An original and perceptive study, this work charts the history of the elegy from the mid-sixteenth century when it was exclusively the province of professional writers, to the 1630s, by which time the fashion for vernacular elegy had spread throughout the literate classes. Kay gives full treatment to the works of major elegists--particularly Spenser, Sidney, Donne, and Milton--in relation to the broad range of elegies generated in response to the deaths of Sidney (1586), Queen Elizabeth (1603), and Prince Henry (1612). The work also includes a number of elegies surviving in manuscript form.