Poetic Form
Threnody
From Greek threnos: lamentation + oide: song. In ancient Greece, threnos were performed by professional mourners; the term implies public grief rather than private elegy.
Definition
A formal song or poem of lamentation for the dead, originally choral, grander in scope than a dirge.
Example
Emerson's 'Threnody' (1844) laments his young son Waldo; Tennyson's In Memoriam is sometimes called a threnody.