Definition:
A formal expression of praise for someone who has recently died. A form of epideictic rhetoric. Adjective: eulogistic. See also: encomium.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "praise"Examples:
- "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
"Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
"As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'"
(Ted Kennedy, service for Robert Kennedy, June 8, 1968) - "Satire lies about literary men while they live; eulogy lies about them when they die."
(Voltaire, Lettre a Bordes) - "Graham Chapman, co-author of the Parrot Sketch, is no more.
"He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun.
"Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.
"And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste."
(John Cleese, Dec. 6, 1989)
Pronunciation: YOO-le-jee
