THROUGHOUT ALL OF recorded history, people of every race and culture have gathered together to honor the dead with words of praise, love, and remembrance. Whether their words are delivered at the funeral service itself, or years later at a public memorial, these writings and speeches address the loss of an entire community by remembering the life of the deceased, and speaking to their impact on friends, family, and the world in which they lived.
While ceremonies honoring the dead go back to humanity’s earliest days, the modern concept of the eulogy traces its history back to the funeral orations (epitaphios logos) of ancient Greece, in which a prominent orator would praise a deceased citizen’s virtues at a public burial ceremony. While the majority of the eulogies contained in this anthology were delivered during the last 200 years, Pericles’ classic Funeral Oration is included to provide an example of these roots in antiquity.
After Pericles, the earliest eulogies contained in this collection are those given for the nation’s founding fathers. These include Henry Lee’s eulogy of George Washington, Harrison Otis’s eulogy of Alexander Hamilton, and Daniel Webster’s incredible eulogy of both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, which he delivered in Boston one month after they both died on the Fourth of July, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Some of the greatest eulogies contained in this volume are the ones in which a great artist or writer is honored by one of his or her contemporaries. Most notable among these are William Makepeace Thackeray’s eulogy of Charlotte Brontë, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s eulogy of Henry David Thoreau, Robert Ingersoll’s eulogy of Walt Whitman, and Stephen Spender’s remarks in honor of W. H. Auden, delivered in 1974, when Auden’s name was added to Westminster Abbey’s illustrious Poets’ Corner.
On the other side of the coin, there is something singularly inspirational about a eulogy delivered not for a speaker’s contemporary or friend, but for one of their personal heroes. In Bob Costas’s eulogy of Mickey Mantle, the famed sportscaster reflects the impact that the legendary ballplayer had on a nation of fans, and on his own childhood love for baseball. Similarly, Victor Hugo eulogizes Voltaire on the one-hundredth anniversary of Voltaire’s death, expounding on the depth and breadth of his influence on a century of writers who had never ceased reading and idolizing his work.
Perhaps the most profound eulogies are those delivered in honor of history’s great humanitarians. In these, we find not only the remembrance of an individual’s life, but examples of how one life can do so much to transform and shape the world for the better. Some of these include Abraham Lincoln’s eulogy by Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony’s eulogy by Anna Howard Shaw, Martin Luther King Jr.’s eulogy by Benjamin Mays, Coretta Scott King’s eulogy by Maya Angelou, and Nelson Mandela’s eulogy by President Barack Obama.
While it is certainly inspiring to read the eulogies of great historic figures, delivered by impassioned orators, some of the most touching eulogies are those that spring from a deep personal relationship between the speaker and the deceased. For example, Albert Einstein’s eulogy is delivered by his great friend and long-time colleague Ernst Straus; Emily Dickinson is remembered by her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson; T. S. Eliot is eulogized by his dear friend Sir Rupert Hart-Davis; and at the end of one of literature’s most famous relationships, Henry Miller delivered the eulogy for Anaïs Nin.
While reflecting on the life of Nelson Mandela in the final speech of this anthology, President Barack Obama confessed, “It is hard to eulogize any man—to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person—their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul.” If anything, this is an understatement, as no one speech or essay can hope to encapsulate an entire life and its impact on the world and the people it touched. Nonetheless, it is the aim of this anthology to offer some of the greatest attempts at this herculean task, and in doing so to provide a unique viewpoint on some of history’s most prominent figures through the remembrances of those who honored their lives.
—JAMES DALEY