what is an elegy poem

An elegy is a form of poetry that typically reflects on death or loss. It is a poem that expresses grief, sadness, or loss, and often includes a lament where the speaker expresses sorrow, followed by praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and finally consolation and solace. The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in couplets, but since the eighteenth century, stanzas within elegy poems typically feature a quatrain, written in iambic pentameter with an ABAB rhyme scheme. The themes of an elegy can vary, but they often address mourning, sorrow, and lamentation. Examples of elegies include John Milton’s “Lycidas,” Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” and Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd” .