Elegy Written in a

Country Churchyard
By
Thomas Gray

Presenter
Md. Nabinur Rahman
Lecturer, IML,DU
Pre-romanticism:
• In the latter half of the 18th century, a new literary movement arose in Europe, called the Romantic Revival.
• It was marked by-
• a strong protest against the bondage of
Classicism
• a recognition of passion and emotion
• a renewed interest in medieval literature.
• In England, this movement showed itself in the trend of pre-Romanticism in poetry, which was ushered in by
poetry, represented by Blake and
Burns.
Thomas Gray
(December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771) an English poet, classical scholar and professor
at Cambridge University.
• He was born in Cornhill, London, educated at Eton College. He recalled his schooldays as a time of great
happiness, as is evident in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
• He made three close friends at Eton: Horace Walpole, son of Prime Minister
Robert Walpole, Thomas Ashton, and Richard West. The four of them prided
themselves on their sense of style, their sense of humour, and their appreciation of beauty.
 In 1734, Gray went to Cambridge. At first he stayed in Pembroke College. He began seriously writing poems in
1742, mainly after his close friend Richard West died.
• He moved to Cambridge and began a self imposed programme of literary study, becoming one of the most
learned men of his time.
 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
1. It is believed that Gray wrote his masterpiece, the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, in the graveyard of
the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire in 1750.
2. The poem was a literary sensation when published by Robert Dodsley in February 1751 and has made a
lasting contribution to English literature.
3. Its reflective, calm and stoic tone was greatly admired, and it was pirated, imitated, quoted and translated
into Latin and Greek.

Setting: A countryside, end of a day, at the graveyard. *Poetic Form: -The poem is an Elegy ,but has the structure
Ode. -This elegy is Lyric rather than Narrative. -It has a pastoral form when he mentions "shepherds, farmers".
-The poem is 32 stanza every stanza has 4 lines(quatrain) it is often referred as a heroic quatrain. -The rhyme
scheme is regular {abab – cdcd – efef -...etc.} Iambic pentameter. -The Elegy in English is Lyrical lamentation of
the death of a close friend or relative. -Elegy is known in Greek and Latin poetry, it treats with variety of topics.
The Occasion: The poem is written in the death of Richard West Gray's best friend he laments his death as he has
been killed. The poem is translated into Latin and Greek, it is one of the most popular and most frequently quoted
poems in the English language. *The Structure: First the poem is divided into two parts: the first part is
representing by the poet himself, about death. The second part is the search of yourself. The structure is linked
between Neo-classical and Pre-Romantic age.
 An elegy is a poem that mourns the death of a person or laments something lost; a meditation on the
nature of death
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The Setting-The poem takes place at dusk within a country churchyard/cemetery. This adds to the symbolic
nature of the poem: the setting of the sun in one’s own life. The Owl depicts those who are intruded upon by
daily life or the outside world. Here she hears the beetle’s “droning flight” and the cowbells both of which
are reminders of the hurried quality of modern life. The cemetery is described as a “narrow cell” that houses
the bodies of those who once lived in this tiny “hamlet”/bucolic existence.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The Imagined Life of Villagers

Elements of a typical day within this hamlet consisted of the following: waking to the sound of the birds and
the rooster crowing, the mother tending the hearth fire and cleaning the house, while the father worked to
earn a living only to be welcomed home by his children at the close of day. It is a picture of domestic bliss
and solitude: a picture that is no more.
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

