Elegy+Written+in+a+Country+Churchyard+Sheet

Sydney Morton

Thomas Gray
 * Author:**

Elegy- A reflective poem, usually about death
 * Genre:**

Distinguishable Poetic Devices/Style: Inversion- verb proceeds the subject example: "Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,"

Personification- to give human qualities to an inanimate object example: "Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,"

Allusion- a reference to something that the reader is expected to have prior knowledge of example: "Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne," - Gray is referring to the Medieval way to the throne.

The Farmer- A simple man who wonders how he will be remembered, is imagining the lives of the dead which surround him in the graveyard, and flirts with the idea of his own funeral.
 * Characters/Relationships:**

The Farmer is taking is cattle home one night and all is quiet. He hears the owl's coo giving hint to the quickly falling night. The Farmer comes to a graveyard and strolls through it, admiring every tombstone and acknowledging the possible humble lives they lived in the countryside. He continues to play with the idea of what they were like, if they were good or bad, happy or sad? Whether they had children and if they accomplished great things. The Farmer then moves forward and questions death itself. Stating that nobody wants do die but everyone wants to be remembered. He also questions what his family, friends, and neighbours will say at his funeral based on the different visions people have seen of him.
 * Setting/Plot:**

-Repetition of Nature references (health, growth, life.) -Darkness and temperature ( death)
 * Thematic Observations/Underline or Target Key Words:**

"Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined: Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,"
 * Quotable- Memorizable "Qts"/ Analysis:**

Gray is stating that people could have been good but they could have also been bad. Some may have not had an opportunity to be either. Death may have kept them from reaching their full potential such as the Medieval way to the throne.