 An obvious distinction can be made between imitations meant to stand as independent works within the elegiac genre , not all of which followed Gray ’ s wording closely , and those with a humorous or satirical purpose . The latter filled the columns in newspapers and comic magazines for the next century and a half . In 1884 some eighty of them were quoted in full or in part in Walter Hamilton ’ s Parodies of the works of English and American authors ( London 1884 ) , more than those of any other work and further evidence of the poem ’ s abiding influence . One example uncollected there was the ingenious double parody of J. C. Squire , “ If Gray had had to write his Elegy in the Cemetery of Spoon River instead of in that of Stoke Poges ” . This was an example of how later parodies shifted their critical aim , in this case “ explicitly calling attention to the formal and thematic ties which connected the 18th century work with its 20th century derivation ” in Edgar Lee Masters ’ work . Ambrose Bierce used parody of the poem for the same critical purpose in his definition of “ Elegy ” in The Devil ’ s Dictionary , ending with the dismissive lines 