A Common End for All- This poem is being written

about the anonymous poor who lives in this rural
existence.The poet stresses that all mankind is united
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Desire of the Lowliest to Be Remembered
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, The country poor wish and deserve to be
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. remembered. Gray emphasizes that they teach a
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast moral lesson to the living on how to die with dignity.
The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Everyone, regardless of social standing or position,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, expect to be remembered and mourned by their
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. loved ones. The tone is mournful/sad/nostalgic
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, because each death is important to the loved one’s
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, family. Each life matters; all humanity should grieve
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, for those lost to death.
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, Speaker Anticipates His Own Death
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, The poem is commemorating the “unhonored dead”
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, who unwittingly participate in the “artless tale” of life
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? and death. The “lines” of this poem reverence the
On some fond breast the parting soul relies, lives of so many that time has passed into anonymity.
Some pious drops the closing eye requires; In stanza 25, a new speaker is employed to speak
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, about the young poet in the remaining 8 stanzas. This
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. speaker is unidentified to highlight the obscurity of
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, the dead. As he walks among the cemetery, the young
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; poet recites his verse, rests beside the river, and
If chance, by lonely contemplation led, exhibits a lonely and troubled nature. Until one
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, -- morning, he too passes into the arms of death.
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
 The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul
sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely
send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread
abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God

 The Epitaph The epitaph at the end of this work is created for Thomas Gray by Thomas Gray. He remarks
upon his merits and frailties as “they alike” serve to represent the story of his life. The inspiration for this
work is linked to Gray’s greatest tragedy: the death of his best friend, Richard West, at the age of 24 from TB
 Analysis
• The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a
knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in
flight, the tinkling of sheep-bells, and the owl's
hooting (stanzas 1-3) mourn the passing of a day,
described metaphorically as if it were a person, and
then suitably the narrator's eye shifts to a human
graveyard.
• From creatures that wind, plod, wheel, and wander,
he looks on still, silent "mould'ring" heaps, and on
turf under a moonlit tower where "The rude
forefathers" "sleep" in a "lowly bed." Gray makes his
sunset a truly human death knell. No morning bird-
song, evening family life, or farming duties (stanzas
5-7) will wake, welcome, or occupy them.
They have fallen literally under the sickle, the
ploughshare, and the axe that they once wielded.
They once tilled glebe land, fields owned by the
church, but now lie under another church property,
the parish graveyard.
• This scene remains in memory as the narrator
contrasts it with allegorical figures who represent
general traits of eighteenth-century humanity:
Ambition (29), Grandeur (31), Memory (38),
Honour (43), Flattery and Death (44),
Knowledge (49), Penury (51), Luxury and Pride
 • First, the goals of the great, which include
aristocratic lineage, beauty, power, wealth, and
glory, share the same end as the "rude forefathers,"
the grave. Human achievements diminish from the
viewpoint of the eternal.
The monuments that Memory erects for them
("storied urn or animated bust"), the church anthems
sung at their funeral, and the praise of Honour or
Flattery before or after death also cannot ameliorate
that fate. The narrator reduces the important, living
and deceased, to the level of the village dead.
• Secondly, he asks pointedly why, were
circumstances different, were they to have been
educated with Knowledge's "roll" and released from
"Chill Penury,“ would they not have achieved as
much in poetry and
politics as did figures like Hampden, Milton, and
Cromwell?
• Thirdly, the narrator suggests that his
unimportant, out-of-power country dead lived
morally better lives by being untempted to
commit murder or act cruelly.
• Last, "uncouth rhymes," "shapeless sculpture,“ and
"many a holy text" that characterize their
"frail" cemetery memorials, and even those
  Little wonder that the poem ends with the swain's
• In the next three stanzas, the narrator -- the invitation to the "kindred spirit" to read the text of
"me" who with darkness takes over the world at the narrator's own epitaph. The narrator ghost gave
sunset (4) -- finally reveals why he is in the "all he had, a tear," and did get the only good he
cemetery, telling the "artless tale" of the wished for, "a friend." He affirms the value of
"unhonour'd Dead" (93). He is one of them. friendship above all other goods in life. His wish is
• Like the "rude Forefathers" among whom he is granted by the kindred spirit who seeks out his lost
found, the narrator ghost is "to Fortune and to Fame companion
unknown" (118). Like anyone who "This pleasing
anxious being e'er resigned," he – in this narrative
itself -- casts "one longing, ling'ring look behind" to
life (86-88).
• As he says, "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of
Nature cries" (91). He tells us the literal truth in
saying, "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted
fires"(92). These fires appear in his ashes, which
speak this elegy.
• As Nature's voice from the dead, the "living lyre,"
he addresses himself in the past tense as having
passed on, as of course he did. Should some
"kindred spirit" ask about his "fate," that of the one
who describes the dead "in these lines," an old
"swain" (shepherd) might describe his last days. If
so, he would have seen, with "another“ person, the
narrator's bier carried towards the church and his
 The Form 
• Gray adopts and refines a regular poetics typical of his -He also links sequences of these regular blocks.
period. His iambic pentameter quatrains are self- Alliteration, unobtrusively, ties successive lines
contained and end-stopped. They do not enjamb with together: for example, "herd wind" and "homeward" (2-
the next stanza but close with terminal punctuation, 3), "droning flight" and "distant folds" (7-8), and
except for two passionate sequences. Stanzas 16-18 "mantl'd tow'r" and "moping owl" (9-10). Gray rhymes
express the narrator’s crescendo of anger at the internally in "slowly o'er the lea" (2) or "And all the
empowered proud whose virtues go hand-in-hand with air ... / Save where" (6-7), or he exploits an
crimes: slaughter, mercilessness, and lying. Stanzas 24- inconspicuous initial assonance or consonance in
25 introduce the dead youth who, narrates the poem. "Beneath ... / Where heaves" (12-14), and "The cock's
Quatrains also regularly consist of endstopped lines, shrill ... / No more shall" (19-20). Parallel syntactic
equally self-contained and even interchangeable. construction across line and stanza boundaries links
sequences of such larger units. For example, twinned
 clauses appear with "Save" (7, 9), "How" (27-28),
• For example, in the first stanza, lines 1-3 could be in "Can" (41, 43), "Full many a" (53, 55), "forbade"
any order, and lines 2 and 4 could change places. Gray (65,67), and "For who" and "For thee" (85, 93), among
builds his lines, internally, of units just as regular. Often others.
lines are miniature clauses with balanced subject and
predicate, such as "The curfew" (subject) and "tolls the
knell of parting day" (predicate; 1), or "No children"
(subject) and "run to lisp their sire's return"
(predicate; 23). Within both subject and
predicate units, Gray inserts adjective-noun
pairs like "parting day," "lowing herd," "weary
way," "glimm'ring landscape," "solemn stillness,“
"droning flight," "drowsy tinklings," and "distant fold"
(1-8). By assembling larger blocks from these smaller
ones, Gray builds symmetry at all levels.
 
