Thomas Hardy employed many forms of poetry during his writing career, and the elegy was one that he strove to perfect and connect with. Hardy admired other elegists and even followed the form of Greek and Latin elegy in his writing.
By definition an elegy is, "A sustained and formal poem in which the poet meditates on death or another solemn theme. The meditation is often occasioned by the death of a particular person, but it may be a generalized observation of a solemn mood" ( Holman & Harmos Handbook of Literature). The Greek word "elegy" refers primarily to the form of the poem, which was originally an iambic couplet. In both Greek and Britich literature, there was a rise in elegiac composition leading up to the Victorian Era.
In the 17th and 18th century there was an abundance of elegiac composition, since the form satisfied the Christian urge for immortality and also the paganized Renaissance urge for earthly fame. During the rise of English romanticism, the elegy was not only highly emotional, but also a poetic form which was able to cross the line between the classes.
When Thomas Hardy started writing elegies, he followed the Greek and Latin modes, focusing on themes of the ironic treatment of Man and the recognition of identity. Hardy admired other elegists-- such as Gray and his famous "Elegies Written in a Country Churchyard"-- and the elegies of Wordsworth. In some of Hardy's early poetry the influence of Wordsworth can be seen through the presence of dream figures and love apparitions.
At the end of the 19th century, Hardy published Poems of the Past and Present (August, 1901) a few months after the death of Queen Victoria, containing elegies and war sonnets written in 1899 on the occasion of the Boer War. In 1909 Hardy published Time's Laughingstock ; along with love lyrics and country songs there was a series of elegiac ballads dealing with the topics of personal destiny in conjunction with nature, time, and God. After this collection, Hardy worked on The Dynasts . Four years after Part III of The Dynasts was published, Emma Lavinia Hardy died unexpectedly on Novemeber 27, 1912. The memorial series for Emma entitled Poems 1912-1913 were, "a response to death, exploring the process of bereavement through a psychological account of different stages, and raising larger and philosophical questions" (Edmond, 152).
Reading the memorial series, the reader can follow Hardy's stages of grief and also take part in how Hardy, "Illustrates elegiac poetry at its finest" (Draper, 163).
Potts, Abbie Findlay. The Elegiac Mode Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1967.