In Byzantine literature, a monody (, monodia) was a funerary oration, usually addressed to the deceased, praising their virtues and lamenting their death.
Originally, the term monody referred to an ode sung by a single performer, rather than by a chorus, either as part of a tragedy or on its own, as at a symposium. It could be sapphic or alcaic and could cover any topic but gradually became associated with lamentation and the term became synonymous with dirge. Eventually, it ceased to imply poetry and indicated only a ritual lament in rhetorical style. The general term for a ritual lament in Greek was (threnos). The term threnody () was not used in Byzantine literature, other than the singular case of Michael Choniates' monody on Theophylaktos Belissariotes, where it may have been added by a scribe.
The monody was only one of three types of funeral oration distinguished in Byzantine rhetoric, alongside the commemorative and consolatory. In general, since monodies were expected also to commemorate (so as to provide solid reasons for mourning the deceased), the distinction between monodies and commemorative orations is blurry. Rhetoricians considered monodies appropriate only for young persons, but this was not followed in practice. They were also supposed to be short, but this too was often ignored.
Pseudo-Menander in the treatise On Epideictic Speeches from the late 3rd century defines the monody thus:
Modern English poets have sometimes employed the term for laments: John Milton for his "Lycidas", Matthew Arnold for his "Thyrsis", Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of Chatterton" and Herman Melville's "Monody".
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