Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

"Lycidas" by John Milton (1638)

The father-poem of Gray’s elegy, Milton’s “Lycidas” establishes the pastoral tradition in English elegy. Milton wrote “Lycidas” for Edward King, his classmate at Cambridge who drowned on his way to Ireland. King wasn’t a shepherd; in fact, he was going to enter the clergy, but Milton pretends he and King were both shepherd/poets in this elegy. Milton’s elegy has so much sway that nowadays the pastoral elegy and elegy are more or less synonymous in English poetry.  

"Sonnet [On the Death of Richard West]" by Thomas Gray (1775) 

Gray wrote this sonnet in 1742—the year his friend died—although it wasn’t published until much later. This poem has a similar rhyme scheme to “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and includes pastoral fields, but it’s not as expansive, ambitious, or original as “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” 

"Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821) 

This elegy for a fellow poet picks up on the genre tradition Milton started and the formal tradition begun by Gray. In other words, “Adonais” includes all the content elements of Milton’s poem (including a call back to an earlier Greek poem, a pastoral