1. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’
THOMAS GRAY
‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’

2. Literary Terms Allusion Stanza Alliteration Tone Rhyme Scheme Meter
Imagery
Setting
Theme
Gothic
Imitation
Pastoral Elegy

3. Thoughts: What makes a person Ordinary?
Why would someone wish to live in anonymity?
Are the lives of the ‘ordinary’ suitable subjects for serious poetry?

4. QUESTION #1 What TONE is established in the first stanza?
What DETAILS create the Tone?

5. ANSWER #1
Somber, Sad, Sober, Peaceful
Rhythm, images of Darkness

6. QUESTION #2 What is the predominant meter of the poem?
What is the Rhyme Scheme?

7. ANSWER #2
Iambic Pentameter
ABAB

8. QUESTION #3 Why might Gray include the IMAGES he does in lines 21-28?
What kinds of Images do these people portray?

9. ANSWER #3 Emphasize the contrast between the living and the dead.
Common people; farm families

10. QUESTION #4 Line 32 is one of the most oft-quoted lines in the Elegy.
“The short and simple annals of the poor.”
Do you agree that the stories of the poor are short and simple? Explain.

11. ANSWER #4 NO- Life is complex…
YES- Poor struggle only to survive day-to-day

12. QUESTION #5
What does Gray lament in lines 45-48?

13. ANSWER #5
Wasted talent of the poor

14. QUESTION #6
In lines 49-52,
To what does Gray attribute the lost ambitions of the previous stanza?

15. ANSWER #6 (Poverty) and Lack of Knowledge are
Reasons that people did not influence

16. QUESTION #7
The last stanza on p602 sums up one of the poet’s general themes.
What is that Theme?

17. ANSWER #7
Beauty in life is often obscured by its HARSHNESS

18. Why does the poet allude to Milton and Cromwell?
QUESTION #8
Note the historical allusion
in lines 57-60:
What is a ‘mute Milton’?? (p435)
Why does the poet allude to Milton and Cromwell?

19. ANSWER #8 Person unable to use language;
Those who died may have been able to achieve what Milton and Cromwell did.

20. QUESTION #9
What is the significance of the rhetorical question in lines 85-88?

21. ANSWER #9 Emphasizes that Love of Life And Fear of Life
are common to the rich and poor alike.

22. QUESTION #10
Whom does the poet or speaker address in the last stanza of p603?

23. ANSWER #10
Himself

24. QUESTION #11 Line 104 shows examples of Alliteration and Imitation.
What words in this line represent these Lit. Terms?

25. ANSWER #11
Brook, Babble

26. QUESTION #12
Whose epitaph concludes the poem?

27. ANSWER #12 The speaker’s, the poet’s--
the person who cared to think about those who rested in the cemetery where he himself is now laid.

28. THE CAPITALIZED WORDS Ambition Grandeur Memory Honor Flattery Death
Knowledge
Penury
Luxury
Pride
Forgetfulness
Nature
Contemplation
Fortune
Fame
Melancholy
Misery
Hope