analysis eassy on Elegy Writte

Thomas Gray and William Cullen Bryant both chose to write about nature and death being intertwined. Since Thomas Gray lived in a time of social injustice, he chose to use death to illustrate the problems inherent in a socially stratified society. William Cullen Bryant, on the other hand, lived in a rapidly expanding young nation that cherished the vast amounts of untouched nature and he used death to illustrate how man fits into the universal …

…a fleeting acknowledgment. Because Bryant studied Gray, he learned that nature and her omniscient voice has a positive effect on one's life. Since all men rest in the same tomb, death creates an equality that man can only dream of achieving in life. They also both believed that man's body mixes with the earth and all the other creatures of God. Only by evaluating nature's importance in our lives can we fully appreciate her splendor.