Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

1. What literary device is exemplified by the speaker’s vivid description of the countryside sights and sounds he observes from his vantage point?

2. What literary device can be evidenced in “But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page / Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll” (Lines 49-50)?

A) allusion

B) alliteration

C) personification

D) hyperbole

3. What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?

A) ABBA

B) ABAB

C) ABBC

D) ABCA

4. The countryside setting of Gray’s poem references an influential English elegy by John Milton called “Lycidas.” What is the term for this kind of reference to another literary work?

A) allusion

B) inversion

C) caesura

D) anecdote