Graveyard Poetry – 18th century poetic school

Graveyard school is a genre that has developed due to reactions created by the melancholic
strain that spread across Europe in the 17th century. The poetry of the period was so vain,
teaching only philosophy and optimism as a result of solitude or contemplation. Graveyard
poetry used this material as a foundation and expanded the range to a whole new level.
Although, many critics oppose the effectiveness of this school of poetry, there is no question
that it influenced gothic literature and
partially Romanticism.

● The major subject for graveyard poets was no doubt death; but, they used elements
like nostalgia, sorrow, brittle emotions, sadness, psychological battles, etc. to
produce works that are reflections of mortality and at the same time aesthetic to read
at.
● Graveyard poetry had clear detail and range that was lacking in the melancholic
poetry of the predecessors. In addition, the mention of tombstones, ghosts,
macabre descriptions made graveyard poetry interesting and effects long-lasting.

There are many poets and writers who identify themselves with graveyard poetry; however,
four crucial works have become the pillars of the movement.
● Thomas Gray – Elegy written in a Country Churchyard [1751]
● Thomas Parnell – Night Piece on Death [1721]
● Edward Young – Night Thoughts [1742-1745]
● Robert Blair – The Grave [1743]

THOMAS GRAY

● Born: Dec. 26,1716,London

● Died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.,
● A English poet whose “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” is one of the best
known of English lyric poems. Although his literary output was slight, he was the
dominant poetic figure in the mid-18th century and a precursor of the Romantic
movement.

● Notable Works: “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” “Ode on a Distant
Prospect of Eton College” “The Bard” “The Progress of Poesy”.

INTRODUCTION

Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. Gray
may,however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close
friend Richard West. An elegy is a poem which laments the dead.

Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not
of great or famous people, but of common men. The speaker of this poem sees a country
churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the nature of human mortality. The
poem invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latin phrase which states plainly to all
mankind, “Remember that you must die.” The speaker considers the fact that in death, there
is no difference between great and common people. He goes on to wonder if among the
lowly people buried in the churchyard there had been any natural poets or politicians whose
talent had simply never been discovered or nurtured. This thought leads him to praise the
dead for the honest, simple lives that they lived.

Gray did not produce a great deal of poetry; the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
however, has earned him a respected and deserved place in literary history. The poem was
written at the end of the Augustan Age and at the beginning of the Romantic period, and the
poem has characteristics associated with both literary periods. On the one hand, it has the
ordered, balanced phrasing and rational sentiments of neoclassical poetry. On the other
hand, it tends toward the emotionalism and individualism of the Romantic poets; most
importantly, it idealizes and elevates the common man.

Text of the Poem: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

In the first stanza, the speaker observes the signs of a country day drawing to a close: a
curfew bell ringing, a herd of cattle moving across the pasture, and a farm laborer returning
home. The speaker is then left alone to contemplate the isolated rural scene.
The first line of the poem sets a distinctly somber tone: the curfew bell does not
simply ring; it “knells”—a term usually applied to bells rung at a death or funeral.
From the start, then, Gray reminds us of human mortality.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Now the land around me is glowing in the sunset but also fading away as I look at it.
There's a seriousness stillness hanging in the air, apart from the buzz of a flying beetle and
the tinkling of the sheep's bells, which is like their bedtime music.
The second stanza sustains the somber tone of the first: the speaker is not
mournful,but pensive, as he describes the peaceful landscape that surrounds him.
Even the air is characterized as having a “solemn stillness.”

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
The air is still apart from that tower over there, covered with ivy, where a sad owl is
complaining to the moon about anything that, wandering around her secret nest in the tower,
disturbs her longstanding, lonely rule over the area.
The sound of an owl hooting intrudes upon the evening quiet. We are told that the owl
“complains”; in this context, the word does not mean “to whine” or “grumble,” but “to express
sorrow.” The owl’s call, then, is suggestive of grief.

Note that at no point in these three opening stanzas does Gray directly refer to death or a
funeral; rather, he indirectly creates a funeral atmosphere by describing just a few mournful
sounds.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Underneath those burly elm trees and the shade of that yew tree, there are mounds of moldy
dirt: each laying in a narrow room forever, the uneducated founders of this tiny village sleep.

It is in the fourth stanza that the speaker directly draws our attention to the graves in
the country churchyard. Two potentially conflicting images of death have
beenpresented here. Line 14 describes the heaps of earth surrounding the graves; in
order to dig a grave, the earth must necessarily be disrupted. Note that the syntax of
this line is slightly confusing. The sentence should be read, “Where the turf
heaves”—not “where heaves the turf”: Gray has inverted the word order. Just as the
earth has been disrupted, the syntax imitates the way in which the earth has been
disrupted. The “rude Forefathers” buried beneath the earth seem entirely at peace:
readers are told that they are laid in “cells,” a term which reminds us of the quiet of a
monastery, and that they “sleep.”

