Elegy: Three Messages about Death

“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Tomas Gray begins in the evening time; it’s not quite night time yet. He tells how he goes out day after day to the churchyard to find inspiration to write his poems. He sits and ponders on who these people were and noticed they were all probably poor. In an indirect way he refers to them as nobody’s. Then he wonders what someone would put on his tombstone after he has passed away. He begins to tell us what he would expect his tombstone to say and presents to us three messages about death.

First, Gray tells us that no one will remember you if you weren’t rich and famous, he says most in the churchyard were probably just common people. In lines 21-24 on page 668 Gray writes, “For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, or busy housewife ply her evening care; no children run to lisp their sire’s return, or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.” He tells us that no matter who you are or where you’re buried you don’t get to come back. He says that because of where these people were born and how they lived that they couldn’t have ever been famous anyways.

One could take the meaning of Renaissance in many ways. In the book it is portrayed as a “rebirth”. (p. 236) The English Renaissance was a rebirth in innovations in art, science and exploration. This period of time was when it was sought to revive the learning of the ancient Romans and Greeks. Renaissance ideas stimulated literary, artistic, and scientific achievements in England, being greatly influenced the Reformation, England became a Protestant country. There were three important things that a person would see in London in 1600; is disputes over religion, style of clothing, and the filth of London at the time.

Before Eli...

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...zdC1saXZl>. By the 1600s, powerful kingdoms in other parts of Europe had captured much of Italy. The region was weakened even more by religious wars that began when Christians called Protestants split away from the Roman Catholic Church. The pope lost the vast powers that he once had.

Old, Sold. "English Renaissance - Influences." Old and Sold. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2013. . At the time when the Renaissance came to England, not only had new social conditions been created, but national life was rich in every variety of social, artistic, and literary movement. The Renaissance, with its recognition of the inherent human right to the enjoyment of life, appealed strongly to a community which had thrown off ecclesiastical domination and was rapidly developing a free national and domestic life along secular lines.