Perfectly doable, although I'd recommend to combine the two. Elder has an attack by which he temporarily summons thorns from the ground to attack you when nearby. These are the most dangerous for full-melee approach. Thus, you can time your dodges/blocks against his stomps attacking in between, but if you keep doing so in presense of the thorns, you can easily get hit by either and take a lot of damage.

Therefor you can switch between using the bow from cover and charging for melee attacks every time the thorns are summoned into your current position. This is the fastest way to defeat the Elder.