Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Group
Question:
What figures of speech in the poem of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" in stanzas 10 - 12?
Answers:
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eNotes Editor
Posted by robertwilliam on Monday January 12, 2009 at 1:41 PMThere's loads! I've picked out some below-
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.There's alliteration in the final line ("pealing / praise") and an anastrophe (change of word order) in the second ("If Memory... raise" which would normally read "If Memory raises...")).
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?Rhetorical questions structure this stanza. There are also several personifications (like there were on 19th century graveyard monuments) of Memory, Honour, Flattery and Death. I'd argue that there's also a pun on "bust" (statue/breast).
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.There's ellipsis of the verb ("laid" applies to both line 2, and line 3-4). And hyperbole, I think, to make the point. And there's obviously rhyme and enjambment throughout these stanzas - and the poem.

