Thomas Gray’s “Elegy
Written in a Country
Churchyard”
Restoration Test
• 55 Questions-Multiple choice
• Author Background (Pope, Swift, Gray)
*10 questions
• Historical Background *7 questions
• Modest Proposal *9 questions
• Essay on Man *14 questions
• Elegy *7 questions
• 2 Cold reads *8 Questions
Background p. 690
• An elegy is a poem that mourns the death of a
person or laments something lost; a meditation
on the nature of death
• Gray reluctantly published the poem
anonymously after hearing of an uncouth
publisher who threatened to publish his work.
• Gray was extremely private with his writings—
publishing was a painful experience followed
by unwanted fame.
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 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.
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 in
death (see line 36). This is the thematic issue
within the work: We all share a common end—
the grave.
• Just as the soul cannot return to the body, the
“mansion” cannot call the “fleeting breath”
back home. Death is final.
Man’s Unused Potential
• Gray states that talent/virtue is wasted if not seen by
the public. He implies that the unknown poor may
have been the next revolutionary thinkers (Milton &
Cromwell) but due to the circumstances of birth they
are forced to remain unfulfilled.
• The Restoration’s class/social system underscored
the unused potential of this time. The haves were
allowed to pursue their dreams of education while
the have-nots were forced to speculate on how their
lives could/should have been.
Desire of the Lowliest to Be
Remembered
• The country poor wish and deserve to be
remembered. Gray emphasizes that they teach
a moral lesson to the living on how to die with
dignity.
• Everyone, regardless of social standing or
position, expect to be remembered and
mourned by their loved ones.
• The tone is mournful/sad/nostalgic because
each death is important to the loved one’s
family. Each life matters; all humanity should
grieve for those lost to death.
Speaker Anticipates His Own Death
• The poem is commemorating the “unhonored dead”
who unwittingly participate in the “artless tale” of life
and death. The “lines” of this poem reverence the
lives of so many that time has passed into anonymity.
• In stanza 25, a new speaker is employed to speak
about the young poet in the remaining 8 stanzas. This
speaker is unidentified to highlight the obscurity of
the dead.
• As he walks among the cemetery, the young poet
recites his verse, rests beside the river, and exhibits a
lonely and troubled nature. Until one morning, he too
passes into the arms of death.
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
Swift’s Modest Proposal
• Satire background and author notes p.620
Use of Persuasive Appeals &
Literary Devices
•
Swift’s plan will eliminate abortion and infanticide
(ethical/emotional)
•
Children are an easily renewable food source (logical)
•
Children are priced to sell (understatement)
•
The proposal is called “modest” but is instead
outrageous (verbal irony)
•
The very idea of selling a child for food is a reversal of
all that we value (situational irony)
•
Swift mimics the language of business (parody)
KEY IDEA: Swift claims that society as a whole, including
the Protestants, the landlords, the tavern owners and
wine merchants, and the poor themselves will benefit.
In truth, the poor would suffer horrendously.
Alexander Pope
• “Essay on Man”
• Author background p. 610
Essay on Man
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err,
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Heroic Couplets
• A heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming lines that
express a memorable thought.
• Many of the couplets express a complete thought in
a complete sentence, thus making the couplet
closed.
“Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism
Antithesis
• In using the heroic couplet, Pope often expressed
himself in antithesis.
• Antithesis: a contrast of ideas expressed in a
grammatically balanced statement.
• By emphasizing more elements of similarity and
difference, antithesis helps to make a statement more
forceful and more memorable.
• “Too black for heaven, yet too white for Hell.”
Footnotes
• 1. scan: pry into, speculate about
• 3. isthmus: a narrow strip of land connecting two
larger land areas usually with water on either side
• 3. middle state: that is, having the rational intellect
of angels and the physical bodies of beasts
• 5. Skeptic: the ancient skeptics doubted that humans
can gain accurate knowledge of anything. They
emphasized the limitations of human knowledge.
• 6. Stoic’s pride: The ancient Stoic’s ideal was a calm
acceptance of life and an indifference to pain and
pleasure. Stoics are called proud because they
refused to recognize human limitations.
• 14. Still: always; continually. disabused: undeceived
Pope’s Essay on Man
Essay on Man is a long philosophical poem
written in heroic couplets and full of antithesis.
Pope articulates a paradoxical view of humanity.
He is concerned with “man,” as in the human
race, and the entire universe.
“Learning kills the interest in the act,
Since then the notion becomes fact.”
Mr. Henry’s heroic couplet