Home › Glossary › Letter F

funerary verse

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetry written to lament, honor, or memorialize the deceased, often employing elegiac tone, structure, or conventions.

Detailed Definition
Funerary verse encompasses poems composed for or about death rituals, burial, or mourning, ranging from epitaphs to full elegies; it often employs solemn diction, consolatory themes, and symbolic imagery (wilted flowers, setting suns) to mediate grief and affirm memory, bridging personal loss with communal rites.
Example
Example in poetry:
Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”; W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks…”); A gravestone epitaph in verse: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”; A modern poem: “We buried you in rain. The earth drank your name.”
Additional Notes
Funerary verse mourns the dead, ranging from epitaphs to elegies; it often seeks consolation or legacy—balance personal grief with universal resonance.
Also Known As
Mourning verse Grave poetry Death elegy Sepulchral lyric burial poetry Mortuary poetry commemorative poem
Skip to main content