Elegy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror."--Duino Elegies (1923) by Rainer Maria Rilke |
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The term "elegy" was originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), but is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally - which is a form of lyric poetry. An elegy can also reflect on something which seems strange or mysterious to the author. In addition, an elegy (sometimes spelled elegĂe) may be a type of musical work, usually in a sad and somber attitude. It is not to be confused with a eulogy.
Roman love elegy
The Roman love elegy of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid (Amores, Heroides), with its focus on the poetic "I" and the expression of personal feeling, may be the thematic ancestor of much medieval, renaissance, Romantic and modern lyric poetry, but these works were composed in elegiac couplets, and so were not lyric poetry in the ancient sense.