Thomas Gray: Poems Literary Elements

Thomas Gray: Poems Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The poet himself is the sole narrator - first-person point of view with occasional shifting to third person point of view.

Form and Meter

The poem uses heroic quatrain rhyming ABAB. Iambic pentameter with several substitutions.

Metaphors and Similes

The villagers are compared to some historical figures like Hampden, Milton, Cromwell. The narrator's sorrowful mood is similar to that of the surrounding nature.

Alliteration and Assonance

"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way" and "Haply some hoary headed swine may say" are the two lines for the example alliteration and assonance. There are h, p, s, and w sounds repeated before several words in a single line.

Irony

The narrator speaks as if he don't care about name and fame. But in the last few stanzas of the poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" he is eager to be remembered and honored after his death.

Genre

Poem

Setting

The poem was composed in 1750 AD near a graveyard of a country church.

Tone

Pessimistic, loving, anxious.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The narrator and the poor villagers are protagonist. The rich and urban people are the antagonist.

Major Conflict

Conflict of life and death; the poor and the rich; the village life and the urban life.

Climax

Climax occurs when the poet hails the villagers like some potential but unlucky people. They have enough potential to be great leaders.

Foreshadowing

The poem foreshadows the death of the poet. He has written his own epitaph.

Understatement

The poet wants to be remembered after his demise and he cannot state it directly. So he understates in the last few stanzas that everybody desires that his friends and relatives will shed some tear in his remembrance.

Allusions

Many historical figures are alluded to in the poem e.g. Cromwell, Milton. Muse is a literary allusion. God and father are biblical allusions.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Many concrete things are used to represent abstract ideas. Such as the celestial fire represents divine power; the rod of empire represents royal power; and the living lyre represents beauty and artistic power.
For synecdoche, "Dauntless breast" or "heart" are used to indicate human body or man.

Personification

Many abstract matters are personified - such as knowledge, pride, honor, grandeur etc. - and their initial letters are capitalized.

Hyperbole

The idea and consequence of death on human life is exaggerated. The poet says "paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Onomatopoeia

Cock's shrill clarion, twittering of swallows, beetle, drowsy tinkling, knell are onomatopoeic words used in the poem.

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