ELEGY, a short poem of lamentation or regret, called forth by the decease of a beloved or revered person, or by a general sense of the pathos of mortality. The Greek word iXeyeia is of doubtful signification ; it is usually interpreted as meaning a mournful or funeral song. But there seems to be no proof that this idea of regret for death entered into the original meaning of EXeyEia. The earliest Greek elegies which have come down to us are not funereal, although it is possible that the primitive may have been a set of words liturgically used, with music, at a burial. When the elegy appears in surviving Greek literature, we find it dedicated, not to death, but to war and love. Callinus of Ephesus, who flourished in the 7th century B.C., is the earliest elegist of whom we possess fragments. A little later Tyrtaeus was composing his famous elegies in Sparta. Both of these writers were, so far as we know, exclusively warlike and patriotic. On the other hand, the passion of love inspires Mimnermus. In the work of Theognis of Megara we can observe the character istics of Greek elegy best. Here the Dorian spirit of chivalry reaches its highest expression, and war is combined with manly love. It is curious to notice that antiquity styled the funeral dirges of Theocritus, Bion, and 1VIoschus—which are to us the types of elegy—not elegies at all, but idylls.
Gallus, whose works are unhappily lost, composed erotic elegies, which were the earliest elegies in Latin. The Cynthia of Proper tius, however, with its rich and unexampled employment of that alternation of hexameter and pentameter which had now come to be known as the elegiac measure, seems to have settled the type of Latin elegy. Tibullus is always named in conjunction with Propertius, who was his contemporary, although in their style they were strongly contrasted. Finally, Ovid wrote elegies of great variety in subject, but all in the same form.
From the beginning of the 16th century "elegy" was used in English, as it has been ever since, to describe a funeral song or lament. The Daplinaida of Spenser (1 S91) is an elegy in the strict modern sense. Dr. Johnson's definition, "Elegy, a short poem without points or turns," is singularly inept and careless. By that time (17 5 5) English literature had produced many great elegies, of which the Lycidas of Milton is by far the most illus trious. Since the 18th century the most famous examples of elegy in English literature have been the Adonais of Shelley (on Keats) and the Thyrsis of Matthew Arnold (on Clough). The most celebrated elegy in English is that written by Gray in a country churchyard. This, however, belongs to a class apart, as it is not addressed to the memory of any particular person. James Hammond (1716-42) enjoyed a certain success with his Love Elegies in which he endeavoured to introduce the erotic elegy as it was written by Ovid and Tibullus. This experiment took no hold of English literature but was welcomed in France in the amatory works of Parny (1753-1814), in those of Chenedolle (1769-1833), and of Millevoye (1782-1816). Lamartine must be included among the elegists, and his famous "Le Lac" is as emi nent an elegy in French as Gray's "Country Churchyard" is in English. The elegy has flourished in Portugal, partly because it was cultivated with great success by Camoens. In Italian, Chia brera and Filicaia are named among the leading national elegists. In German literature, the notion of elegy as a poem of lamenta tion does not exist. The famous Roman elegies of Goethe imitate in form and theme those of Ovid ; they are not even plaintive in character.