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Monody

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

A lyrical lament for the dead spoken by a solitary voice, often in elegiac meter, expressing personal grief and loss.

Detailed Definition
Monody is a lyric poem in which a single speaker laments a personal loss or expresses solitary emotion, often in elegiac tone; originating in Greek choral odes sung by one voice, it evolved into Renaissance and Romantic soliloquies (Milton’s “Lycidas,” Shelley’s “Adonais”), where the monodist’s grief becomes universal through rhetorical intensity, musicality, and meditative depth.
Example
Example in poetry:
Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.” as a Victorian monody for Arthur Hallam; Shelley’s “Adonais” mourning Keats in solo lament; Catullus 101’s Latin elegy for his brother; modern monody in Louise Glück’s “The Wild Iris” speaking as a single floral voice
Additional Notes
Monody: A solo lyrical poem lamenting a death, often with musical accompaniment; in classical terms, a song performed by one voice; later used for any mournful solo lyric.
Also Known As
Solo lament Single-voice dirge Solitary mourning One-singer elegy Funeral ode
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