illustration of a country churchyward with a variety of gravestones

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

by Thomas Gray

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What is an elegy?

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An elegy is a mournful poem that laments the dead. Unlike typical elegies, Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" mourns the common people, reflecting on human mortality and the virtues of simple lives. It contrasts the struggles and untimely deaths of the poor with the moral compromises of the powerful, ultimately praising the honest, humble existence of country folk. Gray's elegy is both a lament and a celebration of these virtues.

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An elegy is a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a lament for the dead.  Unlike many elegies, however, Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" mourns the death of common men, rather than great or famous people.  In this mourning, Gray reflects upon the classical idea of human mortality as he praises the simple lives of the countryfolk who are buried in the churchyard:

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,/Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;/Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile/The short and simple annals of the poor.

Gray laments that many of these common people suffered untimely deaths because of disease and msifortune:  "Chill penury repressed their noble rage."  But, because these poorer people were never in positions of power, they never had to compromise themselves and commit the crimes of the powerful.  So, while Gray's elegy is a lament, it is also a reflection upon the virtues of the simple, honest life of common folk:

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strif,/Their sober wishes never learned to stray;/Along the cool, sequestered vale of life/They kept the noiseless tenor or their way.

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