Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Flashcards
What genres does Elegy participate in?
Gothic, sentimental (sensibility)
What is sensibility?
Focused on empathy, displaying emotions externally: crying, swooning, kneeling. ‘The meaningful body’.
According to Dugald Stewart, sensibility in poetry was associated with what?
The imagination. Eg. imagining the feelings and lives of others. Empathy from imagination.
What problems could the association between sensibility and imagination (eg. imagination lives of others. Empathy from imagination) have?
Open to interpretation. The poet’s interpretation of rural life and poverty, not the truth. (Eg. links to romanticising poverty).
As a predecessor to the Romantic period, what theme does Graveyard poetry begin to explore?
The self.
The Romantic ‘I’ (or ‘me’)
What quote shows the emphasis upon ‘me’?
The plowman homeward plods his weary way / And leaves the world to darkness and to me
Ending with ‘me’ on the rhyme of ‘lea’ is emphatic. Also emphasised by the monosyllabic rhythm.
In what way do the following lines celebrate the poet?
‘The plowman homeward plods his weary way / And leaves the world to darkness and to me.’
Creates a sense that when things have passed away and the world is left in darkness, the poet will also remain.
How is the unnamed country man referred to?
Hoary-headed swain
What year did Gray write his elegy?
1751
What two kinds of writers were there in the 18th century?
The Bard (poetic, authentic, not interested in fame) and the Hack (interested in commercial)
What quote shows Gray addressing the limited opportunities of the poor?
‘Their lot forbade’
largely monosyllabic. Uses simple language that the ‘rude’ people can have access to.
What quote shows the environmental immediacy of the poem?
Now fades the glimmering landscape
What’s the quote about the hoary-headed swain?
Some hoary-headed swain may say
Quote about the plowman?
The plowman homeward plods his weary way / And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
What was the form of the elegy used for?
To commemorate someone. But Gray’s elegy is ambiguous in this regard.
Perhaps ‘to me’? Or it could be the poor.
