The Elegiac Tradition. When modern literary critics speak of "elegy" or "elegiac," they generally have in mind a type of poetry characterized by a reflective mood and, often, topics of sadness or mourning. This is quite a different notion from the ancient concept of elegy, which was, first and foremost, a purely metrical designation: elegy was poetry written in elegiac couplets, consisting of a line of hexameter verse (like the meter of Homeric or Vergilian epic) followed by a so-called pentameter line. In ancient Greece, as a matter of fact, elegy was used not only for laments, but also (among other things) for lampoons and other frivolous purposes, for love poems, and for drinking songs. One of the great early Roman poets who used the elegiac couplet for a variety of purposes was Catullus himself.

Roman Developments. Together with their almost entirely lost precursor Cornelius...