Genre Studies- Unit- IV The Elegy

 The Elegy

Scope

·         The term Elegy Covered war songs, love poems, political verses, lamentations for the dead pin fact a wide range of subjects, both grave and gay.

·         It was written in the elegiac measure, a couplet composed of a dactylic hexameter followed by dactylic pentameter.

·         Any poem written in this meter ranked as an Elegy, whatever its theme might be.

Modern Connotation

·         An Elegy nowadays takes its name from its subject- matter, not, it is usually a lamentation for the dead, it may be inspired by other sombre themes, often elaborate in style like the Ode.

·         Elegy usually aims at an effect of dignity and solemnity without a sense of strain or artificiality.

 The Pastoral Elegy

·         During the Renaissance a new kind of Elegy was introduced into English poetry. It followed a convention by which the poet represented himself as a shepherd bewailing the loss of a companion. The manner of speech and the setting were borrowed from rustic life.

·         This convention Centine lasted down to modern times. Milton's Lycidas, and Matthew Arnold's Thyrsis, in memory of his friend the poet A.H. Clough, are both pastoral elegies, employing pastoral images and sentiments.

·         The form arose among the Sicilian Greeks, originating probably with Theocritus whose Idylls and Epigrams are the earliest poems known to us which are written in the pastoral manner It was perfected later by the Latin poet Virgil, whose Eclogues and Georgics are noted for their vivid treatment of the scenes and labours of the countryside.

·         It was revived in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries in the period of the general rebirth of classical culture. It soon found imitators in other parts of Europe, including England