This document discusses and compares Ancient Greek Elegy and Modern Elegy. It provides definitions and histories of both forms. Some key points made: - Ancient Greek Elegy originated in the 7th century BC and was used for erotic and war poetry. It was derived from songs of bereavement sung to a flute. - Modern Elegy evolved after the Roman Empire's fall and was used as an occasional poetic form to express sorrow. It became broader in subject matter over time. - A key difference is that Ancient Elegy had a strict form using hexameter and pentameter lines, while Modern Elegy has no set form and can use different structures.

1. Comparative study of
Ancient Greek Elegy and Modern Elegy

2. Name: Rajyaguru Dhvani Dipakbhai
Paper Name: The Twentieth Century Literature:
Code: 106
Subject: Comparative study of Ancient Greek Elegy and
Modern Elegy
Roll no: 04
Email Id: dhvanirajayguru22@gmail.com
Department: Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
University,Bhavnagar

3. It is a long verse narrative on a
serious subject, told in a formal
and elevated style, and
centered on a heroic or
quasi-divine figure on whose
actions depends the fate of a
tribe, a nation, or
(in the instance of John
Milton's Paradise Lost) the
human race.
The dirge is also a versified expression
of grief on the occasion of a particular
person's death, but differs from the
elegy in that it is short, is less formal,
and is usually represented as a text to
be sung; examples are
Shakespeare's "Full Fathom Five Thy
Father Lies" and William Collins' "A
Song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline"
(1749)
a short piece of writing or
a poem about
a dead person, especially
one written
on their gravestone Cambridge Dictionary
& M H Abrams- Literary Terms

4. DEFINITION AND THEORIES OF
ELEGY GIVEN BY SCHOLARS
According to M H Abrams,
In Greek and Roman literature, "elegy" denoted any poem
written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter ana pentameter
lines). The term was also used, however, to refer to the subject
matter of change and loss frequently expressed in the elegiac
verse form, especially in complaints about love.
M H Abrams-Glossary of Literary Terms

5. History of Ancient Greek Elegy
Around the 7th Century BC, Mimnermus of Colophon began to use the form for erotic poetry, which
lead to poets exploring the rhythm and form of Elegiac verse for other topics. In particular, with its
inherent rhetoric quality, many Latin and Greek poets used the form for witty observations and war
stories.
Elegy is derived from the Greek work elegus, which means a song of bereavement sung along with
a flute.
In the 1st Century, Ovid wrote a number of Elegies about his exile, which he likened to a death,
and much of the third and fourth books of Tibullus are dedicated to Elegies, though they may not
have been written by Tibullus himself but rather a collective of poets serving under his patron,
Mesalla.
W P Trent-Jstor

6. History Modern Elegy
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Elegy fell out fashion, but instead of becoming
lost, it found a place as an occasional poetic form.
This came at a time when there was renewed interest in Roman culture, and poets
such as Milton explored the form extensively. In modern English literature, the term
‘Elegy’ has been altered considerably. While it exists in a set form, the term is also
often used to describe any poem of mourning, though this has only been the case since
the 16th Century. Notably, John Donne continued to write formally correct Elegies into
the 17th Century on a broad range of topics.
This change in the use of Elegies can be found in Old English Exeter Book (circa
1000AD). The book features a number of formal Elegies on a broad range of topics.
What unites them is their sorrowful tone, and that they are, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge
would later define the Elegy, “Serious meditative poems.”
Connor Sansby- Thanetwriters

7. Use of Elegy
Any poem written in sorrowful terms can be considered Elegy, mostly
poems about death, though an elegy is not just a poem that is sad.
An Elegy is specifically about loss, what was and no longer is.Elegies are
never about the broader world but the experience of the poet.
Many intentionally use the first-person pronoun, ‘I.’ This contrasts with
gloomier epic poems, and instils a more identifiable sense of sadness.
Much in the same way that some people have a hard time caring about
climate change because of the scale of the problem, the Elegy works by
focusing on an issue that directly affects a person, rather than a larger issue
that affects a group of people.
Connor Sansby- Thanetwriters

8. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANCIENT ELEGIES
AND MODERN ELEGIES
In Ancient time, before 1066, in which the language
was Old English, elegies as a poetic form did not
exist.
Broader concept was still employed by John Donne for his
elegies, written in the early seventeenth century.By about
the 18th century, Elegies are given proper name.Samuel
Taylor Coleridge and others, the term had come to mean
"serious meditative poem”
A common use of elegy in the 7th cent. was in
exhorting the poet's fellow citizens to fight bravely for
their country. In other poems of Tyrtaeus and Solon
the exhortation is political, presumably delivered to a
social gathering from which participants might pass
the message on to other gatherings. Solon, at least,
also wrote elegies of a more personal, convivial
character. Mimnermus was famous for elegies
celebrating the pleasures of love and youth. He also
used the versatile elegiac for his Smyrneis, a
quasi‐epic, complete with invocation of the Muses, on
the Smyrnaeans' heroic repulse of the Lydians around
the time of the poet's birth
Now An elegy is a poem of serious reflection,
especially one mourning the loss of someone who
died. Elegies are defined by their subject matter.
Oxford Reference

9. Form: The original form, used by the Greeks, was defined by
two criteria. Firstly, the couplets would consist of one line in
hexameter (or six beats) followed by one line in pentameter (or
five beats).
Secondly, the rhythm must adhere to the below:
– (-) – (-) – (-) – (-) – (-) – –
– (-) – (-) – – . . – . . –
In this notation, dashes are long syllables, while dots are short
syllables with the notation in brackets standing for either one
long syllable or two short ones.
For modern and contemporary poets, the elegy is a
poem that deals with the subjects of death or mortality,
but has no set form, meter, or rhyme scheme and
don't have to follow any specific form in terms of
meter, rhyme, or structure.
For example: Whitman, in “When Lilacs last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d” uses free verse. Tennyson’s In
Memoriam A.H.H. about his Cambridge friend, Arthur
Henry Hallam, is often considered one of his greatest
works, written in iambic tetrameter and organized in
cantos.

10. 95 in giving voice to it, voicing it again and again, maintaining the voice from one mouth to the
next, from one tongue to the next.
I have here not one but many things to mourn:
I mourn the city of my fathers. I mourn Hector, dead. {27|28}
And I mourn the rigid fate allotted to me by an unnamed force [daimōn], a fate
to which I am yoked,
having fallen captive to a life of slavery—so undeserved!
100 You must never call any mortal blessed [olbios]
before he dies and you see him on his last day alive,
and you see how he lives through that day before he finally goes down below.
To Ilios [= Troy] with its steep walls did Paris bring not a wedding to be celebrated
but some kind of aberration [atē]
when he brought to the wedding chamber, as his partner in bed, Helen herself.
105 Because of her, O Troy, by spear and fire were you captured by the enemy.
Seized you were by the thousand ships of Hellas sent by swift Ares,
and so also was my husband Hector taken from me, wretched that I am.
Around the walls [of Troy]
was he dragged from the chariot driven by the son of the sea-dwelling Thetis.
And then I myself was taken out of my chamber and brought to the shore of the sea.
110 Hateful slavery did I place as headwear upon my head.
And many a tear came falling, all over the complexion of my face as I left behind
my city and my chamber and my husband lying in the dust.
I cry O for me, wretched that I am! Why did I have to see the light of day
as a slave of Hermione? Worn down by her domination,
115 to this statue of the goddess do I come as a suppliant, embracing it with both hands,
and I dissolve [tēkesthai] (into tears) like a stream that flows from a spring in the rocky
95 ἀνὰ στόμ’ αἰεὶ καὶ διὰ γλώσσης ἔχειν.
πάρεστι δ’ οὐχ ἓν ἀλλὰ πολλά μοι στένειν,
πόλιν πατρώιαν τὸν θανόντα θ’ Ἕκτορα
στερρόν τε τὸν ἐμὸν δαίμον’ ὧι συνεζύγην
δούλειον ἦμαρ ἐσπεσοῦσ’ ἀναξίως.
100 χρὴ δ’ οὔποτ’ εἰπεῖν οὐδέν’ ὄλβιον βροτῶν,
πρὶν ἂν θανόντος τὴν τελευταίαν ἴδηις
ὅπως περάσας ἡμέραν ἥξει κάτω.
᾿Ιλίωι αἰπεινᾶι Πάρις οὐ γάμον ἀλλά τιν’ ἄταν
ἀγάγετ’ εὐναίαν ἐς θαλάμους Ἑλέναν.
105 ἇς ἕνεκ’, ὦ Τροία, δορὶ καὶ πυρὶ δηϊάλωτον
εἷλέ σ’ ὁ χιλιόναυς Ἑλλάδος ὠκὺς Ἄρης
καὶ τὸν ἐμὸν μελέας πόσιν Ἕκτορα, τὸν περὶ τείχη
εἵλκυσε διφρεύων παῖς ἁλίας Θέτιδος·
αὐτὰ δ’ ἐκ θαλάμων ἀγόμαν ἐπὶ θῖνα θαλάσσας,
110 δουλοσύναν στυγερὰν ἀμφιβαλοῦσα κάραι.
πολλὰ δὲ δάκρυά μοι κατέβα χροός, ἁνίκ’ ἔλειπον
ἄστυ τε καὶ θαλάμους καὶ πόσιν ἐν κονίαις.
ὤμοι ἐγὼ μελέα, τί μ’ ἐχρῆν ἔτι φέγγος ὁρᾶσθαι
Ἑρμιόνας δούλαν; ἇς ὕπο τειρομένα
115 πρὸς τόδ’ ἄγαλμα θεᾶς ἱκέτις περὶ χεῖρε βαλοῦσα

