![]() ![]() Performance context and function varied, and it seems likely that there were several different subgenres. ![]() ![]() ![]() The length of elegies varied from a few lines to a hundred or more. Performance of elegy seems to have been sung and to accompaniment of the aulos (a kind of flute). Elegiac meter came to be the most commonly used one for epigrams, short poems intended to be inscribed somewhere. The fact that the metrical scheme included a hexameter line allowed for the use of epic vocabulary and may well have influenced the development of the genre: it was different enough from epic to allow for the expression of personal themes, but close enough to discourage the use of undignified subject matter (contrast the iambos). A key characteristic is a metrical structure comprising a sequence of elegiac couplets, an elegiac couplet consisting of a dactylic hexameter followed by a pentameter (an “ elegeion” in Greek terminology). Like other ancient Greek generic terms, “elegy” is difficult to define the best recent attempts are West 1974 and Bowie 1986. Social and Political Functions of Greek Lyric.Development of the Genre after the 5th Century bce. ![]()
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