elegía

Elegía is a literary and musical genre that expresses grief, mourning, or remembrance. In Spanish, elegía denotes a mournful poem or composition and can refer to works in verse or prose that recall someone or something with sorrow or longing.

The term comes from Latin elegia, itself from Greek elegos, meaning a song of lament. In classical Greece, elegy originally referred to a specific meter, the elegiac couplet, formed by a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter. The form spread beyond meter to become a flexible genre for laments, funerary themes, and later, love poetry.

In the Latin tradition, poets such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid popularized the elegy as a principal vehicle for love and personal reflection, often blending elegiac mood with intimate address and philosophical meditation. The genre influenced later European poetry and remains a frame for commemorative or consolatory verse.

In modern usage, elegy broadens to any reflective, mournful poem about loss—whether the death of an individual, a community, or an ideal. In Spanish-language literature, elegía continues as a standard form or mood across eras, from the Renaissance to contemporary poetry, used to commemorate, mourn, or meditate on mortality. Characteristics typically include themes of memory, time, and consolation, with a tone that ranges from intimate lament to universal meditation. An elegy is generally distinct from an epitaph, which is a shorter inscription on a tomb, whereas an elegy is a longer, often meditative poem.