Obituary poetry
Encyclopedia
Obituary poetry, in the broad sense, includes any poem
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 that commemorates a person or group of people's death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

: an elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...

.

In its stricter sense, though, it refers to a genre of popular verse or folk poetry that had its greatest popularity in the nineteenth century, especially in the United States of America. The genre consists largely of sentimental
Sentimentality
Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but current usage defines it as an appeal to shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason....

 narrative verse that tells the story of the demise of its typically named subjects, and seeks to console their mourners
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...

 with descriptions of their happy afterlife
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

. The genre achieved its peak of popularity in the decade of the 1870s. While usually full chiefly of conventional pious sentiments, the obituary poets in in one sense continue the program of meditations on death begun by the eighteenth century graveyard poets
Graveyard poets
The "Graveyard Poets" were a number of pre-Romantic English poets of the 18th century characterised by their gloomy meditations on mortality, 'skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms' in the context of the graveyard. To this was added, by later practitioners, a feeling for the 'sublime' and uncanny,...

, such as Edward Young
Edward Young
Edward Young was an English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.-Early life:He was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father's rectory at Upham, near Winchester, where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated...

's Night Thoughts
Night Thoughts
Night-Thoughts is an 18th-century poem by Edward Young.Night-Thoughts may also refer to:*"Night-Thoughts" , a composition by Aaron Copland*Night Thoughts , a 2006 Doctor Who audio drama...

, and as such continue one of the themes that went into literary Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

.

Death poetry in the popular press

Obituary poetry constituted a large portion of the poetry published in American newspapers in the nineteenth century. In 1870, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 wrote an essay on "Post-mortem Poetry",, in which he remarked that:
In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant to see adopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to published death-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one who is in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia LEDGER must frequently be touched by these plaintive tributes to extinguished worth. In Philadelphia, the departure of a child is a circumstance which is not more surely followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy in the PUBLIC LEDGER. In that city death loses half its terror because the knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery of verse.


and collected examples, such as the following, occasioned by the death of Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4 days.
Our little Sammy's gone,
His tiny spirit's fled;
Our little boy we loved so dear
Lies sleeping with the dead.

A tear within a father's eye,
A mother's aching heart,
Can only tell the agony
How hard it is to part.

The obituary poets

The deaths of children and young adults were particular objects of inspiration to the obituary poets, who memorialized them with sentimental verse. Julia A. Moore
Julia A. Moore
Julia Ann Moore, the "Sweet Singer of Michigan", born Julia Ann Davis in Plainfield Township, Kent County, Michigan , was an American poet, or more precisely, poetaster...

, a poetess from Michigan who published several volumes of poems mostly on obituary subjects, was a well known exponent of the genre. G. Washington Childs
George William Childs
George William Childs was an American publisher who co-owned the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper with financier Anthony Joseph Drexel.-Early life:...

, sometimes called "The Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 of Grief", was another well known exponent; he was one of the chief authors of the verse appearing in the Philadelphia Public Ledger that was noticed by Twain. Lydia Sigourney
Lydia Sigourney
Lydia Huntley Sigourney , née Lydia Howard Huntley, was a popular American poet during the early and mid 19th century. She was commonly known as the "Sweet Singer of Hartford". Most of her works were published with just her married name Mrs. Sigourney.-Early life:Mrs...

, while not confining her work to the genre, frequently contributed to it:

Ere sin has seared the breast,
Or sorrow waked the tear,
Rise to thy throne of changeless rest,
In yon celestial sphere!

Parodies

Twain's character of "Emmeline Grangerford", appearing in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was inspired by the genre, and in large measure by Moore's verse. Twain's was by no means the only parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 the genre inspired. Max Adeler
Charles Heber Clark
Charles Heber Clark , was an American novelist and humorist. Most of his work was written under the pseudonym Max Adeler. Earlier, he used the "John Quill" pseudonym...

 mocked the obituary poets in his 1874 Out of the Hurly Burly, and Eugene Field
Eugene Field
Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays.-Biography:...

 produced The Little Peach:
John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,—
Trouble the doctor could n't subdue.
— Too true!

Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,—
— Boo hoo!


The obituary poets were, in the popular stereotype, either women or clergymen. Obituary poetry may be the source of some of the murder ballad
Murder ballad
Murder ballads are a sub-genre of the traditional ballad form, the lyrics of which form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath...

s and other traditional narrative verse of the United States, and the sentimental tales told by the obituary poets showed their abiding vitality a hundred years later in the genre of teenage tragedy song
Teenage tragedy song
The "teenage tragedy song", also known as death rock, "tear jerker" or a "splatter platter", is a style of ballad that was most popular between the late 1950s and early 1960s...

s.
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