Literary Term: Elegy

·    Elegy

Elegy is the song of lamentation/ mourning. It is mournful lyric poem for the death of an individual or a tragic event. Shelly’s Adonais, Tennyson’s In Memoriam, Arnold’s Thyrsis are known elegies. According to H.M. Abrams the elegy is ‘a formal and sustained lament in verse for the death of particular persons, usually ending in a consolation. Usually, a poet writes an elegy on the death of his dear friend. Traditionally, it is imagined that the dead person was a shepherd and his fellow shepherd, often the poet, sings sorrowfully in his praise. An elegy gradually passes from a sad state of mind to a state of hope as the poem ends. Elegy can be written on the death of a single of many. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray has been written to mourn the death of all the dead villagers. In this poem the poet mourns his own death. An elegy begins pessimistically but ends optimistically. The characteristics of elegy are given below-

One kind of lyric, meditative in nature

Begins with pessimism

Ends with consolation

Pastoral setting

Melancholic tone

Lamentation for the death of a parson

Begins with the description in a gloomy atmosphere