Title: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard - Wikipedia
Headings: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
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Contents
Background
Composition
Genre
Poem
Themes
Influence
Poetic parallels
Adaptations and parodies
Translations
Other media
Critical response
20th-century response
References
Bibliography
External links

Content: In 1749, several events occurred that caused Gray stress. On 7 November, Mary Antrobus, Gray's aunt, died; her death devastated his family. The loss was compounded a few days later by news that his friend since childhood Horace Walpole had been almost killed by two highwaymen. Although Walpole survived and later joked about the event, the incident disrupted Gray's ability to pursue his scholarship. The events dampened the mood that Christmas, and Antrobus's death was ever fresh in the minds of the Gray family. As a side effect, the events caused Gray to spend much of his time contemplating his own mortality. As he began to contemplate various aspects of mortality, he combined his desire to determine a view of order and progress present in the Classical world with aspects of his own life. With spring nearing, Gray questioned if his own life would enter into a sort of rebirth cycle or, should he die, if there would be anyone to remember him. Gray's meditations during spring 1750 turned to how individuals' reputations would survive.