Let's Read (a Poem): Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
WHAT IS "GRAVEYARD POETRY"?
Let's find out and read a bit of gothy emo moody philosophical poetry together, Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
Once the single most famous English-language poem written in the 1700s, it' a fancy and well-crafted poem about a guy wandering in a cemetery thinking about life and imagining his own death.
In someways, it's the poem-iest poem that ever poemed. If you read it you will say to yourself, "yes, this is certainly a poem."
Do you like poems that rhyme? This one does. If you want to skip context and go straight to the poem, it's at 10:15.
Table of Contents:
00:00 - Introduction
00:51 - What's a churchyard?
00:59 - The fame and impact of "Elegy"
01:54 - Life and Career of Thomas Gray
05:03 - Thomas ... Gay?
05:17 - Influences
07:47 - Aesthetic Shifts: Baroque to Neoclassica
08:41 - The Age of Sensibility
10:13 - Let's Read!
10:52 - Form and Style
15:56 - Topic and Theme
18:23 - Ubi Sunt
19:41 - The Moral Argument
22:01 - Maybe poor people are okay?
27:00 - Back to the poet; mement mori
29:23 - Imagining one's own funeral and grave
34:11 - Thanks