From: David Lumsden <[log in to unmask]>
> and then there's the genre
> Elegy which purports to deal directly with memory
> - viz. 'In Memoriam' - but often turns out to
> be loaded, from Milton in part mourning his
> own imagined demise in Lycidas to Raine in the
> recent 'A la recherche du temps perdu' lamenting
> and romanticizing the life of a younger self
I hate to be persnickety (well, obviously, I absolutely love it) but "Elegy"
as a genre is really a full can of worms -- I _think_ it first comes into
English via Marlowe (translating Ovid) and Donne (ripping off Marlowe). And
is (initially) a fairly crude love-pome-genre.
The highjacking of the form for memorious eulogies predates Milton (Carew
does it for Donne) but what is (perhaps) odd is wandering through Country
Churchyards for the bones of Arthur Hallam has a strange gay connection.
Edward Lear's Jumblies (great under-rated pomes of the 19thC), Auden (before
he skipped to America) ....
But wellagainthere, there's Berryman's Songs For All His Dead Friends (which
has to be The Best Of Our Times) so probably it's a false connection.
Notwithstanding whatever they're writing on Mars (or Venus) ...
Robin
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