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Introduction: The word 'elegy' is derived from the Greek word, 'elegos' which means a mournful poem. Usually it is a reflective poem which laments the death of somebody. An elegy is not an epitaph or a dirge; neither is it exactly a sister of tragedy. An elegy is a poetic attempt to perpetuate and also to decorate the memory of a dear departed-involving real passion and intense personal sorrow. The prevailing modern concept of the elegy is expressed well by Gayley: "It is a reflective lyric suggested by the fact or fancy of death. The emotion, personal or public, finds utterance in keen lament, to be allayed however by tranquil consideration of the mutability of life, the immutability of something that justifies life and death". Melancholy, then or sadness is the kernel of the elegy. This melancholy caused by the death or the disappearance of something decor, by something lost and gone, or absent and unattainable-expresses itself in lamentation. In its origin in poetry, this lamentation followed a certain metrical pattern - a distich of dactylic hexameter and pentameter and was set to music. However, elegy has now come to be primarily associated with its plaintive content and not its metrical pattern.
The Development of Elegy: The elegy, like many other poetic forms is derived from Greek poets, from the pastoral verse of writers like Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. The 'dirge', threnody, 'monody' and 'lament' are all variations on the same theme. They are generally shorter versions of the elegy. According to L.T. Lemon's classification "Dirges are intended to be sung; a threnody is song-like but not necessarily intended for musical accompaniment; a monody is spoken by a single person. Lament may refer to any song expressing deep sorrow". The advent of the Greek type of elegy into English poetry dates from the Elizabethan times. It was then, that the Pastoral Elegy, in which in the guise of a shepherd, and in a pastoral setting, the poet mourns for a companion, came into English literature. The Elizabethan elegy was a very varied and complex product-comprising of 'complaints', Threnodies', Dirges', and 'Laments'. After these we have some well known elegies in the 17th and 18th centuries John Milton's Lycidas, Alexander Pope's To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Oliver Goldsmith's On the Death of a Mad Dog, Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. In the 19th century elegiac verse became threnodic, serious and of noble poetic inspiration. The elegies written by Shelley, Tennyson, Arnold, Swinburne and Rossetti have a depth, poignancy and sublimity that indicate the highwater-mark of elegiac lament in English literature.
Matthew Arnold's Elegy and the Elegiac Mood: “Arnold is almost greatest as an elegiac poet". "The best of our elegiac poets"; "In the elegy, where his genius was quite at ease, he is excellent... Indeed all his best verse has this elegiac note, or nearly all" - such are the tributes showered upon Arnold in relation to the elegy and the elegiac mood. However, writing an elegy is one matter and having the elegiac mood is another. Arnold tops in both; the elegiac mood, especially was inherent in him, almost natural to him. The world he saw around him, induced nothing but the elegiac mood in him. "The heartbreak in the heart of things" knocked perpetually at his heart. The sixteen poems of Arnold normally included under the title Elegiac Poems" are not all elegies in the strictest sense of the word. Perfect elegy in the traditional manner, Arnold has written only one, Thyrsis. It is the only true elegy. Next in order come Rugby Chapel written to the memory of the poet's celebrated father, Westminster Abbey written on the occasion of the death of Dean Stanley, Memorial Verses on the passing away of Wordsworth, A Southern Night commemorating the poet's brother William Delafield Arnold and Requiescat mourning the untimely death of a young (anonymous) lady. After these! comes The Scholar Gipsy lamenting a dead age. Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse bemoaning the loss of serious religious life, Stanzas Composed at Carnac bewailing lost love, and the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
Most of his other poems possess only a plaintive content, an elegiac tone. The elegiac strain of Arnold is visible in 'Times' current strong leaves us ture to nothing long" (A Memory Picture), in 'Alone dwell for ever the kings of the Sea' (The Forsaken Merman), in that something that infects the world's (Resignation), in "The lovers meet, but meet too late' (Too Late), in The unplumb'd salt, estranging sea' (Isolation), in 'Sits Neckan with his harp of gold, and sings his plaintive soul (The Neckan), in 'How vain a thing is mortal love' (To Marguerite) and so on. Thus we see that Arnold has to his credit only one elegy proper but many more containing the elegiac note, the strain of sadness.
