Posts Tagged ‘The Graveyard Poets’
The Graveyard Poets On the GRE
The GRE may ask you to associate a certain poem or author with the graveyard poets, but aside from that I wouldn’t spend too much time studying them. Just note the obvious characteristics, such as allusions to death, decay, graveyards and so forth. It may sound trite, but this will usually work.
The most common graveyard poet on the GRE is Thomas Gray, whose Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) is very likely to appear on the test. Here’s an except:
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Listen to the audio file of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and be able to identify it when you see it.
The Graveyard Poets
The so-called “Graveyard Poets” were a number of pre-Romantic English poets of the 18th century characterized by their dark meditations on mortality and frequent use of death imagery. Their poems often contain an element of the ’sublime’ and uncanny, and display an interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry. They are often considered precursors of the Gothic genre.
The GRE may ask you to associate a certain poem or author with the graveyard poets, but aside from that I wouldn’t spend too much time studying them. Just know what to look for so you can identify the genre and take an educated guess at the author. if you do see a graveyard poem, chances are it was written by either Thomas Gray or Robert Blair. Here’s an excerpt from Blair’s poem “The Grave,” which is pretty typical for the genre.
Robert Blair (1699-1746)
The Grave (excerpt)
While some affect the sun, and some the shade.
Some flee the city, some the hermitage;
Their aims as various, as the roads they take
In journeying thro’ life;–the task be mine,
To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb;
Th’ appointed place of rendezvous, where all
These travellers meet.–Thy succours I implore,
Eternal King! whose potent arm sustains
The keys of Hell and Death.–The Grave, dread thing!
Men shiver when thou’rt named: Nature appall’d
Shakes off her wonted firmness.–Ah ! how dark
The long-extended realms, and rueful wastes!
Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark night,
Dark as was chaos, ere the infant Sun
Was roll’d together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound.
The Graveyard Poets include Thomas Parnell, Thomas Warton, Thomas Percy, Thomas Gray, James MacPherson, Robert Blair, William Collins, Thomas Chatterton, Mark Akenside, Joseph Warton, Henry Kirke White and Edward Young. James Thomson is also sometimes included as a graveyard poet.