Anelegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according toThe Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead".[1][2]
TheGreek term ἐλεγείᾱ (elegeíā; fromἔλεγος,élegos, ‘lament’)[3] originally referred to any verse written inelegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also includedepitaphs, sad and mournful songs,[4] and commemorative verses.[5] TheLatin elegy ofancient Roman literature was most oftenerotic ormythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, andsatirical subject matter.[6]
Other than epitaphs, examples of ancient elegy as a poem of mourning includeCatullus'sCarmen 101, on his dead brother, and elegies byPropertius on his dead mistress Cynthia and a matriarch of the prominentCornelian family.Ovid wrote elegies bemoaninghis exile, which he likened to a death.[7]
In English literature, the more modern and restricted meaning, of a lament for a departed beloved or tragic event, has been current only since the sixteenth century; the broader concept was still employed byJohn Donne for his elegies written in the early seventeenth century. That looser concept is especially evident in theOld EnglishExeter Book (c. 1000 CE), which contains "serious meditative" and well-known poems such as "The Wanderer", "The Seafarer", and "The Wife's Lament".[8] In those elegies, the narrators use the lyrical "I" to describe their own personal and mournful experiences. They tell the story of the individual rather than the collective lore of a people, asepic poetry seeks to tell.[9] By the time ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge and others, the term had come to mean "serious meditative poem":[5]
Elegy is a form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with reference to the poet. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love became the principal themes of the elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future.[10]
In the Islamic world—namely Shia Islam—the most famous examples are elegies written on theBattle of Karbala. Elegies written onHusayn ibn Ali and his followers are very common and produced even today.
^Weisman, Karen, ed. (2010).The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy. Oxford handbooks of literature. Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199228133.001.0001.ISBN9780199228133.For all of its pervasiveness, however, the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill-defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead.
Casey, Brian (2007)."Genres and Styles," in Funeral Music Genres: With a Stylistic/Topical Lexicon and Transcriptions for a Variety of Instrumental Ensembles. University Press, Inc.
Cavitch, Max (2007).American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman. University of Minnesota Press.ISBN978-0-8166-4893-1.
Ramazani, Jahan (1994).Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney. University of Chicago Press.ISBN0-226-70340-1.
Sacks, Peter M. (1987).The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats. Johns Hopkins University Press.ISBN0-8018-3471-6.