Thyrsis as a Pastoral Elegy: Thyrsis, which is Arnold's only elegy written in the traditional form is a pastoral elegy. It is a brief lyric of mourning and personal bereavement - at the death of his friend Arthur Hugh Clough. Here Arnold represents himself as a shepherd named Corydon, and Clough as Thyrsis. Both the names are taken from traditional pastoral poetry where, Corydon mourns the death of a shepherd. Pagan mythology has been artistically introduced and the references to Pluto, Proserpine, Daphnis and Lityersis heighten the beauty of the poem and lend it a genuine pastoral tone. Thyrsis reveals Arnold's passion for the past, his ardent love for the familiar countryside, his sorrow at the death of his beloved friend, his reflective melancholy leading to the decision of the stead-fast quest of his ideal. Carleton Stanley aptly points out, "if Arnold had written nothing but Thyrsis how great would be our debt to him. Much of Arnold is here: his rich scholarship, his love of natural beauty, his striving for perfection in life, his ardent desire for companionship in the great quest, his scorn of worldliness, pettiness and vulgar greed and his abiding melancholy". This poem is also a criticism of life - a criticism of contemporary Victorian life - its sordidness, materialism, doubts, distractions and perplexed questionings. That makes the elegy at once both personal and impersonal.
The Reasons for the Elegiac Note in Arnold's Poetry: There are great elegies in English literature. But in the case of Matthew Arnold, the entire body of his poetry is elegiac - sometimes personal and sometimes impersonal. No other poet returns so frequently to the elegiac form as Arnold does: He found in the elegy the outlet for his native melancholy of the 'Virgilian Cry' over the mournfulness of mortal destiny. The rapid industrialization and material civilization which resulted in the law of faith was deeply regretted by Arnold. His elegies are suffused with tears. He always heard,
The complaining millions of men.
Darken in labour and pain
The Victorian age was at the crossroads of history. The old moral and religious assurances of Christianity were crumbling with the onslaught of science and excessive materialism. The people of the age, Arnold felt, were,
Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born
Arnold's cry of anguish and philosophical melancholy was for the lost promises and beauty of the vanished faith. His Dover Beach is an example of the gloomiest thoughts that haunted him.
In The Scholar Gipsy Arnold laments the death of faith in the age of materialism. The poet finds in his age only "sick hurry" and "divided aims". The people are "vague half-believers in casual creeds". A deep melancholy undertone can be discerned throughout this impersonal elegy.
Apart from loss of faith, it is a sense of loneliness which heightens the poet's anguish. He is saddened at the thought that, we mortal millions live alone. Again in Obernann Once More, he says:
But now the old is out of date,
The new is not yet born
And who can be alone elate,
While the world lies forlorn?
Arnold's stoicism the philosophy of endurance amidst life's various ills is the effect of his untold suffering, and it colours even his love poems. The love poems of Arnold are thus elegiac in tone and the refrain throughout is one of separation. They mourn the death of love, in most cases unrequited. In isolation, in the sea of life a God, a God their severance ruled'. In Destiny the poet finds fault with 'powers that sport with Man', the powers that will not allow a happy union of lovers. In Human Life,
....chartered by some unknown Powers,
We stem across the sea of life by night,
Conclusion: According to Middleton Murry "Arnold's most consistent achievement was in the kind of poems which we call elegiac. It suited best with his own persistent mood of restrained grief for the life he could not accept and the soul which he could not make his own". Sadness or a pensive melancholy is the true note of Arnold's poetry. What Arnold says about Clough's poetry in Thyrsis, is truer still of Arnold's own poetry: "his piping took a troubled sound..", and again, "his rustic flute learnt a stormy note of men contention-tost, of men who groan". Indeed, Arnold is the unsurpassed master of the elegiac note in poetry.
Example Questions
Write an essay on the elegiac note in Arnold's poetry.
Or
Arnold is the unsurpassed master of the elegiac note in poetry". Discuss
Or
Arnold's genius was essentially elegiac". Elucidate.
Or
Arnold found in the elegy the outlet of his native melancholy the Virgilian cry' over the mournfulness of mortal destiny". Discuss.