Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1751

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is written in four-line stanzas, or quatrains. Each quatrain follows the rhyme scheme abab. The meter of each line is iambic pentameter, meaning five iambs (an iamb is a two-syllable foot where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable) per line. Since Gray used it in this canonical and influential elegy, this form (iambic pentameter quatrains that rhyme abab) has come to be known as the “elegiac quatrain” or “elegiac stanza.”

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics points out that Gray’s form is “identical” to the first three quatrains of an English sonnet (“Elegiac Stanza.” Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, edited by Alex Preminger, Enlarged ed., Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 215). It is only using this form to explore elegiac topics that makes it an “elegiac quatrain.” Later poets will exploit this overlap between the elegiac stanza and the sonnet form to great effect. After rereading Gray’s poem many times, WWI soldier-poet Wilfred Owen wrote “Dulce et Decorum Est”—a poem that is both an elegy and a double sonnet and employs the elegiac quatrain.

Elegy

Elegy is a “shaping form” (“The Elegy.” The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, 2000, pp. 167-206). That means there isn’t one set meter or rhyme pattern associated with elegy: Elegies have been written in blank verse, in elegiac stanzas, in sonnet form, and many other forms. But just because there isn’t one set meter or rhyme scheme associated with elegy, that doesn’t mean there aren’t formal expectations and constraints that come with calling a poem an “elegy,” as Gray does.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, an “elegy” is “[a]n elaborately formal *lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure, or reflecting seriously on a solemn subject” (“Elegy.” The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, edited by Chris Baldick, 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 112-113). Gray’s elegy is, at once, a lament and a serious reflection on a solemn subject (as discussed throughout the “Poem Analysis” section above).

Prior to Gray’s poem, elegies weren’t inevitably “elaborately formal” and “lyric.” Milton’s “Lycidas,” for example, is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, or black verse. Since there’s no rhyme scheme, this does not necessarily qualify as “elaborately formal.” The fact that an elegy is an “elaborately formal” and “lyric” poem has something to do with Gray. Gray’s formal innovation of using the “elegiac stanza” (discussed above) is relatively new in 1751 (when Gray first published this poem), but it has been imitated many times since. During the Romantic period, Shelley uses an even more elaborate rhyme scheme to elegize Keats. During WWI, Owen uses Gray’s “elegiac stanza” to write several elegies for soldiers. Both Shelley and Owen were influenced by Gray, and took inspiration from his elegy, which, because of its consistent rhyme scheme, was more elaborately formal than previous elegies. Gray deserves a lot of credit for the fact that the elegy is largely considered an “elaborately formal” and “lyric” poem.

Personification

Personification is when a poet refers to an inanimate object as if it were a person or has human qualities. When Gray writes, “Let not Ambition mock their useful toil” (Line 29), for example, that’s personification. Only people can mock and Ambition is a thing—not a person—but Gray is pretending Ambition is capable of mockery. That’s personification. Though much 18th century poetry made overt use of personification, Gray’s use is more understated.

The personification in Gray’s poem is concentrated in stanzas 8-19. As George Sherburn puts it, these are “eleven quatrains […] in reproach of Ambition, Grandeur, Pride, et al., for failure to realize the high merit of humility” (Sherburn, George. Introduction. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15409/15409-h/15409-h.htm#INTRODUCTION). Gray is addressing readers, saying, “Hey! Don’t make fun of the people in these graves.” But that’s not the gentlest move, so he instead displaces the critique onto the inanimate “Ambition” (Line 29) and “Grandeur” (Line 31). He tells these personified figures not to look down on the dead farmers, which is his subtle way of asking the reader to act in kind.