11. The elegy occurs near the beginning of a tragedy of Euripides known as the Andromache, which was first
produced sometime in the last third of the fifth century BCE.
In this elegy, we are about to see the figure of Andromache in the act of singing a song of lament as an
expression of her sorrow over her misfortunes.
Now that her husband Hector has been killed and Troy has been destroyed, this beautiful and aristocratic
princess has been reduced to the degrading status of a captive woman, a war prize taken from Asiatic Troy
to the Helladic city of Phthia, where she is fated to become the slave of the evil princess Hermione.
Andromache sings her lament in the form of a monody (Euripides, Andromache 91–117):

12. • Modern Elegies are written for the but the tone is different.It is not only having sad tone but many different tones ..For
example..
Jonathan Swift takes a comical approach on the Death of a Late Famous General in his elegy.
"His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?”
'A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a
Late Famous General' by Jonathan
Swift ironically describes the life and
death of a dishonourable, recently
deceased, duke. The poem begins with
the speaker feigning surprise and grief
over the death of John Churchill, a
duke. He died in his bed, without glory.

13. FAMOUS ANCIENT ELEGY EXAMPLES
The dramatized occasion of Poem 13 of Archilochus, whose lifespan is traditionally dated to the first half of the seventh century is very
famous Greek Elegy. (Poem is in the next slide)
The sympotic singer here is lamenting the death of beloved companions who drowned at sea. Just as the lungs of the drowned men
are swollen with the salt water of the sea that has drowned them, so also the lungs of the men who lament them are swollen with the salt
water of the tears they shed for their dear companions. This reference here to men’s lamenting for the dead, however, is contextualized in the
setting of a symposium, where a man is singing a monodic song of elegy. And this sympotic setting of elegy makes a big difference. At a
symposium, men must be men in contemplating death in particular and mortality in general. Their civic identity is foregrounded: it is essential
for the symposiasts to be conscious of what the citizens think (line 1), what the city thinks (line 2). Men must sing elegy not the way women
sing and dance lament. That is the thinking behind the ostentatious rejection, in this sympotic context, of a typical woman’s way of expressing
her penthos (line 10). As we see most clearly in epic, this word penthos along with its synonym akhos means “grief,” and both words refer to
lament as performed either by women or by men (Nagy 1999:94–117).
The largest surviving body of Archaic elegy is the collection of poems and excerpts, some 1,400 lines in all, transmitted under the
name of Theognis. He is actually only one among many poets represented, ranging in date from the 7th to the early 5th cent. bc. Here we find
a wide cross‐section: political and moralizing verse, social comment, personal complaint, convivial pieces, witty banter, love poems to
nameless boys. Other items are reflective or philosophic, and develop an argument on some ethical or practical question. This dialectic
element was a feature of elegy from the start, but became more prominent later, e.g. in Xenophanes.
Simonides used the medium to celebrate the great battles of 480/79 bc; his grandiose poem on Plataea recalls Mimnermus'
Smyrneis (see plataea, battle of). By the end of the 5th cent. the symposium was fast losing its songfulness, and elegy in the classical style
was drying up.
Gregory Nagy-Harvard Edu

