The speaker of this poem sees a country churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the nature of human mortality.

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.

An elegy is a poem which laments the dead. Gray may, however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West. Check out the 'Love' theme for more on that.Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. Certainly this poem has some of the qualities of a love poem, but, to say the least, this poem isn’t just a poet’s outpouring of love for someone else. The main reason is that sonnets, at least before Shakespeare was writing, were almost exclusively love poems. Don’t be fooled, though: beyond the form, this is not your stereotypical sonnet.

In this case, the closing lines have the feel of a cute little poem of their own, making it clear that the poet’s abilities were the subject of this poem all along. This poem also has the uniquely English twist of a concluding rhyming couplet that partially sums up and partially redefines what came before it. Here Shakespeare switches from bashing the summer to describing the immortality of his beloved. Just as in older Italian sonnets by which the English sonnets (later to be called Shakespearean sonnets) were inspired, the ninth line introduces a significant change in tone or position.

The form of this sonnet is also notable for being a perfect model of the Shakespearean sonnet form. There are two quatrains (groups of four lines), followed by a third quatrain in which the tone of the poem shifts a bit, which is in turn followed by a rhyming couplet (two lines) that wraps the poem up. There aren’t even any lines that flow over into the next line – every single line is end-stopped. With the exception of a couple relatively strong first syllables (and even these are debatable), there are basically no deviations from the meter. This is a classic Shakespearean sonnet with fourteen lines in very regular iambic pentameter. A Shakespearean Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter

Sonnet 18 iambic pentameter uses