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{{Short description|Poem of serious reflection, usually a lament for the dead}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Distinguish|Eulogy}}
{{Literature}}
An '''elegy''' is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The 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".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199228133.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199228133 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy |editor-last=Weisman |editor-first=Karen |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2010 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199228133.001.0001 |series=Oxford handbooks of literature |isbn=9780199228133 |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Klinck|first=Anne L.|author-link=Anne Klinck|date=1984|title=The Old English Elegy as a Genre|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/694102|journal=ESC: English Studies in Canada|volume=10|issue=2|pages=129–140|doi=10.1353/esc.1984.0016|s2cid=166884982|issn=1913-4835|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==History==
[[File:William Blake - The Poems of Thomas Gray, Design 107, "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard." - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard]]'', illustration by [[William Blake]]]]
The [[ancient Greek literature|Greek]] term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from {{lang|grc|ἔλεγος}}, {{Lang|grc-Latn|élegos}}, ‘lament’)<ref>According to [[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]]: "The word is probably [[Pre-Greek]]" (''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 404).</ref> originally referred to any verse written in [[elegiac couplet]]s and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included [[epitaph]]s, sad and mournful songs,<ref>Nagy G. "Ancient Greek elegy" in ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', ed. Karen Weisman. Oxford: Oxford  University Press, 2010, pp 13-45.</ref> and commemorative verses.<ref name="penguin">{{cite book|last1=Cuddon|first1=J. A.|last2=Preston|first2=C. E.|title=The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory|edition=4|year=1998|publisher=Penguin|location=London|isbn=9780140513639|pages=[https://archive.org/details/penguindictionar00cudd/page/253 253–55]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/penguindictionar00cudd/page/253}}</ref> The [[Latin]] elegy of [[Latin literature|ancient Roman literature]] was most often [[Erotic literature|erotic]] or [[Roman mythology|mythological]] 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, and [[Satire|satirical]] subject matter.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ancient Greek Elegy|url=https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/gregory-nagy-ancient-greek-elegy/|access-date=2021-10-01|website=The Center for Hellenic Studies|language=en-US}}</ref>

Other than epitaphs, examples of ancient elegy as a poem of mourning include [[Catullus]]'s [[Catullus 101|''Carmen'' 101]], on his dead brother, and elegies by [[Propertius]] on his dead mistress Cynthia and a matriarch of the prominent [[Cornelia (gens)|Cornelian family]]. [[Ovid]] wrote elegies bemoaning [[Exile of Ovid|his exile]], which he likened to a death.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2014-08-06|title=Elegy Examples and Definition|url=https://literarydevices.com/elegy/|access-date=2021-10-01|website=Literary Devices|language=en-us}}</ref>

===Literature===

====English====
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 by [[John Donne]] for his elegies written in the early seventeenth century. That looser concept is especially evident in the [[Old English]] [[Exeter Book]] ({{circa|1000 CE}}), which contains "serious meditative" and well-known poems such as "[[The Wanderer (Old English poem)|The Wanderer]]", "[[The Seafarer (poem)|The Seafarer]]", and "[[The Wife's Lament]]".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Black|first1=Joseph|title=The Broadview Anthology of British Literature|date=2011|publisher=Broadview Press|location=Canada|isbn=9781554810482|page=51|edition=Second}}<!--|access-date=6 October 2014--></ref> 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, as [[epic poetry]] seeks to tell.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Battles|first1=Paul|title=Toward a Theory of Old English Poetic Genres: Epic, Elegy, Wisdom Poetry, and the "Traditional Opening"|journal=Studies in Philology|date=Winter 2014|volume=111|issue=1|page=11|doi=10.1353/sip.2014.0001|s2cid=161613381|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/studies_in_philology/v111/111.1.battles.html|access-date=5 October 2014|url-access=subscription}}</ref> By the time of [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and others, the term had come to mean "serious meditative poem":<ref name="penguin"/>

{{Blockquote|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.<ref>S. T. Coleridge, ''Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge'' (1835), vol 2, p. 268.</ref>}}

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 (poem)|''Le Lac'']] (1820) by [[Alphonse de Lamartine]].<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Elegy|author=Gosse, Edmund|authorlink=Edmund Gosse|volume=9|pages=252–253}}</ref>

In Germany, the most famous example is ''[[Duino Elegies]]'' by [[Rainer Maria Rilke]] (1922).