• Semantically, Gray's "Elegy" reads like a collage • "Elegy" streams with memories of the countryside
of remembered experiences. Some are realized in where the youth walked.
both image and sound. "The swallow twitt'ring

from the straw-built shed" (18) vividly and sharply
conveys one instant in the awakening process on a • The firm, mirrored linguistic structures with
farm. At other times, the five senses blur, as in "the which he conveys those recalled moments belong
madding crowd's ignoble strife" (73), or "This to someone well educated in Latin, "Fair Science,"
pleasing anxious being"(86), but these remain and well-read in English
snapshots, though of feelings, not images. They poetry. Gray did not just give his readers succinct
flow from a lived life remembering its keenest aphorisms about what Isaac Watt would term, "Man
moments in tranquillity. Frail, God Eternal," but recreated a lost human
being.


• These formal elements in Gray's poetics
beautifully strengthen the poem's content. • In reading "Elegy," we recreate a person, only to
• "Elegy" gives us a ghost's perspective on his life, find out that he died, too young, too kind, and too
and ours. The old swain describes him as a true to a melancholy so many share.
melancholic loner who loved walking by hill,
heath, trees, and stream.

• The epitaph also reveals that he was well
educated, a youth who died unknown. These are the
very qualities we might predict in the writer, from
the style of his verse.