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Thomas GrayA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
1. Gray uses several instances of personification in the poem. Identify his uses of personification and explain what each personified entity is said to be doing or not doing. Then, explain what each use of personification means; in other words, what message is Gray imparting through the line(s) in which personification is used? Model your answers after the following template:
_______________________ is personified through the characteristic(s) of__________________________________, which only a person can do/be.
Through this instance of personification, Gray is saying that _______________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Once you have identified all the examples of personification you can find in the poem, compare your ideas with a partner. Add to your findings any examples your partner found that you missed, and vice versa. Then, discuss the following questions:
2. As previously mentioned, Gray’s elegy alludes throughout to an influential English elegy by John Milton.
By Thomas Gray