Write a note on Elegy - Questionpurs

Write a note on Elegy.

Introduction:

Elegy is a song of mourning. It is a poem of lament for a person or persons. Or it is a poem of serious musing. It had its origin in ancient Greece. In English poetry, it appeared as a lament for the dead, in the Elizabethan age. It was written in the pastoral convention. In that form, the poet presented himself as a shepherd lamenting the death of another shepherd.

Then appeared in the 18th century another kind of elegy called ' personal ' elegy. In it, the poet laments the death of a person in his personal capacity. Famous Pastoral Elegies The first great pastoral elegy was written by Edmund Spenser. It is entitled " Astrophel '. It was written in 1586 to mourn the death of Sir Philip Sidney.

The second great pastoral elegy is Milton's " Lycidas ( 1637 ). Here Milton mourns the death of his friend King Edward. The third great pastoral elegy is Shelley's " Adonais " ( 1821 ). In it, he laments the death of Keats. The fourth great pastoral elegy is Arnold's " Thyrsis " ( 1867 ), in which he mourns the death of Hugh Clough. In all of these elegies, the poet starts with the death of a person. Then he gradually moves on to man's morality and general causes of his sufferings etc. He also expresses his personal feelings and his memories of the dead person. 

Personal Elegy

In 1750 there appeared a new kind of elegy. It was Grey's " Elegy Written in A Country Churchyard. " Here the pastoral convention has been abandoned and a natural style has been adopted. In it the poet laments the fate of the poor village buried in a country churchyard. And he laments their lot in his personal capacity as Thomas Gray, the poet.

This elegy is the most famous of English elegies. It is looked upon as the first model of " personal; ' elegy as contrasted with the pastoral elegy. The other English elegy of this kind is Tennyson's " In Memorium " ( 1850 ). It was written by Tennyson to express his sorrow over the death of his friend Hallam. 

The Elegy: Its Nature

An elegy is a special kind of lyrics. A lyric expresses the emotions of the poet, and the elergy is an expression of the emotion of sorrow, woe, or despair, In short, the elegy is a lament, a lyric of mourning or an utterance of personal bereavement and sorrow and therefore it should be characterised by absolute sincerity of emotion and expression. says Hodgson, "in common use, it is often restricted to a lament over the dead, but that is an improper narrowing of its meaning. There are laments over places, over lost love, the past (which is never "dead"), over an individual's misery or failure; there are laments over departed pet animals, and so forth."

The Elegy: Reflection and Philosophy

An elegy then is an expression of grief, and simplicity, brevity, and sincerity are its distinguishing features. There are elegies which are confined to the expression of grief as, for example. The Burial of Sir John Moore, and Tennyson's Break, Break, Break. But more often than not, from an expression of personal grief, the poet passes on to reflections on human life, human suffering, the shortness of human life and the futility of human ambitions.

Writes A. N. Entwistle in this connection, "Sometimes Death is the inspiration and sole theme; at other times it is merely the common starting-point from which poets have launched various themes speculations on the nature of death and the hereafter, tributes to friends, the poet's own mood, even literary criticism.

Thomes Gray's Elegy Written in a Country, Churchyard is one of the most popular elegies in English language. In this elegy, the poet does not mourn the death of some particular friend or relative, but expresses his grief at the sorry fate of the rude forefathers of the village, who die in obscurity, unknown, unsung. It is a magnificent and complex work of art, dignified and solemn in tone, and note an expression of personal grief. On the other hand, Matthew Arnold's Rugby Chapel is the poet's direct expression of grief on the death of his father, and the elegy is characterised by sincerity and intensity of emotion. But from the expression of personal grief, the poet soon passes on to reflect on the sorry fate of humanity, and on the triviality and futility of human life. It thus becomes an embodiment not merely of the melancholy of the poet, but also of the pessimism and despair of the age in which he lived. Tennyson 's In Memoriam is a unique elegy in the English language.

It is a collection of over a hundred poignant lyrics, united into a single whole by the poet's lament at the death of his college friend, Arthur Hallam. But along with the expression of personal grief, there also runs a theology and a philosophy, as the poet constantly reflects on the problems of human life and human destiny. The elegy is an epitome of the philosophical and religious of the age.

Conclusion 

To conclude, the elegy is a song of lamentation for a dead person or persons. By nature, it is a blend of lament and melancholy thoughts. Usually, it is an elegiac metre which is lambic.

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