Elegy

The word elegy does not describe the form of a poem, but rather its content.Elegies are poems written to lament someone’s death, such as Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” written in honor of President Lincoln. The long-standing tradition of this type of poem traces back to ancient Greece, when elegies were sung to the accompaniment of an aulos (a double-reed instrument). Elegies are distinct from short epitaphs, laudatory odes, and eulogies, which fall into the category of prose.

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