Why Grievous Valentine's Day is a Pseudo-elegiac couplet

The poem “Grievous Valentine’s Day” is described as a pseudo-elegiac couplet. Why is that? The last stanza of this poem is scanned in qualitative meter to find answers to the question as to why it is a fake elegiac couplet, and fake elegiac stanza even though it adheres to the concept of what an elegy should reflect.

What is an elegy? The elegy is a type of poem that shows lament, praise and consolation in a formal and sustained way over the death of a particular person. It should not be considered as a eulogy because a eulogy is prose written in praise of the character or achievements of a deceased person.

Here are some reasons why “Grievous Valentine’s Day” is a pseudo-elegiac couplet:

* The second verse of the poem is written in iambic pentameter instead of the compulsory iambic hexameter. This pattern prevails throughout the entire poem.

* The stanza is not made up of elegiac couplets. An elegiac couplet is a pair of sequential verses usually of equal length and rhythmic correspondence with end words that rhyme aabb. The first verse of the couplet is written in dactylic hexameter and second verse in iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme abab.

* The stanza cannot be called an elegiac stanza. An elegiac stanza, in poetry, is made up of a quatrain in iambic pentameter with alternate verses rhyming. The stanzas in this poem do not conform to this specified format.