Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poet himself is the sole narrator - first-person point of view with occasional shifting to third person point of view.
Form and Meter
The poem uses heroic quatrain rhyming ABAB. Iambic pentameter with several substitutions.
Metaphors and Similes
The villagers are compared to some historical figures like Hampden, Milton, Cromwell. The narrator's sorrowful mood is similar to that of the surrounding nature.
Alliteration and Assonance
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way" and "Haply some hoary headed swine may say" are the two lines for the example alliteration and assonance. There are h, p, s, and w sounds repeated before several words in a single line.
Irony
The narrator speaks as if he don't care about name and fame. But in the last few stanzas of the poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" he is eager to be remembered and honored after his death.
Genre
Poem
Setting
The poem was composed in 1750 AD near a graveyard of a country church.
Tone
Pessimistic, loving, anxious.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The narrator and the poor villagers are protagonist. The rich and urban people are the antagonist.
Major Conflict
Conflict of life and death; the poor and the rich; the village life and the urban life.
Climax
Climax occurs when the poet hails the villagers like some potential but unlucky people. They have enough potential to be great leaders.
Foreshadowing
The poem foreshadows the death of the poet. He has written his own epitaph.
Understatement
The poet wants to be remembered after his demise and he cannot state it directly. So he understates in the last few stanzas that everybody desires that his friends and relatives will shed some tear in his remembrance.
Allusions
Many historical figures are alluded to in the poem e.g. Cromwell, Milton. Muse is a literary allusion. God and father are biblical allusions.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Many concrete things are used to represent abstract ideas. Such as the celestial fire represents divine power; the rod of empire represents royal power; and the living lyre represents beauty and artistic power.
For synecdoche, "Dauntless breast" or "heart" are used to indicate human body or man.
Personification
Many abstract matters are personified - such as knowledge, pride, honor, grandeur etc. - and their initial letters are capitalized.
Hyperbole
The idea and consequence of death on human life is exaggerated. The poet says "paths of glory lead but to the grave."
Onomatopoeia
Cock's shrill clarion, twittering of swallows, beetle, drowsy tinkling, knell are onomatopoeic words used in the poem.
