Thomas Gray's Eligy Indited in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray indited a poem that compares to other poems on prodigious levels of kindred attribute, with some differences. The structure of “Elegy Indited in a Country Churchyard” is homogeneous to the four line stanzas of other poetry encountered throughout this semester. Gray utilizes a homogeneous theme of time in his poem, likewise in Shakespeare’s sonnets and Donne’s “The Ecstasy”. Gray’s purport of imagery differs drastically from other poets.

To commence, structure is the first thing to descry while comparing Gray’s “Elegy” to other poems. Gray indites in heroic quatrains, four line stanzas with an iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the designation given to a line of verse that consists of five iambs. Iambs being one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed. His poems are akin to the structures of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which are customarily divided into three quatrains followed by a couplet. Gray’s poem follows a rhythmic pattern ABAB; Shakespeare’s pattern is conventionally ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Sir Philip Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella” follows the iambic structure of ABBA ABBA CDCD EE. John Donne indites in four line stanzas of iambic tetrameter rhyming ABBA CDDC. A quatrain in iambic tetrameter, rhyming is found in the second and fourth lines and often in the first and third.

Time is a theme utilized quite often in poetry. Weather it is the time of day, the time of the year, or the year itself, time is a central theme used throughout poetry. Donne utilizes the theme time in his poem “The Ecstasy” by verbally expressing that time is circumscribed. “So must pristine doters' souls descend / to affections, and to faculties, /Which sense may reach and apprehend, / Else a great prince in confinement lies.” Here, Don...

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...o souls. “He—though he kenned not which soul spake, / Because both betokened, both spake the same— / Might thence an incipient concoction take, / And part far purer than he came” (24 -28). Here, Donne relates that two souls now verbalize as one; they may take a concoction and leave that place more preponderant off than when they arrived. “Astophil and Stella”, Sidney utilizes the moon to portray a love-sick scarcely tone. While these guys are inditing on love, Gray utilizes his imagery to tell readers not to mock the prevalent man. Stanza eight reads: “Let not Zeal mock their utilizable toil, / Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; / Nor Grandeur auricularly discern with a disdainful smile / The short and simple annuals of the poor.” Here Gray is personifying zeal and grandeur. Both words are capitalized within his elegy, furthering his personification of the two.