Stoke Poges churchyard
斯托克波吉斯(英国英格兰白金汉郡南部村庄，据信为格雷的《墓园挽歌》
的背景地)
He toured around Europe with Horace Walpole, author of the world famous Gothic
novel The Castle of Otranto《奥特兰托的 古堡》 . In 1768 he was made Professor of
Comments on Gray
• Gray’s literary output was small. He wrote slowly and carefully. His poems are characterized by an exquisite sense of form.
• His masterpiece Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard once and for all
Thomas Gray
• Thomas Gray was born in London into a broker’s family. He got very good school education, first at Eton and then at Cambridge. He left Cambridge without taking a degree.
• 名作<<墓园挽歌>>的作者在所有早期的浪 漫主义诗人中,学识最为渊博,性格也最为通达. 年青时,他体质非常孱弱, 是他们家十二个孩子 中惟一幸存的一位.他的童年很不幸,父亲很粗 暴,并且后来他离开他深爱的母亲,不幸的童年 使他的一生在忧郁中度过, 在他的所有诗作中 都可看到这种伤感风格.
• <<墓园挽歌>>弥漫着淡淡的忧伤,它是早期浪 漫主义诗歌的标志,是那个时代最完美的诗,它 属于那个时代.读弥尔顿的<<深思的人>>和格 雷的<<挽歌>>就等于看到了占据英国诗人思想 一个多世纪的”忧伤文学”的开端和完美阶段.
History and Modern Languages at Cambridge.
In his lifetime, he was known as one of the most learned persons and a very successful poet. He was not sociable. He declined the Poet Laureateship in 1657 andБайду номын сангаасled a peaceful life as a scholar.
• What is the rhythm like in the elegy?
• The rhythm of the elegy is very slow.
• How is the “slowness” is realized?
• The poet used many diphthongs 双元音 and long vowels.
• Thomas Gray was one of the most important poets of the eighteenth century. This scholar and poet was the most famous for his poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Thomas Gray was born on December 26, 1716 in Cornhill section of London, England. He was the only child in his family.
• What is the poem’s stanza form? • Quatrain 四行诗 • What is the rhyme scheme of the elegy? • abab (the first line rhymes with the
third line, and the second line rhymes with the fourth line) • What is the meter of the elegy? • Iambic pentameter. (each line has ten syllables, an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable; it is iambic. Each line has five feet. )
established his fame as the leader of sentimentalist poetry and the spokesman of the Graveyard School.
What is an elegy?
• A lyric poem lamenting the death of an individual. It is usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.
• 不妨把挽歌的前8行重复朗读几遍，就可以感受到 作者高超的诗艺了。诗人使用抑扬格五音步隔行 押韵，节奏舒缓语调肃穆而哀思缠绵，为英语挽 歌树立了四行体（elegiac quatrain）的典范。以 前8行为例，有声“L”子音重复了23次，长母“O” 音重复了近10遍，再加上其它双元音和长元音的 大量反复，交叉营造出一种沉寂悲凉的气氛，非 常切合挽歌哀缓的主题，是以令人百读不厌。
• In 1764 he had an operation from which he never recovered. At the age of fifty-five, Gray suffered a violent attack of gout 痛风in the stomach and finally died in his room on July 30, 1771 in Cambridge, London. He was buried beside his beloved mother at Stoke Poges churchyard, the scene of the "Elegy".