THOMAS GREY

DRAMATIC SITUATION

This poem is about a man who is walking through and thinking about the people who once had a life and are now buried in the ground. The speaker reflects on the lives of the people in their graves and the high hopes for the future they must have had. He states the idea that everyone; even the simplest person wants to be remembered by someone when they are gone. The speaker basically reflects death in order to suggest a way of looking at life.

THEME

Reflection on death in order to suggest a way of looking at life is a major theme in this poem. The people in their graves represent the lives that had once been and the families they left behind. The poet accepts that all people die and that we all have death in common. The fact that you may have been an important rank or status as you lived means nothing when in the end we will all end up in a grave, death cuts down everyone sooner or later.

TONE

This poem is an elegy, a solemn and formal lyric poem about death. This poem has a mournful sound to it due to the fact that it has to do with death. The poet uses concrete words and phrases that give the reader clear images of the churchyard. Throughout the poem the poet develops the mood of melancholy and loneliness. Metonymy is used in such phrases as "the rod of the empire" and "the living lyre". A metaphor is used referring to the gems hidden in "the dark unfathom�d caves of ocean".