Descent and Ascent in Hayden s Symbolic Elegy “The Diver”

Mourning and suffering are central topics within Robert Hayden‟s oeuvre. He has introduced into the canon of elegy a special kind of mourning – intractable work of mourning. Hayden coloures his poetics of loss with the special working and dilemmas of his black consciousness. Therefore, this paper gives an interpretive analysis of one of his most important elegies “The Diver,” which would serve as a methodological paradigm for the literary analysis of Hayden‟s elegies and elegiac texts in general.