What is an elegy?

Question:Purpose?
Subject and Theme?
Tone?
Rhyme and Rhythm?
Lines and Stanzas?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Purpose?
Subject and Theme?
Tone?
Rhyme and Rhythm?
Lines and Stanzas?

--? Purpose: To memorialize a person or reflect on a subject.

Subject & Theme: The death of a particular person or another subject such as war.

Tone: Formal and serious.

Rhyme & Rhythm: May or may not have end rhyme. May or may not have a regular rhythm.

Lines & Stanzas: Varies.

A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation.

It's purpose, subject, theme and meter are up to the poet.

Purpose: To commemorate something that's dead.
Subject/theme: Something that is dead.
Tone: Anything
Rhyme/Rhythm: Optional
Lines/Stanzas: However many you want

~sig~
7 days without soccer makes one weak

Its a poem written in memory of someone who has died. The tone is usually quite somber, as you would expect.