00:00Poetry Writing for Kids
00:04Topic 10 Writing an Elegy
00:09A poem can be a collection of words that expresses feelings or ideas, sometimes with a specific
00:15meaning, sound, or rhythm.
00:18An elegy is a serious reflection.
00:21In English literature, it is often a lament or a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.
00:28If you do not want to hear about these things, please skip to the structure of an elegy.
00:35The word elegy comes from the Greek word elegis, which means a song of bereavement.
00:42It is usually sung with a musical instrument called a flute.
00:46An elegy sometimes has a pessimistic tone or a monumentalizing tone.
00:53The Greek term elegia originally referred to any term related to the subject matter
00:58of death, love, and war.
01:04Elegy poems do not follow a specific rhyme structure, but often rhyme depending on the
01:09poet.
01:11Many elegy poems are broken up into three parts that include rhyme, meter, and structure,
01:17while expressing grief, praise, and consolation.
01:22Many traditional elegies follow an iambic pentameter of da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum,
01:29da-dum, with a rhyme scheme, which sets the rhythm for the poem.
01:34Let's go over some of these elements of poetry.
01:39Rhyme is a repetitive pattern of sounds found in a poem.
01:44It can be used to reinforce a pattern or rhyme scheme.
01:48Some kinds of rhymes you might find in poetry are end rhyme, imperfect rhyme, internal rhyme,
01:57masculine rhyme, and feminine rhyme.
02:01End rhyme is a common type of rhyme in poetry that occurs when the last word of two or more
02:07lines rhymes.
02:09Imperfect rhyme is a type of rhyme that occurs in words that do not have an identical sound.
02:16Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of lines in poetry.
02:21Masculine rhyme is a rhyming between stressed syllables at the end of verse lines.
02:27Feminine rhyme is a rhyming between unstressed syllables at the end of verse lines.
02:34A meter is the pattern of a poem.
02:37Poets carefully arrange the words and word parts in their poems to make specific patterns
02:42and explain how they want these patterns to be read.
02:46Examples of meter are lamb, despair, exclude, repeat, crochet, sister, flower, splinter,
02:58doctile, similar, different, fantastic, and the pest.
03:04Understand basketball, disgusted, spondee, drumbeat, habit, finish, conflict, and pyrrhic,
03:14opposite of spondee.
03:18Structure is how the words of a poem are organized.
03:22The elements of structure include stanza, verse, and canto.
03:28A stanza is a group of lines separated from other groups of lines by a blank line or indentation.
03:36A verse is a stanza that doesn't have a specific number of lines, but it all goes
03:41together and makes sense.
03:44A canto is a pattern that can be found in some medieval poetry and long poems like Dante
03:51Alighieri's Commedia, The Divine Comedy, and Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen.
03:59Let's take a closer look at an elegy written by Lord Tennyson in 1833.
04:06This was one of the greatest poems of the Victorian era and was written to commemorate
04:10his best friend, Arthur Henry Allum, after his sudden passing.
04:17In Memoriam, A.H.H.
04:22Dark house, by which once more I stand, here in the long, unlovely street.
04:28Doors, where my heart used to beat, so quickly, waiting for a hand, a hand that can be clasped
04:37no more.
04:38Behold me, for I cannot sleep, and like a guilty thing I creep.
04:45An earliest morning to the door.
04:48He is not here, but far away.
04:51The noise of life begins again, and ghastly throw, the drizzling rain, on the bald street
04:59breaks the blank day.
05:02Let's take a look at the structure of this poem.
05:06This poem is a long structure of an elegy, which includes a grief, praise, and consolation.
05:13This elegy follows an iambic pantomime of da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, which
05:20sets the rhythm.
05:22This poet has chosen which lines they want to follow a rhyme scheme.
05:28This poet wrote three four-line stanzas, the first line rhyming with the last line, and
05:35the second line rhyming with the third line.
05:39Now I will write my own elegy poem.
05:44First I will need to brainstorm a subject for my elegy.
05:48I think I will write about my lost cat.
05:52Then I will need to decide how many stanzas I want to write my elegy poem in.
05:59I will write my elegy in three stanzas.
06:04Next I will need to decide the rhyme scheme for my elegy.
06:09Last I will need to put my words together for my readers.
06:14Let's try it.
06:17My Lost Cat
06:21Sweet bed you once reside, pitter-patter went your feet.
06:26Soft crunches when you eat, doth scurry to run and hide.
06:32How calm thou soft purr hums, when storms do come and go.
06:38You never will truly know, the calm your sound doth drums.
06:44Ease the sorrow within, such is a profound sound.
06:49This earth for which you ground, long your cheeky grin.
06:56I did it!
06:58I wrote an elegy poem about my lost cat while expressing grief, praise, and consolation.
07:05I also followed the pentameter of da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum with the rhyme
07:13scheme and set the rhythm for my poem.
07:18Now it's your turn.
07:21First you will need to brainstorm a subject for your elegy poem.
07:26Then you will need to decide how many stanzas you want to write your elegy poem in.
07:33Next, you will need to decide the rhyme scheme for your elegy.
07:38Last, you will need to put your words together for your readers.
07:44Would you like to learn how you can write any type of poem?
07:48Then be sure to check out the next and final video in the series called Writing a Ballad
07:54to learn how you can write your own ballad from start to finish.
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08:19Thanks for watching.