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

The sound of the scented breezes of morning, the swallow singing in a shed made of straw,
the rooster's sharp cry, or the echoes of a hunter's horn—these sounds will no longer wake
the dead from their humble resting places.

If the “Forefathers” are sleeping, however, the speaker reminds us that they will
never again rise from their “beds” to hear the pleasurable sounds of country life that
the living do. The term “lowly beds” describes not only the unpretentious graves in
which the forefathers are buried, but the humble conditions that they endured when
they were alive.

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,

The fireplace will no longer burn brightly for these dead people, nor will with their busy wives
work in the evening to take care of them. Their children no longer will run over to celebrate
when their father has come home from work for the evening, or climb on his lap to get to be
the first to get a kiss.

The speaker then moves on to consider some of the other pleasures the dead will no
longer enjoy: the happiness of home, wife, and children.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

When they were alive, these people often harvested crops with their farm implements. They
often plowed up difficult ground. How cheerfully they drove their farm animals over the field
as their plowed! How confidently they chopped down trees, which seems to bow as they fell
beneath the strokes of the axe.
The dead will also no longer be able to enjoy the pleasures of work, of plowing the
fields each day. This stanza points to the way in which the “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard” contains elements of both Augustan and Romantic poetry.
Poetry that describes agriculture—as this one does—is called georgic. Georgic verse
was extremely popular in the eighteenth century. Note, however, that Gray closely
identifies the farmers with the land that they work. This association of man and
nature is suggestive of a romantic attitude. The georgic elements of the stanza
almost demand that we characterize it as typical of the eighteenth century, but its
tone looks forward to the Romantic period.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

Don't let ideas about ambition push you to make fun of the useful work these country folk
did. Don't make fun of their plain and simple joys, their unknown lives. Don't let feelings of
superiority make you smile scornfully at the short and simple biographies of poor people.

The next four stanzas caution those who are wealthy and powerful not to look down
on the poor. These lines warn the reader not to slight the “obscure” “destiny” of the
poor—the fact that they will never be famous or have long histories, or “annals,”
written about them.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The bragging implied by a rich family's coat of arms; the frills and traditions of the powerful;
all the things that beauty and wealth can give someone—death waits for all these things.
Even the most glorious lives still end in death.
This stanza invokes the idea of memento mori (literally, a reminder of mortality). The
speaker reminds the reader that regardless of social position, beauty, or wealth, all
must eventually die.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault

If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

And you, you proud people, don't blame the poor if no memorials are erected on their graves
as ornaments that outline their achievements in life; or if they don't have a tomb with a long
hallway and a vaulted ceiling illustrated with all their accomplishments, echoing with the
sounds of mourners singing the praises of the dead.
The speaker also challenges the reader not to look down on the poor for having
modest, simple graves. He suggests, moreover, that the elaborate memorials that
adorn the graves of the “Proud” are somehow excessive. In this context, the word
“fretted” in line 39 has a double meaning: on the one hand, it can refer to the design
on a cathedral ceiling; on the other hand, it can suggest that there is something
“fretful,” or troublesome, about the extravagant memorials of the wealthy.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Can an urn decorated with events from the dead person's life, or a life-like sculpture of their
head, call the dead person's breath back into their body? Can honor bring their decaying
body back to life? Can flattery convince death not to come for someone?

The speaker observes that nothing can bring the dead back to life, and that all the
advantages that the wealthy had in life are useless in the face of death. Neither
elaborate funeral monuments nor impressive honors can restore life. Nor can flattery
in some way be used to change the mind of death.

Note here Gray’s use of personification in characterizing both “flattery” and

“death”—as though death has a will or mind of its own

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

Maybe in this unkempt patch of ground is buried someone who was once passionately filled
with heavenly fire. Maybe someone is buried here who could have ruled an empire or
brought music and poetry to new heights.
The speaker then reconsiders the poor people buried in the churchyard. He wonders
what great deeds they might have accomplished had they been given the
opportunity: one of these poor farmers, the speaker reasons, might have been a
great emperor; another might have “waked … the living lyre,”
or been a great poet or musician.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

But they couldn't read or get an education, meaning they were never able to learn about
history. Cold poverty held back their inspiration and froze the creative parts of their minds.
The poor were never able to fulfill their political and artistic potential, however,
because they were uneducated—they never received the “Knowledge” that would
enable them to rule and to create. Instead, “Penury,” or poverty, “froze the genial
current of their soul.” That is, poverty paralyzed their ability to draw upon their
innermost passions—the very passions that could have inspired them to become
great poets or politicians.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Many gems that give off the most beautiful light are buried in dark, unexplored caves in the
ocean. Many flowers bloom unseen by anyone, wasting their beauty and scent on a
deserted place.
In a series of analogies, Gray observes that the talents of the poor are like a “gem”
hidden in the ocean or a “flower” blooming in the desert. Just as an unseen flower in
the desert is a “waste,” Gray suggests, the uneducated talents of the poor are also a
“waste,” because they remain unused and undeveloped.