Romantic Characteristics Of Thomas Gray's Elegy

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ROMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS Based from the definition of elegy, the poem already gave an evidence of romantic characteristic- expression of strong emotion, the tone of melancholy. The title itself shows that Gray’s poem possesses Romantic characteristics. The sense of individuality and the emotional issues behind death and dying were highlighted in the poem. The fifth and succeeding stanzas discussed how those men would no longer be roused by the morning breeze, they will no longer feel what they’ve experienced during the days they were still alive. This stanza also clearly presented the ordinary men and the noble men, that despite having social differences, they are still going to die; death comes to all. This also shows the Romanticist’s style of highlighting the ordinary men. Romantic poets are fond of inserting symbols in their crafts. This is evident in the presence of several symbols in the poem. The coming of the night symbolizes the coming of death- night is the end of the days and death is the end of men’s life. The curfew bell which knells symbolizes the coming of death; the knelling of a bell tells the community about the death of a person. Romantic poets write poems that has little thing to do with external events. Poems don’t give a clear plot but a clear image of what’s happening within the specific moment. In the Elegy of Gray, the only plot that readers know is that he was left somewhere in the churchyard to think about things, the succeeding stanzas discussed what was on his mind- his thoughts about dying and the death. The form used is mostly an expression of mental event. Only in the first stanza did Thomas Gray show the readers the event happening which is even very specific. Only the moment when the night is coming and the world is about to rest where he described the fellow men going back home after a tiresome day. The use of
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