In English literature, an elegy is a poem of serious reflection, usually a lament for the dead. However, "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as ...

What is an elegy example?

Examples of famed elegies include: "Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,/Compels me to disturb your season due:/For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,/Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer." ... dear father!/This arm beneath your head;/It is some dream that on deck,/You've fallen cold and dead."

What does elegy mean in poetry?

elegy, meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one; by extension, any reflective lyric on the broader theme of human mortality.