| Summary: | Examines the mourning and memorialization that lies at the very centre of literary culture. For all of its pervasiveness, however, the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill-defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead. This text is a comprehensive study of its subject. It provides both a historical survey and a thematic engagement with the relevant issues in elegy. It is responsive to a pressing need for clarification of the relevant issues, and to the exciting developments underway in elegy studies. This volume is timely, since in recent years there has been an explosion in interest in elegies about AIDS, cancer, and war; various reconsiderations of the role of women in the history of elegia.
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