Thomas Gray

Question 1

Gray wrote in a style that fused

Answer 1

Latin constructions, great learning, and low rustic themes and meditations on death

Question 2

The stanzas in Gray’s “Elegy” are

Answer 2

quatrains from start to finish

Question 3

The meter in Gray’s “Elegy” is

Answer 3

iambic pentameter

Question 4

The rhyme scheme of Gray’s “Elegy” is

Answer 4

abab

Question 5

Toward the end of Gray’s “Elegy” a “kindred spirit” inquires of someone’s fate, and is answered by a “hoary-headed swain.” Whose fate does this person inquire about?

Answer 5

“For thee, who mindful of the unhonored dead / Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; / If chance, by lonely contemplation led, / Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate…” The one who relates the artless tale of the unhonored dead is both the writer and the reader. Both will die–death what brings them together, in fact.