Gray, Thomas – Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray was born in London in 1716; his mother was obliged to separate from her husband, because he was a man of violent character. The boys was however sent to Eton College, where he formed a friend friendship with Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister, and afterwards to Cambridge. From 1739 to 1741, he accompanied his fried Walpole on a journey in France and Italy and then returned to Cambridge, where he resided during the remainder of his life.

Gray was of a studious nature; hi was versed in mediaeval romance literature as well as in Scandinavian poetry; he took considerable interest in folklore, in classical antiquities, in natural history, in music; Temple said of him that “he was perhaps the most learned man in Europe”. He made several journeys in Scotland, Wales and the Lake District, recording the impressions in letters which are models of easy, smooth-running English prose and bear witness to a change of poetical mood in relation to natural scenery. He had loved and described nature in her gentlest moods. Gray waxes enthusiastic at the sight of precipices and barren crags. He died in 1771. His poetical achievement is small, but of rare excellence and – had he written no other poem, the Elegy written in a Country Churchyard would suffice to endear his name to the heart of Englishmen.

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

The poem begins in a cemetery with an orator who describes his surroundings in startling detail. The speaker emphasizes auditory and visual sensations by examining the area in relation to himself:
As the poem continues, the speaker begins to abandon the countryside and focuses on the very close environment. His descriptions shift from sensations to his own thoughts as he begins to point out what is not present in the scene; he contrasts an obscure country life with a life one remembers. This contemplation provokes the speaker's reflections on the natural process of waste and unrealized potential.
The poet’s focuses on the inequalities that derive from death, obscuring the individual, as he begins to resign himself to his own inevitable fate. At the end of the poem, the speaker begins to deal with death in a direct way while discussing how humans desire to be remembered. As the poem progresses, the poem changes and the first speaker is replaced by a second that describes the death of the first.
The poem ends with a description of the poet's tomb, on which the speaker meditates, as well as a description of the end of the poet's life:
An epitaph is included after the conclusion of the poem. The epitaph reveals that the poet whose grave is the centre of the poem was unknown and obscure. Circumstances did not give the poet the possibility of becoming something greater, and he was separated from the others because he was unable to join in with their life's affairs.