| Abstrakt: |
Is the elegy global? To wrestle with this impossibly large question, can we approach it intrinsically by searching within elegy for traces of the genre's worldwide reach? A contemporary elegy that can serve as a portal to the genre's globality is Edward Hirsch's book-length Gabriel (2014), a lament for the poet's son that weaves a global web of elegies, citing more than a dozen mourning poets from classical and Edo Japan, medieval, Renaissance, and Romantic Britain, Renaissance Poland, nineteenth-century Germany and France, and twentieth-century Italy, Russia, and India. Though not comprehensive, Hirsch's gathering makes visible the elegy's global resonances, divergences, and scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
