英美文学选读Gray class.pptVIP

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Thomas Gray (1716-1771) Quiz In the first three stanzas, the poet employs a number of images to set the tone for the whole piece. Could you classify the images? What is an Elegy? I An elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure, or reflecting seriously on a solemn subject. --Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms II A formal and sustained lament in verse for the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation.--M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms III A lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead; or a serious meditative poem produced to express the speaker’s melancholy thoughts.--Michael Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard“ is regarded as one of the greatest poems and most loved poems in English language. Structure, rhyme scheme, imagery ,message The quality of its poetry and insights reach Shakespearean and Miltonian heights.? It is noteworthy also in that it mourns the death not of great or famous people, but of common men. The Graveyard School A group of 18th cent. poets —also the Boneyard Boys Themes of death, mortality, religion, and melancholy. Elegiac in tone and often in title The imagery of night, death, funeral and gloom Not sensationalist but Christian writers with contemplations of human mortality and our relation to the divine. An important factor in the development of the Gothic novel --a vocabulary of gloomy imagery --a popular taste that recognized the emotional, moral, and even psychological value of that imagery. Frequent emphasis on the lives of ordinary Listen to the Poem /watch?v=xSd1FH-KT3wfeature=related Stanzas 1-3 In the first three stanzas, the poet employs a number of images to set the tone for the whole piece. Could you classify the images? And how are they worked to achieve that effect? Analyze the sound pattern o