Eulogy

Eulogy

A eulogy is a funeral oration given in tribute to a person or people who have recently died.

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

Martin Luther King, Jr's eulogy for the martyred children of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

Ossie Davis's eulogy for Malcolm X

The Earl Spencer's eulogy for Diana, Princess of Wales