consolation. The medieval poem, The Pearl and Chaucer's Book
of the Duchess (elegies in the mode of dream allegory); Alfred Lord
Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850),
and WH Auden's In Memory of W. B.
Yeats (1940) are some examples of this form of elegy.
There are some instances where the word ‘elegy' is
also used to represent the gloomy musings on transience for example, Thomas
Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1757) and the Duino Elegies (1912-22) of the
German poet Rainer Maria Rilke on the impermanence of poets as well as of the
worldly things which form the subject matter of their poems.
Dirge Vs Elegy
The 'dirge', which means a sad song also exhibits
sorrow on the event of death of someone in particular, however it is slightly
different from an elegy in terms of being short, less formal, and generally characterized
as a text to be presented in form of a song: Shakespeare's “Full Fathom Five
Thy Father Lies” and William Collins' “A Song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline”
(1749) are some good examples of the dirge.
In the existing times, threnody' is used primarily as
an equivalent of dirge and monody for an elegy or dirge which is offered as the
expression of one single individual. John Milton describes his Lycidas (1638) in the subtitle as
a 'monody' I in which the author bewails a learned Friend.
One of the main subtypes of the elegy is the pastoral
elegy, which is a representation of both the poet and the person he laments,
this individual in the poem is generally also a poet, such as, shepherds (its
Latin is 'pastor').
Characteristics of an Elegy
The characteristics of a traditional elegy are as
follows:
• An elegy begins with a lament of loss of life of a
person or loss of a thing
• The sorrow is followed by the poet's admiration for
the person or thing lost, In the second part of the construction generally the
lost person's qualities and remarkable performances or activities are endorsed.
• An elegy is a kind of a lyric which centers on expression of sentiments, beliefs
or opinions.
• The language
and structure of an elegy is formal and ceremonial.
• An elegy may be based on
either the transience of life of a person or the attractiveness and
magnificence of somebody close to the speaker's heart.
• An elegy may search answers to questions related to
the nature of life and death of the body or immorality of the soul.
• Sometimes an elegy also expresses the speaker's
resentment or rage about a loss or demise.
●The last or the third stage of the elegy is about its
consolidation. This element may be more religious
• It is of various types such as personal, impersonal
or pastoral.
Types of Elegy
1.
Pastoral Elegy
●of
or belonging to the life of shepherds
●of
or pertaining to rural life
●having
the simplicity and serenity attributed to rural areas
Pastoral elegy is a poem which dwells upon the
combined subject of death and sublime country life. This form of poetry usually
includes shepherds who express their emotions. The pastoral elegy takes the
pastoral or rural components and connects them to expression of sorrow on a
loss. The pastoral form of poetry has numerous significant characteristics,
like the solicitation of the contemplate, manifestation of the sorrow or the
heartache of the shepherd or the poet; admiration of the dead, an outburst
against demise, a particularization of the impacts of that particular demise on
nature; and last but not the least, poet's concurrent acceptance of certainty
of death and at the same time his unflinching hope for immortality. Pastoral
elegies have also been seen sometimes to have included a mourners' procession,
humorous deviations to diverse topics arising from decease, and representation
by means of flowers, refrains, and pompous queries.
This poetic term was initiated by the Sicilian Greek
poet, Theocritus and was later carried on by the Roman Virgil. Pastoral poetry
found its advancement in many European countries during the Renaissance and was
popular among the masses even during the 19th century. In the modern era
however, poets like JV Cunningham and Alan Dugan worked towards re-imaging the
pastoral elegy and giving it a new form. Some modern poets like, William Carlos
Williams and WH Auden still follow the original form of pastoral poetry and
they have written poems that withhold its traditional form and characteristics
2.
Latin Elegy
Ennius introduced the elegiac couplet into Latin.
Lucilious used the metre of epitaphs and other short poems descriptive of
slaves. An anecdote in Aulus Gellius offers an early glimpse of elegiac epigram
on erotic themes, Hellenistic in flavor. The career of Catullus and Ovid bound
the elegiac genre’s most concentrated and distinctive period of roman
development. In particular, by early Augustan times elegy emerges as the medium
for cycles of first persons.
