An Analysis Of Let Not Ambition By Henry Gray

Register to read the introduction… By personifying ambition he is referring the desire of people to succeed in life and gain wealth; which he continues to bring forth when he personifies “Grandeur” by stating, “Nor Grandeur hear, with disdainful smile” (33). Referring to people who have wealth and power looking down upon the “short and simple annals of the poor” living. Overall Gray wants it to be known that those buried in the Country Churchyard were people who had very little to sustain life but they were happy and loved. Although they were not rich and will have glorious tales told about them like the wealthy of their time they still had their “homely joys” and will be remembered by their families and friends for the people they once were before they passed away. Gray continues on in stanza nine with the same intention as he refers to the inherit abilities of those who are wealthy by “hearaldy” which means their wealth can be traced back through many generations. He goes on to say that “All that beauty, all that wealth e’er grave,/ Awits alike th’inevitable hour./ The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”(33-36). Meaning no matter how much wealth one possesses none of it can travel with you beyond the world. Their “paths of glory” lead them to their grave just as any ordinary man living his life in poverty life would lead him to his grave. Gray is suggesting in stanza nine that people not look down upon the ordinary man because at death we are all one in the same, corpuses deteriorating from the material world.
In stanza ten Gray personifies “Proud” and “Mem’ry” to show the measures in the which the wealthy will ensure that they are still glorified with grave tombstones. He states, …show more content…
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Masters of British Literature, vol. A.
Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008.