Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’: The Mournful Aspect in Melancholy

Abstract

Thomas Gray (1716-1771) treasures a variety of topics from the classical and contemporary tradition. Not only does the poet arrange them in accordance with his own critical thinking but also to meet the demands of the amalgam of poetic modes that coexist at the zenith of the so-called Age of Sensibility or Post-Augustan Age, which prevails towards the second half of the eighteenth-century in England. The Graveyard School outstands among these for its melancholy and gloomy tone, to which Gray is considered to belong. In this context, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) comprises a miscellany of poetic modes that breathe moral meditation, melancholy and the longing for old days when the soul of man was free and man enjoyed himself in his rural activities in perfect harmony with God and Nature. The main goal of this paper is to study Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” to highlight the mainstream features that place it within the “Graveyard School”.