A Comparative Study of the View of Death
between Gray and Bryant
课程名称：美国文学史 任课教师：范 翠 华 学 校：贵 州 大 学 学 院：外国语学院 学 号：1205020098 班 级：英 语125 班
姓 名：张 凡
2015年4月27日
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A Comparative Study of the View of Death
between Gray and Bryant
—taking Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Thanatopsis as examples
[Abstract] Death is an eternal theme in literature. This thesis makes a comparative study of the view of death between Gray and Bryant by taking Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Thanatopsis as examples. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which was considered as one of the most beautiful poems in the history of British literature, and Thanatopsis was a classic work in American literature. Gray and Bryant share both similarities and differences in their viewpoints of death. They both hold an objective attitude towards death that death is inevitable and every man has to die in the end, as what Bible says, ―…since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return‖. While Bryant has a wider viewpoint which is more philosophical, profound and comprehensive than Gray’ s. Their viewpoints will be compared in details in following and it will provide with a profound and meaningful study of death.
[Key Words] Thomas Gray William Cullen Bryant View of Death Comparative Study [Introduction]
Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771), a great master in poetry, is a sentimentalism poet with some classical traits and is regarded as the forerunner of Romanticism. He was widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751. It is said that the poem was written in 1742 shortly after the death of Gray' s close friend Richard West. Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin traveling again. Although he was one of the least productive poets (his collected works published during his lifetime amount to fewer than 1,000 lines), he was regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th century. Gray came to be known as one of the \of the late 18th century.
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William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Thanatopsis was his most famous poem. Bryant wrote the bulk of the poem in 1811 at age 17, and it was first published in 1817 by the North American Review. He added the introductory and concluding lines 10 years later in 1821.
―Life‖ and ‖death‖ were everlasting and sensitive topics all the time. Death was supposed to be the supreme proposition on philosophy as well as on aesthetics. So that the different viewpoints of death can be viewed in many literature. For example, ―To be or not to be, that is a question‖ was said in Hamlet. While the view of death can also be found in poems. The following part would analyze the view of death between Gray and Bryant in details by taking Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Thanatopsis as examples.
These two poems have different themes. Usually an elegy is a poem which laments the dead but Thomas Gray’ s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not of great, but of the commons. On the one hand, it voices the poet’ s sincere sympathy for the poverty- stricken, expropriated peasants. On the other hand, it explores the theme of life’ s transience and the inevitability of death, which both the commons and the high- born must confront. While Bryant mainly expresses his ideas on death just as what the title tells us, especially in a philosophic way. Of course, they both talk something about death, and there still have some similarities and differences.
As for similarities, to begin with, they both admit that death is inevitable and all men would die in the end. As what is said in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, ― Awaits alike th' inevitable hour/ The paths of glory lead but to the grave.‖ It points out that all men no matter rich or poor would go into the grave. It can also be proved easily in Thanatopsis— ―Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim/ Thy growth，to be resolv'd to earth again‖ tells us as what the Bible does— ―…since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return‖. Then they both
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believe that all men are equal before the death. No matter which social class people are in, they have to face to death someday. Besides, they both hold an objective attitude towards death, for which is related to their background. Gray has ever studied in Eton College and received good education, and was good at Latin so that he was familiar with Bible. After realized that death is unavoidable, he chooses to take an objective attitude as a Nazarene. It is similar to Bryant, on account of he has a good education as well. Without experiencing much misfortunes, he could only hold an abstract and objective attitude.
As for differences, on the view of death, there are many differences can be compared. To start with, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is full of sadness and reveal a negative attitude in the whole passage. ―The curfew tolls the knell of parting day/ The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea/ The ploughman homeward plods his weary way/ And leaves the world to darkness, and to me/ Now fades the glimmering 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 fold…‖. From the very beginning of the poem, a sad and dark atmosphere can be felt and readers are easily be moved. The whole passage also suggests his negative attitude. While Thanatopsis reveals an optimistic and open-minded attitude. ―The hills/ Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,— the vales/ Stretching in pensive quietness between/ The venerable woods— rivers that move/ In majesty, and the complaining brooks/ That make the meadows green；and pour'd round all/ Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste/ Are but the solemn decorations all/ Of the great tomb of man.‖ It reveals Bryant’ s complete understanding and sunny attitude towards death.
Secondly, Gray and Bryant consider death from different perspectives, and it is apparently that Bryant has a wider view. In Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard , the poem begins in a churchyard with a narrator who is describing his surroundings in vivid detail. The narrator emphasises both aural and visual sensations as he examines the area in relation to himself. However, it diverges from this tradition in focusing on the death of a poet. Much of the poem deals with questions that were linked to Gray's
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own life; during the poem's composition, he was confronted with the death of others and questioned his own mortality. Although universal in its statements on life and death, the poem was grounded in Gray's feelings about his own life, and served as an epitaph for himself. As such, it falls within an old poetic tradition of poets contemplating their legacy. The poem, as an elegy, also serves to lament the death of others. This is compounded further by the narrator trying to avoid an emotional response to death, by relying on rhetorical questions and discussing what his surroundings lack. While in Thanatopsis, from the beginning, ―To him who in the love of Nature holds/ Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/ A various language; for his gayer hours/ She has a voice of gladness, and a smile/ And eloquence of beauty, and she glides/ Into his darker musings, with a mild/ And gentle sympathy, that steals away/ Their sharpness, ere he is aware.‖ Bryant points out the relationship between the nature and human beings. He uses the third person ―he‖ to refer to human that have close relationships with nature. These sentences mean that human love nature and nature also returns love and care back to human as a result. Furthermore, nature pays attention to whether human are in good condition or not. After that, the poet thinks about how to view death. In other words, Tomas Gray just shows his view of death because of what he writes is an elegy, and he shows his own feelings when he was standing in a country churchyard. While Bryant writes this poem with only one theme specially, and his viewpoints is with dialectical materialism at some degrees.
Thirdly, in contrast, the view of death of Bryant is more philosophical, profound and comprehensive than Gray’ s. Gray wrote the poem in a country churchyard and it is understandable placing himself in such a gloomy surroundings of the resting place of the poor, the lowly as well as the wealth the poet would naturally compares the
destiny of the commons with that of those
―great‖.
Throughout the
poor
whole poem, there runs the dominant theme that the lives of the rich and the ―leads but to the grave‖
. And this theme is gradually unfolded in the poet' s poetic portrayal of a sympathetically idyllic picture of the simple, innocent, contented though little known lif
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