hitherto had not been common in elegies, though James Hammond's "Love
Elegies" (1743) had used it and won acclaim. But the heroic
(hendecasyllabic) quatrain was regarded in general as too lofty,
stately, cool, for elegy. For the universal aspect of Gray's lament,
however, it was highly apt as compared with the less majestic
octosyllabic line, hitherto normal in this genre. For years after
Gray's great success, however, most elegies, if in quatrain form,
followed Gray's quatrain in manner, whether or not their subjects
demanded the stately line.

The reasons why Gray is almost a poet of only one poem are not far to
seek. He did not covet applause, and apart from melancholy his own
emotions were too private to be published. In the "Elegy" he is true
to himself and to the spirit of his age--perhaps of most ages. When he
sought for material outside of his own experience, he went curiously
to books, and was captivated by the "récherché." He was also caught by
the rising cult of sublimity in his two great pindaric odes, and by
the cult of the picturesque in his flirtations with Scandinavian
materials. In these later poems he broadened the field of poetic
material notably; but in them he hardly deepened the imaginative or
emotional tone: his manner, rather, became elaborate and theatrical.
The "Elegy" is the language of the heart sincerely perfected.

The poem has pleased many and pleased long--throughout two centuries.
In part it works through "pleasing melancholy"; in part it appeals to
innumerable humble readers conscious of their own unheralded merit.
Inevitably, since the industrial revolution, modernist critics have
tended to stress its appeal to class consciousness. This appeal, real
though it is, can be overemphasized. The rude forefathers are not
primarily presented as underprivileged. Though poverty-stricken and