According to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary, eulogy or elegy is the spoken or written tribute that praises someone or something very highly, a tribute to somebody who has recently died or alive. The word is derived from the two Greek words for "you" and "word" (Anton). The elegy dates back to classic Greek poetry containing two lines known as a couplet and combines many of these couplets to create the funeral poem (Anton). The most noted scholar and poet Callimachus, expressed powerful emotions in a shorter form than a full-length epic poem calling these "elegy" that captured many readers with his vivid style of expressing emotions. (funeralhomeestacoma). It wasn't until the 1800s that English poets like Lord Tennyson famous ballad, "The Lady of Shallott" and Thomas Gray's ballad "Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard' conveyed solitude, grief and foreboding ( funeral...). Writers of the Romantic Era such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge used elegiac poetry in a lyrical manner, but over time this was less favored and the elegy worked best as an expression of mourning (funeral...).
The eulogy describes the person's life, how they lived, their achievements, and the love ones left behind. Sometimes the eulogy can be very long or short, given by a love one or friend. The eulogy allows the survivors to learn more about the departed from stories and experiences which are shared in hopes of lessening pain and allowing for closure in the death of a love one.
How to Write a Eulogy
According to Kevin Burch, professional Funeral Presider, providing the eulogy has three functions; first, by honoring the memory of a special person, second, giving the survivors the gifts of sharing, of fondly rememb...
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...7. http://www.eulogyspeeches.net/writing_a_eulogy.html. Web 14 Mar.2014.
Works Cited
Anton, Ben "Funeral Poems-The History of the Eulogy & Elegy" http://EzineArticles.com/?expert+Ben Anton. Web. 14 Mar.2014.
Anton, Ben. "Eulogy Writing: The Origins of Funeral Eulogy Poems." Www.articlebase.com. 28 June 2008. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Burch, Kevin. 6 Simple Steps to Writing A Eulogy to Remember. Rep. http://www.eulogyspeeches.net/a_eulogy_to_rember.html, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
A Brief History of Eulogies, and Why They are Used at Funerals. Mountain View Funeral Home, Memorial Park & Crematory. www.funeralhomestacoma.com/home. Web. 14 Mar 2014.
Eulogy Writer: http://www.eulogywriter.com.au/eulogy_research.html. Web. 14 Mar 2014.
Writing a Eulogy Speech, 2007. http://www.eulogyspeeches.net/writing_a_eulogy.html. Web 14 Mar.2014.
It is widely known that the Athenians highly valued their warrior class, and they saw the warriors as a ring of the higher circle of the society. The Athenians were very proud of Athena and its traditions, as well. Athenian’s thought that Athena was the best, none could be better. The funeral oration was aimed to respect the fallen as well as to keep up the national pride and its passion to protect their nation. The speech was a eulogy which focused on the eminence of Athens and its predecessors. Usually a son was chosen to give the eulogy. The law required the speech to have several essential components. The speech had to concerning the lives of the deceased. At his eulogy’s end, Pericles spoke in regard to the soldiers. The speech talked about the life that the departed lived and the achievements which they gained. Pericles wanted the citizens to recall the soldiers but to forget about the tragedy that had occurred. He wanted the departed’s lives to be remembered, but not their demise. The speech helped the Athenians appreciate what their ancestors had died for and how they shou...
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014).
"What Is Hospice (About Hospice)." Home (Hospice Foundation of America). Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .
Paul revere [Web]. (2014). Retrieved from Paul Revere. (2014). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 05:16, Mar 15, 2014, from http://www.biography.com/people/paul-revere-9456172.
"Poe's Life." Who is Edgar Allan Poe?. The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 7 Dec 2013.
Being that death is a universally explored topic, William Shakespeare, a master of English literature, opted to thoroughly investigate this complex notion in his play Hamlet. Shakespeare cleverly and sometimes subtly brings the reader/viewer through a physical and spiritual journey of death via the several controversial characters of Hamlet. The chief element of this expedition is undoubtedly the funerals. Every funeral depicts, and marks, the conclusion of different perceptions of death. Shakespeare uses the funerals of the several controversial characters to gradually transform the simple, spiritual, naïve, and somewhat light view of death into a much more factual, physical, serious, and down to earth outlook.
be shared through music, inlcuding ideas and feelings about death. Music is used in various
With the mention of death, three words come to mind, e.g., grief, mourning, and bereavement. Although, Touhy and Jett (2016) cited that these three words are used interchangeably, the authors differentiated the three, e.g., bereavement indicates the occurrence of a loss; grief referred to the emotional response to the loss, and mourning as the “outward expression of loss” (p. 482). It should be noted, that all three implied a loss. In addition, they are applied not only in times of death, but also in all kinds of loss. A loss brings along with it a trail of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. One such thought is the consideration of what it would be when one is gone forever. As discussed
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
Now in order for me to accurately display this poems relevance, you’d first need a little bit of background on this piece of work. After all, how can you respect or admire something you aren’t familiar with? Now to start off, The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard poem was written by Thomas Gray, and was finished in 1750 and eventually published in 1751. The sole reason for its being created is unknown, but it is, in part, inspired by Gray’s thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742. In the beginning it was called Stanza's Wrote in a Country Churchyard. The poem was completed near St Giles' parish church at Stoke Poges. Thomas sent it to his friend Horace Walpole, who helped the poem gain a lot of attention in London. Gray eventually published the poem on February 15th, because a magazine publisher was going to print a copy of the poem without a license. Now in order to prove that the Elegy is one of the greatest, we must analyze it to show its true worth. However to perform a good analysis there is lots background information to cover, we’ll start with the era that it was written in.
If one takes a look at the medieval times, this era would not doubt dying of grief. People in the medieval time had rituals they would display like, laying down forming a cross with their bodies, laying on their backs so that their faces are always pointed towards heaven, and some even turned facing the wall, when they felt that death was upon them. In Western Attitudes Towards Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Philippe Aries goes on to explain, “The old attributed in which death was both familiar and near, evoking no great fear or awe, offers too marked a contrast to ours, where death is so frightful that we dare not utter its name” (Aries 13). This goes to show that times have changed since the medieval times, the perception of death has changed to where people become more frighten of dying and add more connotations to the word death. Therefore, the western attitudes today would probably throw out the concept “dying of grief,” especially if it is an instant death like the one Iseult and Tristan
Many people find it hard to imagine their death as there are so many questions to be answered-how will it happen, when, where and what comes next. The fact that our last days on Earth is unknown makes the topic of death a popular one for most poets who looks to seek out their own emotions. By them doing that it helps the reader make sense of their own emotions as well. In the two poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, the poets are both capturing their emotion about death and the way that they accepted it. In Dickenson’s poem her feelings towards death are more passionate whereas in Dylan’s poem the feelings
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Beginning shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. This poem’s use of dubbal entendre may lead the intended audience away from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair and sadness; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author’s feelings toward the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War. This essay will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dubbal entendre throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, conflict within self, finding virtue in one’s life, dealing with one’s misfortunes and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant.
A Comparison of Thomas Gray's Elegy (Eulogy) Written in a Country Churchyard and Bryant's Thanatopsis