Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 赏析.doc

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard By Thomas Gray (1716-1771) 1. Type of Work "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is—as the title indicates—an elegy. Such a poem centers on the death of a person or persons and is, therefore, somber in tone. An elegy is lyrical rather than narrative—that is, its primary purpose is to express feelings and insights about its subject rather than to tell a story. Typically, an elegy expresses feelings of loss and sorrow while also praising the deceased and commenting on the meaning of the deceased's time on earth. Gray's poem reflects on the lives of humble and unheralded未为人所知的people buried in the cemetery 墓地of a church. 2. Setting （time and place） The time is the mid 1700s, about a decade before the Industrial Revolution began in England. The place is the cemetery of a church. Evidence indicates that the church is St. Giles, in the small town of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, in southern England. Gray himself is buried in that cemetery. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, once maintained a manor 3. Years of Composition and Publication Gray began writing the elegy in 1742, put it aside for a while, and finished it in 1750. Robert Dodsley published the poem in London in 1751. Revised or altered versions of the poem appeared in 1753, 1758, 1768, and 1775. Copies of the various versions are on file in the Thomas Gray Archive at Oxford 4. Meter 节拍and Rhyme 韵律Scheme Gray wrote the poem in four-line stanzas (quatrains). Each line is in iambic pentameter, meaning the following: 1. Each line has five pairs of syllables for a total of ten syllables. 2. In each pair, the first syllable is unstressed (or unaccented), and the second is stressed (or accented), as in the two lines that open the poem: The CUR few TOLLS the KNELL of PART ing DAY The LOW ing HERD wind SLOW ly O'ER the LEA In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the third and the second line rhymes with the fourth (abab), as follows: a..The curfew tolls the knell of