In the Islamic world—namely Shia Islam—the most famous examples are elegies written on the [[Battle of Karbala]]. Elegies written on [[Husayn ibn Ali]] and his followers are very common and produced even today.

In Spain, one of the capital works in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] is [[Jorge Manrique#Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre|''Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre'']] (Stanzas About the Death of His Father), written between 1460 and 1470 by [[Jorge Manrique]].<ref name="Manrique's Coplas by Marino">{{cite book |last1=Marino |first1=Nancy F. |title=Jorge Manrique's Coplas por la muerte de su padre: A history of the poem and its reception |date=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NF5qKAbUaPkC |publisher=Támesis Monografías |location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY |isbn=9781855662315 |pages=214 |access-date=13 February 2022 |language=English}}</ref>

===Music===
"Elegy" (French: ''élégie'') may denote a type of musical work, usually of a sad or somber nature. A well-known example is the Élégie, Op. 10, by [[Jules Massenet]]. This was originally written for piano, as a student work; then he set it as a song; and finally it appeared as the "Invocation", for cello and orchestra, a section of his [[incidental music]] to [[Leconte de Lisle]]'s ''[[Les Érinnyes]]''. Other examples include [[Gabriel Fauré]]'s [[Élégie (Fauré)|Elegy in C minor (op. 24)]] for cello and piano, the [[Elegy (Elgar)|Elegy]] Op. 58 of [[Edward Elgar]], the ''Elegy for Strings'' of [[Benjamin Britten]], and the first movement, "Elegy", of [[Pēteris Vasks]]'s String Quartet No. 4. Though not specifically designated an elegy, [[Samuel Barber]]'s ''[[Adagio for Strings]]'' has an elegiac character.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Intro to Genres: Elegy {{!}} Creative Writing|url=https://creativewriting.uchicago.edu/node/1104|access-date=2021-10-01|website=creativewriting.uchicago.edu}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Decker |first=Todd |author-link= |date=2017 |title=Hymns for the Fallen: Combat Movie Music and Sound After Vietnam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Qa7DQAAQBAJ |lccn=2016034599 |publisher=University of California Press |page=219 |isbn=9780520282322 |quote=Innovation in the elegiac register has often occurred at the level of orchestration, adding hybrid strains to the register that depart from the founding example of Barber's strings-only ''Adagio''.}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Poetry}}
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
*[[Dirge]]
*[[Elegiac]]
*[[Funeral march]]
*[[Keening]]
*[[Kommos (theatre)|Kommós]]
*[[Lament]]
*[[Marsiya]]
*[[Noha]]
*[[Obituary poetry]]
*[[Pastoral elegy history]]
*[[Poetry#Elegy|Poetry]]
*[[Rithā']]
*[[Soaz (poem)|Soaz]]
*[[Threnody]]
}}

==References==
{{Reflist|40em}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book
  | last = Casey
  | first = Brian
  | title = "Genres and Styles," in Funeral Music Genres: With a Stylistic/Topical Lexicon and Transcriptions for a Variety of Instrumental Ensembles
  | publisher = University Press, Inc.
  | year = 2007}}
* {{cite book
  | last = Cavitch
  | first = Max
  | title = American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman
  | publisher = University of Minnesota Press
  | year = 2007
  | isbn = 978-0-8166-4893-1}}
* {{cite book
  | last = Ramazani
  | first = Jahan
  | title = Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney
  | publisher = University of Chicago Press
  | year = 1994
  | isbn = 0-226-70340-1}}
* {{cite book
  | last = Sacks
  | first = Peter M.
  | title = The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats
  | publisher = Johns Hopkins University Press
  | year = 1987
  | isbn = 0-8018-3471-6}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline|Elegies}}
*{{Wiktionary-inline|elegy}}

{{Death and mortality in art}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Genres of poetry]]
[[Category:Poetic forms]]
[[Category:Laments]]