What is an elegy?

An elegy is a poem that is usually concerned with the
death of someone or, more generally, with the passing of time and the melancholy that
this awareness produces in human beings. These two dimensions (a more personal one
referring to a specific death and a more general reflection not linked to a specific
death) are inextricably intertwined in the development of the genre. Coleridge was
probably the poet who gave the most general definition of the term saying that it is
"the form of poetry natural to the reflective
mind".

Initially, in its Greek and Latin form, elegies did
not specifically refer to poems with such content, but identified a precise meter. The
modern meaning of elegy started to be applied during the Renaissance. John Donne, for
example, used it both for a group of diverse satirical and erotic poems as well as for
his "A Funerall Elegie" which clearly links the term to the mourning tradition. Milton's
"Lycidas" (1637), on the death of Edward King, is generally seen as providing the
blueprint for the modern form of the genre and for its combination with a pastoral
setting peopled by shepherds, nymphs and satyrs. Shelley's "Adonais" (1821) and Arnold's
"Thyrsis" (1867) follow this tradition, while Tennyson's "In Memoriam" is a reflection
on a specific death (Arthur Hallam's), but does not share the pastoral setting. On the
contrary, Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1750) is not linked on a
specific death and established the prototype for general poetic reflections on the
passing of time.