AskDefine | Define elegiac

Dictionary Definition

elegiac adj
2 expressing sorrow often for something past; "an elegiac lament for youthful ideals"

User Contributed Dictionary



  • a Canada /ˌɛləˈdʒaɪˌæk/ or /ˌɛləˈdʒaɪək/


  1. Of, or relating to an elegy.
  2. Expressing sorrow or mourning.

Extensive Definition

Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter. Because the hexameter line is in the same meter as epic poetry, and because the elegiac form was always considered lower style than epic, elegists frequently wrote with epic in mind and positioned themselves in relation to epic.

Classical Poets

The first examples of elegiac poetry in writing come from classical Greece. The form dates back nearly as early as epic, with such authors as Archilocus and Simonides of Ceos from early in the history of Greece. One of the most influential elegiac writers, however, was Callimachus from the Hellenistic period, who had an enormous impact on Roman poets, both elegists and non-elegists alike. He promulgated the idea that elegy, shorter and more compact than epic, could be even more beautiful and worthy of appreciation.
In other examples of poetry such as Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott an elegaic tone can be used, where the author is prasising someone in a sombre tone

English Poets

The "elegy" was originally a classical form with few English examples. However, in 1751, Thomas Gray wrote Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard That poem inspired numerous imitators, and soon both the revived Pindaric ode and "elegy" were commonplace. Gray used the term "elegy" for a poem of solitude and mourning, and not just for funereal (eulogy) verse. He also freed the elegy from the Classical elegiac meter.
elegiac in French: Élégiaque

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words

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