"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Starting shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was first published in 1751. The use of dubbing in this poem may distance the intended audience from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair, and sadness ; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author's feelings towards the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt, and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dub meaning throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, inner conflict, finding virtue in one's life, managing one's misfortunes, and recognizing those who would otherwise seem insignificant. the poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" Gray symbolizes death using the dubbal entendre method. In the opening stanza Gray states, “The curfew tolls the hour of the day's end, / The lowing flock slowly winds across the meadow, / The farmer plods home on his weary way, / And leaves the world to darkness and to me" (1-4). The speaker literally observes his surroundings as the day draws to a close, noticing the cows slowly moving to the other side of the mountaintop and a tired plowman returning home leaving him to contemplate in the darkness. However, the underlying connotation in the first stanza is death, which Gray symbolizes with the use of the word “knell”. Kneeling is the ringing of a bell at a funeral; therefore, the reader can infer in the first line when Gray states, “The curfew tolls the day of parting” (1) is about the fact that he was… in the middle of the paper… you were and the lives they lived . He wants to recognize those who would otherwise be insignificant compared to someone of stature. Gray closes the elegy by talking about his own death and how his life compares to that of ordinary people. He was neither famous nor rich and had lived a life of pain and misery. In conclusion, Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" uses symbolism and dub meaning throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, inner conflict, discovering virtue in one's life, facing one's misfortunes, and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant to those of greater stature. Works Cited Gray, Thomas. "Elegy written in a country cemetery." Masters of British Literature, Vol. A.Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin JH Dettmar. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008. Print.