The funerary elegy was one of the most common and distinguished poetic genres of the early modern period. Governed by convention, elegies also provided an occasion for poets - from famous laureates to private individuals - to negotiate with the laws of mourning, religious and social expectation, and political constraints. This book situates elegy's conventions with the rituals of rhetoric and mourning. Drawing on anthropology to analyze transitional rites, charisma, and the performance of grief, it offers new readings of famous poems, as well as little-known texts published in manuscript and popular print. It recontextualizes elegies commemorating heraldic funerals and public executions, to reveal how poets asserted their independence and unique status by manipulating the rituals designed to affirm consensus and the power of the state. Examining three famous executions of the 1640s, critical elegies for other poets, and poems mourning the death of children, Brady reveals the radical potentiality of the elegiac genre. This book provides new context for canonical elegies by Ben Jonson, John Donne, Henry King and John Milton among others, and introduces a provocative set of questions about the relationship between private experience and public morality, the body and creativity, and death and writing.
'This is a scholarly examination of an important area of cultural history.' - The Use of English
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Transcriptions
Introduction
The Ritual of Elegiac Rhetoric
The Rhetoric of Grief
The Funerary Ritual in its Ritual Context
Spectacular Executions of the 1640s
Contesting Wills in Critical Elegy
Grief Without Measure
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ANDREA BRADY teaches English Literature at Brunel University, London, UK. She is also a poet, has published widely on contemporary innovative poetry and runs the small press, Barque.
Description
The funerary elegy was one of the most common and distinguished poetic genres of the early modern period. Governed by convention, elegies also provided an occasion for poets - from famous laureates to private individuals - to negotiate with the laws of mourning, religious and social expectation, and political constraints. This book situates elegy's conventions with the rituals of rhetoric and mourning. Drawing on anthropology to analyze transitional rites, charisma, and the performance of grief, it offers new readings of famous poems, as well as little-known texts published in manuscript and popular print. It recontextualizes elegies commemorating heraldic funerals and public executions, to reveal how poets asserted their independence and unique status by manipulating the rituals designed to affirm consensus and the power of the state. Examining three famous executions of the 1640s, critical elegies for other poets, and poems mourning the death of children, Brady reveals the radical potentiality of the elegiac genre. This book provides new context for canonical elegies by Ben Jonson, John Donne, Henry King and John Milton among others, and introduces a provocative set of questions about the relationship between private experience and public morality, the body and creativity, and death and writing.
Reviews
'This is a scholarly examination of an important area of cultural history.' - The Use of English
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Transcriptions
Introduction
The Ritual of Elegiac Rhetoric
The Rhetoric of Grief
The Funerary Ritual in its Ritual Context
Spectacular Executions of the 1640s
Contesting Wills in Critical Elegy
Grief Without Measure
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Authors
ANDREA BRADY teaches English Literature at Brunel University, London, UK. She is also a poet, has published widely on contemporary innovative poetry and runs the small press, Barque.
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