Elegiac

The adjectiveelegiachas two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, anelegyor something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in the form ofelegiac couplets.

An elegiac couplet consists of one line of poetry indactylic hexameterfollowed by a line indactylic pentameter.Because dactylic hexameter is used throughoutepic poetry,and because the elegiac form was always considered "lower style" than epic, elegists, or poets who wrote elegies, frequently wrote with epic poetry in mind and positioned themselves in relation to epic.

Classical poets

The first examples of elegiac poetry in writing come from classical Greece. The form dates back nearly as early asepic,with such authors asArchilocusandSimonides of Ceosfrom early in the history of Greece. The first great elegiac poet of theHellenistic periodwasPhilitas of Cos:Augustan poetsidentified his name with great elegiac writing.One of the most influential elegiac writers was Philitas' rivalCallimachus,who had an enormous impact on Roman poets, both elegists and non-elegists alike. He promulgated the idea that elegy, shorter and more compact than epic, could be even more beautiful and worthy of appreciation.Propertiuslinked him to his rival with the following well-known couplet:

Callimachi Manes et Coi sacra Philetae,
 in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.

Callimachus' spirit, and shrine of Philitas of Cos,
 let me enter your sacred grove, I beseech you.

The 1st-century-AD rhetoricianQuintilianranked Philitas second only to Callimachus among the elegiac poets.

Another Greek elegiac poet, the subject of an elegy by Callimachus, wasHeraclitus of Halicarnassus.Hermesianaxwas also an elegiac poet.

The foremost elegiac writers of the Roman era wereCatullus,Propertius,Tibullus,andOvid.Catullus, a generation earlier than the other three, influenced his younger counterparts greatly. They all, particularly Propertius, drew influence from Callimachus, and they also clearly read each other and responded to each other's works. Notably, Catullus and Ovid wrote in non-elegiac meters as well, but Propertius and Tibullus did not.

English poets

The "elegy" was originally a classical form with few English examples. However, in1751,Thomas Graywrote "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".That poem inspired numerous imitators, and soon both the revivedPindaricodeand "elegy" were commonplace. Gray used the termelegyfor a poem of solitude and mourning, and not just for funereal (eulogy) verse. He also freed the elegy from the classical elegiac meter.

Afterward,Samuel Taylor Coleridgeargued that the elegiac is the form "most natural to the reflective mind" and that it may be upon any subject, so long as it reflects on the poet himself. Coleridge was quite aware that his definition conflated the elegiac with the lyric, but he was emphasizing therecollectedandreflectivenature of the lyric he favored and referring to the sort of elegy that had been popularized by Gray. Also,Charlotte Smithused the term to describe her series ofElegiac Sonnets.Similarly,William Wordsworthhad said that poetry should come from "emotionsrecollectedin tranquility "(Preface toLyrical Ballads,emphasis added). After the Romantics, "elegiac" slowly returned to its narrower meaning of verse composed in memory of the dead.

In other examples of poetry such asAlfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott", an elegiac tone can be used, where the author is praising someone in a sombre tone.J. R. R. Tolkienin his essay "Beowulf:The Monsters and the Critics"argues thatBeowulfis a heroic elegy.

See also

• Elegy
• Elegiac couplet
• Poetry