Consuela Castilo
Search results
Elegy (which may be traced to the Greek word elegos, “song of mourning”) commonly refers to a song or poem lamenting one who is dead; the word may also refer somewhat figuratively to a nostalgic poem, or to a kind of musical composition.
During the 16th century, though, the elegy came to be more specifically defined as a poem of grief and lamentation. In the 18th century, the elegy flourished, particularly among English Romantic poets, who valued the form for its personal and emotional qualities.
Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future. A famous example of elegy is Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750). Other languages. In French, perhaps the most famous elegy is Le Lac (1820) by Alphonse de Lamartine. In Germany, the most famous example is Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (1922).
Elegy, dirge, and eulogy serve similar purposes in relation to mourning and funerial services, but they are distinct from each other. An elegy is a poem that reflects on a subject or person through sorrow or melancholy. Elegies are typically poems about someone who has died.
ELEGY definition: 1. a sad poem or song, especially remembering someone who has died or something in the past: 2. a…. Learn more.
Elegy, meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one; by extension, any reflective lyric on the broader theme of human mortality. In classical literature an elegy was simply any poem written in the elegiac metre (alternating lines of dactylic hexameter.
The elegy is a form of poetry in which the poet or speaker expresses grief, sadness, or loss. History of the Elegy Form. The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to the death of a person or group.