History of Elegy
Elegy was a prominent form of lyric poetry during the
era of the classical Greek literature. Before the emergence of ode as a
literary form, elegy gained a separate existence from a complementary song and
was generally written in distichs, which means, in a strophic unit of stanza
comprising a line in hexameter and a line in pentameter. Elegies were commonly
seen as an expression of grief.
However, later the poets started to use elegies as an
expression of other feelings like remorse or delight which was motivated by
sensual urge. Not many Greek elegies have been able to sustain the vagaries of
time only a few parts have remained, but various Latin elegies written by
Tibullus and Propertius are still available in their original form for the
benefit of the reader of English literature, Tristia by Ovid is a masterpiece of this form of poetry.
The elegies written in the modern European literature
era, express gloomy | and forlorn feelings after some passionate experiences or
they are enthused by reflection on insubstantiality of human existence. For
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, a French poet, the elegy is mourning in funeral
cloth. The original elegies which formed a major part of the English literature
contained nothing but lamentations, however, with the changes in time, elegies
were no longer considered as poems of lamentations. In Italy, the elegy was
cultured from the Middle Ages after the manner of Petrarch. In Germany, the
content of elegies has been supernatural right from the start. Here, it would
be pertinent to mention two different types of elegies: first which was
characterized by an end of the 18th century offering by Goethe and the second
by a beginning of the twentieth century offering by Rilke.
Famous Elegy Poets
Some of the famous poets who have written elegies are
as follows:
• Thomas Gray: 1716-1771
• Rainer Maria: 1875-1926
• John Donne: 1572 - 1631
• Anna Akhmatova: 1889-1966
• Johannes Secundus: 1511-1563
• Joachim du Bellay:
1522-1560
Importance of Elegy in Literature
The concrete definition of elegy only happened to take
form during the 16th century. During the ancient Greek era, any poem written in
elegiac verses, which had the potential to deal with a variety of subject
matter, like love or war, along with demise was referred to as an elegy. Poetry
written in the elegiac form which consisted of alternating hexameter and
pentameter stanzas was used for themes which were on a smaller scale as
compared to the epic forms of poetry.
Poets from Greece and ancient Rome even made use of
elegy for themes which was based on humor and satire. However, with the
changes, the definition of elegy took a more limited form. It started to gain
prominence as a literary form during the 16th century. Although this of poetry
it is not much popular anymore in modern-day literature in its strictest form.
However, there are a lot of poems which are written in the memory of their
departed loved ones.
Examples of Elegy in Literature
Example 1: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
- By Thomas Gray, 1750
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm 'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as wand'ring near her secret bow :
Molest her
ancient solitary reign.
Explanation: Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard was written in the memory of his friend, Richard West, is a very
well-known example of elegy. The poet laments on the death of his poet friend.
He contemplates on the inevitability of life and death consigns all men
irrespective of their class and all people are destined towards a fate of
oblivion.
Example 2: O Captain! My Captain!
- By Walt Whitman, 1891
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought
is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all
exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and
daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold
and dead.
Explanation: Walt Whitman's famous poem, O Captain! My
Captain is an elegy written in memory of the American President, Abraham
Lincoln. In this brilliant piece of work, the poet beautifully brings together
a sense of forfeiture, admiration, and comfort in the very first stanza of the
elegy. The subject matter provides a comfort to the readers and yet at the same
time, it fills ones heart with grief and sadness as it deals with the demise of
Abraham Lincoln.
Example 3: Fugue of Death
- By Paul Celan, 1948
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you in the morning at noon we drink you at
nightfall drink you and drink you
A man in the house he plays with the serpents he
writes he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
Your ashen hair Shulamith we are digging a grave in
the
sky it is
ample to lie
there.
Explanation: This profoundly agonizing elegy is a
classic work of art by poet, Paul Celan. In his elegy, the poet remembers those
who had lost their lives the Holocaust. Celan was privy and witnessed the same
from a ghetto where he lived with his Jewish family. Though addressing a large
group of people is not a characteristic feature of a typical elegy, yet Celan's
poem identifies the combined agony and hurt of a complete population.
Example 4: Jack
- By Maxine Kumin, 2005
I meant to
but never did go looking for him, to buy him back
and now my old guilt is flooding this twilit table
my guilt is ghosting the candles that pale us to skeletons
the ones we must all become in an as yet unspecified
order:
Oh Jack, tethered in what rough stall alone
did you
remember that one good winter?
