An elegy is a poem that expresses serious reflection and often mourns the death of a person. In English literature, it is most commonly associated with expressing sorrow for someone who has died. However, according to The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, the term "elegy" is not clearly defined. It is sometimes used to describe texts with a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes to indicate writing that honors or commemorates someone, and sometimes strictly to refer to a poem that laments the death of a person.
History
The Greek word "elegeíā" comes from "élegos," which means "lament." It originally described poems written in a specific style called elegiac couplets, which were pairs of lines with a particular rhythm. These poems covered many topics, including death, love, and war. They also included epitaphs, sad songs, and poems meant to honor people or events. In ancient Roman literature, elegies often focused on love stories or myths. Because of the way elegiac couplets could be used to create strong effects, both Greek and Roman poets also used them for humorous or satirical poems.
Examples of ancient elegies that express sorrow include Catullus's "Carmen 101," which mourns his dead brother, and poems by Propertius about his lost lover, Cynthia, and a respected woman from a powerful family. Ovid wrote elegies about his exile, which he compared to death.
In English literature, the term "elegy" began to mean a poem about mourning a lost loved one or a sad event only in the 1500s. Earlier, poets like John Donne still used the broader meaning. The Old English Exeter Book (around 1000 CE) contains poems like "The Wanderer," "The Seafarer," and "The Wife's Lament," which are considered elegies. These poems use a personal voice to describe individual sorrow, unlike epic poems that focus on shared stories of a people. By the time of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "elegy" came to mean a serious, reflective poem that focuses on the poet's feelings of regret or longing.
A famous example of an elegy is Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1750). In French, a well-known elegy is "Le Lac" (1820) by Alphonse de Lamartine. In Germany, the "Duino Elegies" by Rainer Maria Rilke (1922) are famous. In Shia Islam, elegies about the Battle of Karbala, especially those mourning Husayn ibn Ali and his followers, are widely written and still produced today. In Spain, a famous elegy is "Coplas por la Muerte de su Padre" (Stanzas About the Death of His Father), written by Jorge Manrique between 1460 and 1470.
The word "elegy" can also describe a type of sad or serious musical piece. For example, Jules Massenet's "Élégie, Op. 10" was originally a piano piece, later adapted into a song and then a piece for cello and orchestra. Other examples include Gabriel Fauré's "Elegy in C minor" for cello and piano, Edward Elgar's "Elegy Op. 58," Benjamin Britten's "Elegy for Strings," and the first movement of Pēteris Vasks's String Quartet No. 4. Though not called an elegy, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" has a sorrowful tone similar to elegies.