I need essay help with outlining the features of the elegy form using examples from "Break, Break, Break" by Tennyson and "Mid-Term Break" by Heaney.

Definitions of elegy poems, or elegiac poetry, are quite
consistent. The elegy derives from the original Greek and Roman laments or "complaints"
written in alternating pentameter (i.e., five metric feet) and hexameter (i.e., six
metric feet) lines. The subject matter of later elegies may be the same as that of the
Greco-Roman elegies: "complaints about love, sustained formal lamentations, or somber
meditations" ( href="http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_e.html">Wheeler). The most usual
subject is a "formal lament for someone's death" ( href="http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/elegy.html">Lynch).

According
to Wheeler, the standard characteristics of the elegy of mournful lament are several.
(1) Elegies have a first person poetic speaker (2) who invokes a Greek or Roman Muse
while it (3) employs classical mythological allusions, as Milton does in Lycidas: "That
from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring." The poetic speaker (4) questions fate and
justice in the face of death and, if a Christian elegy, questions Providence. The
speaker also (5) digresses to discussing his/er own feelings or life. The (6) digression
provides the opportunity for the speaker's thoughts to clear and attain an enlightened
understanding that rises above lament. (7) There is no story plot, and (8) the
conclusion of the poem offers the insight of epiphany and
consolation.

"Mid-Term Break" by Heaney is a mournful
lament that breaks with the above characteristics in that there is no invocation to a
Muse nor are there classical mythological allusions. Two allusions in the first stanza
combine a college schedule with the death knell of church bells at a funeral: "Counting
bells knelling classes to a close."

"Break, Break, Break"
by Tennyson is likewise a mournful lament that breaks with the expected characteristics
of an elegy. The invocation is not an appeal to an Muse but an apostrophe to the sea: "O
Sea!" The allusions Tennyson employs are nautical ones: "the fisherman's boy"; "the
sailor lad"; "he sings in his boat on the bay."

Both
elegies are told in first person, but "Mid-Term" has a story plot with a surprise
ending. At first we don't know who is being lamented. We only
know:

In the
porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his
stride--

After a the
speaker's prolonged journey from the porch through the kitchen to "the room," we
discover the lament is for the speaker's 4-year-old brother who was killed by a
car:

No gaudy
scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every
year.

From the last two
lines, it is clear that Heaney's lament, though it might be said to have a brief
digression to the speaker’s personal experience (stanzas 3-4), does not end in higher
understanding and consolation--unless the absence of scars and marks can be seen as
consolation.

"Break" has a story plot as well, albeit a
short one, though it has nothing that might be seen as a personal digression. The
speaker wishes his "tongue could utter / The thoughts that arise" in him. After watching
the sights of the sea, he longs "for the touch of a vanished hand / And the sound of a
voice that is still." The story ends with his repeated cry of "Break, break, break" and
his lamentation that "the tender grace ... / Will never come back" to him. The speaker
may be said to have had an epiphany of enlightened thought in his musings about the sea
and the "stately ships" that go on their way to "their haven under the hill," but there
is certainly no consolation for him at the end of his lament: "Will never come back to
me."