Explanation: Maxine Kumin's Jack was written in 2005
and can be considered as an example of a contemporary elegy. He has put
together all facets of loss in her elegy, however, in a reverse order. The poem
begins at a happy note which depicts a scene of satisfaction, but ends on a serious
and sad note as the poet, having sold her horse Jack and never coming to know
of his whereabouts ever again.
Example 5: The Role of Elegy
- By Mary Jo Bang, 2007
The role of elegy is
To put a death mask on tragedy,
A drape on the mirror:
To bow to the cultural
Debate over the aesthetization of sorrow,
Of loss, of the unbearable
Afterimage of the once material.
To look for an imagined
Consolidation of grief
So we can all be finished
Once and for all and genuinely shut up
The cabinet of genuine particulars.
What is elegy but the attempt
To rebreathe life
Into what the gone one once was
Before he
grew to enormity.
Explanation: The contemporary poet, Mary Jo Bang
published a book, Elegy. The book is a collection of numerous sad musings on the
death son. The main theme is that the poet ponders over the role of elegy, and
concludes that elegy is the attempt/to rebreathe life/into what the gone one
once was'.
Quick facts about Elegy
●The word elegy originated from the Greek word
'elegeia,' which means to lament or to be sorrowful.
• In Greek and Roman literature, any poem which was
written in elegiac meter, meant irregular hexameter and pentameter lines
was denoted by the term 'elegy
• The elegies written by John Donne, in the later part
of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth century, are
poems which are based on the themes of love.
• In the 17th century, the term 'elegy' meant a formal
and sustained laments in verse on the demise of a specific individual which
generally concluded with a consolation.
●In the existing times, 'threnody' is used primarily as
an equivalent of dirge and monody for an elegy or dirge which is offered as the
expression of one single individual.
●An elegy is a poem which expresses gloomy thoughts of
a person. It is commonly written in praise of the deceased and has an air of
sorrow around it.
• An elegy is very different from eulogy' which is an
account that is put together in prose.
• The 'dirge', which means a sad song also exhibits
sorrow on the event of death of someone in particular, however it is slightly
different from an elegy in terms of being short, less formal, and generally
characterized as a text to be presented in form of a song.
• One of the main subtypes of the elegy is the
pastoral elegy, which is a representation of both the poet and the person he
laments, this individual in the poem is generally also a poet, such as, shepherds
(its Latin is ‘pastor').
●An elegy is a kind of a lyric which centers on
expression of sentiments, beliefs or opinions.
• An elegy may be based on either the transience of
life of a person or the attractiveness and magnificence of somebody close to
the speaker's heart.
●An elegy may search answers to questions related to
the nature of life and death of the body or immorality of the soul.
• Pastoral elegy is a poem which dwells upon the
combined subject of death and sublime country life.
• Pastoral elegies have also been seen sometimes to
have included a mourners procession, humorous deviations to diverse topics arising
from decease and representation by means of flowers, refrains, and pompous
queries.
• The pastoral elegy characteristically impacts the
reader with its most characteristic form. It revolves around modest rural
figures.
• Pastoral elegies have also been seen sometimes to
have included a mourners procession, humorous deviations to diverse topics
arising from decease, and representation by means of flowers, refrains, and
pompous queries.
●The pastoral elegy form of poetry prospered in Europe
during the period of Renaissance and the 19th century.
• Before the emergence of ode as a literary form,
elegy gained a separate existence from a complementary song and was generally
written in distichs, which means, in a strophic unit of stanza comprising a line
in hexameter and a line in pentameter.
• Some modern poets like, William Carlos Williams and
WH Auden still follow the original form of pastoral poetry and they have
written poems that withhold its traditional form and characteristics.
• Poetry written in the elegiac form which consisted
of alternating hexameter and pentameter stanzas was used for themes which were
on a smaller scale as compared to the epic forms of poetry.
●The elegies written in the modern European literature
era, express gloomy and forlorn feelings after some passionate experiences or
they are enthused by reflection on insubstantiality of human existence.
• Poets from Greece and ancient Rome even made use of
elegy for themes which was based on humor and satire.
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Great work..well done
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