14. To care about mourning, Pericles, is not something that any one of the
citizens
would find fault with, on the occasion of festivities [thaliai = symposia].
Nor would any city find fault.
You see, that’s the kind of men the waves of the loudly roaring sea
have swept under, and now we have our lungs all swollen with painful
sorrows,
5 yes, our lungs. But you see what the gods have done for our
incurable misfortunes,
my friend. They have placed as a cover over them a strongly resistant
endurance
as an antidote. Different people have this thing happen to them at
different times.
This time, {37|38}
it was our turn. And we mourn the bleeding wound inflicted on us.
Next time, it will happen to those who are next in line. So, come on, it’s
time to get going,
as fast as you can.
10 It’s time for you to get over it and endure, pushing aside the kind of
grief [penthos]
that women have.
κήδεα μὲν στονόεντα Περίκλεες οὔτέ τις ἀστῶν
μεμφόμενος θαλίηις τέρψεται οὐδὲ πόλις·
τοίους γὰρ κατὰ κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
ἔκλυσεν, οἰδαλέους δ’ ἀμφ’ ὀδύνηις ἔχομεν
5. πνεύμονας. ἀλλὰ θεοὶ γὰρ ἀνηκέστοισι κακοῖσιν
ὦ φίλ’ ἐπὶ κρατερὴν τλημοσύνην ἔθεσαν
φάρμακον. ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει τόδε· νῦν μὲν ἐς ἡμ<έα>ς
ἐτράπεθ’, αἱματόεν δ’ ἕλκος ἀναστένομεν,
ἐξαῦτις δ’ ἑτέρους ἐπαμείψεται. ἀλλὰ τάχιστα
10 τλῆτε, γυναικεῖον πένθος ἀπωσάμενοι. Gregory Nagy-Harvard Edu

15. SOME FAMOUS MODERN
ELEGIES
Milton’s Lycidas is often cited as one of the best, especially in the pastoral tradition.
One of the best known is Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Even though it uses a traditional elegaic stanza,
and follows the pastoral mood, it’s not written about an individual, so its standing as an elegy is sometimes challenged.
Shelley’s Adonais follows Milton’s Lycidas in the classically anchored pastoral elegy tradition. Shelley uses the Spenserian
stanza. ON MY FIRST SONNE- Behn Johnson(1616), WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM’D- Walt
Whitman(1865), ADONAÏS-P.B. Shelley(1821), this are some famous modern elegies.
A couple of 20th century contenders worthy of note are Auden’s tribute to his contemporary in In Memory of WB Yeats, and
Dylan Thomas’s great Do not go gentle into that goodnight, written as a viilanelle.
Anirudh-learnodo

16. REFERENCES
• Abrams, M H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Eleventh Edition ed., Cengage, 2015.
• Anirudh. “10 MOST FAMOUS ELEGIES BY RENOWNED POETS.” Learnodo-Newtonic.com, Learnodo Newtonic, 13 Aug. 2017,
https://learnodo-newtonic.com/famous-elegy-poems.
• Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "elegy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Oct. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/elegy.
Accessed 12 April 2022.
• “Epitaph.” Edited by Cambridge, Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge , https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/epitaph.
• “Greek Elegiac Poetry.” Oxfordreference.com, Oxford University Press,
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095746694.
• Malhotra, Rajindar Kumar. “The Form and Spirit of the Great English Elegies.” Punjab University, Shodhganga, 1977, pp. 1–359.
• Sansby, Connor. “What Is an Elegy?” Thanetwriters.com, Thanetwriters, 2015, https://thanetwriters.com/essay/form/what-is-an-
elegy/.
• Trent, W. P. “The Greek Elegy.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 6, no. 1, 1898, pp. 1–28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27527965. Accessed
12 Apr. 2022.
• Watson, M. “Elegies and Epitaphs.” The Irish Monthly, vol. 35, no. 405, 1907, pp. 121–33, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20501102.
Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

17. “The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
-Thomas Gray
[“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”] l. 36 (1751)”
Thank You :)