Eulogy
From Free net encyclopedia
- See Eulogy (movie) for the 2004 film.
A eulogy is a funeral oration given in tribute to a person or people who have recently died. It can also praise a living person or people who are still alive, which normally takes place on special occasions like birthdays etc.
Eulogies should not be confused with elegies, which are poems written in tribute to the dead; nor with obituaries, which are published biographies recounting the lives of those who have recently died; nor with obsequies, which refer generally to the rituals surrounding funerals.
Some historically notable eulogies include:
- Eulogy for St Basil of Cæsarea, by St Gregory of Nyssa
- Fictional eulogy for Julius Cæsar by Mark Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar
- Jacques-Benigne Bossuet's eulogy for Henrietta-Maria Stuart
- Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
- Abraham Lincoln's eulogy for Henry Clay
- Ralph Waldo Emerson's eulogy for Henry David Thoreau
- Patrick Pearse's eulogy for Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa
- Martin Luther King, Jr.'s eulogy for the martyred children of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
- Ossie Davis's eulogy for Malcolm X
- The Earl Spencer's eulogy for Diana, Princess of Wales
- John Cleese's eulogy for fellow Monty Python member Graham Chapman.
The song "Eulogy" by Tool refers obliquely to the memory of someone who has died ("We'll miss him").
The book 'Farewell, Godspeed: The Greatest Eulogies of Our Time' features a collection of well known eulogies that have been delivered for American icons, from Martin Luther King to Bette Davis, Helen Keller to Lucille Ball.