How does the form and structure of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" shape meaning? (I'm trying to access the form and structure AO2)

Known for his
juxtaposition of established forms and novel sentiments, the energetic poetcombines with great
skill the Neoclassical style of his own century with the Romantic ideals of the next in his
"." 

Like the great poets of his age, Thomas Gray has composed his
elegiac poem in Iambic Pentameter (4 unstressed/stressed syllables one after another) with a
rhyme scheme of abab. That is, the first line rhymes with the third line,
the second line rhymes with the last line of each stanza. This rhyme pattern is classic, and it
also follows the pattern of speech in English.

Stanzas of four lines of
Iambic Pentameter are known as "heroic quatrains." And, it is in writing these formal
heroic quatrains that Gray has juxtaposed Neoclassical form with Romantic sentiment as he
challenges the classical idea of anbeing only for men of greatness:

Some village Hampden that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his
fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell
guiltless of his country's blood.

Here in Stanza 15, with
allusions to great men, Gray suggests that the common man, who simply by the misfortune of his
social class may be unknown, yet in nature he may be as heroic and grand as Hampden, Milton, or
Cromwell. While writing in the "graveyard tradition" of creating anof pleasing
melancholy for his philosophical musings, Gray, nevertheless, modifies this form as he
"mutes" the more sensational images of owls, palls, hearses, and other such morose
images.

In addition, Gray extends his lofty praise of the elegy to Nature,
often praised by the Romantics. It is a nature which provides hope after death. "The
Epitaph" which follows challenges, too, the classical elegy that is lofty in form and tone
as Gray moves from the tightly written style of the formal to the free form of the Romantics,
expressing beautifully his "humble birth" and "melancholy" that have been
lifted by his friendship with Richard West. Now he lies in the repose of death in the
"bosom of his Father and his God," his grief bridged by friendship and Nature. Thus,
by challenging the form and structure of the classical elegy, Thomas Gray extends heroic
grandeur to the farmer and the villager, who possess natures as noble as those of Milton and
others; similarly, Gray uses the epitaph to combine the lofty form of the classical with theand
sublime thought of the Romantics as Nature provides its solace to "his
frailties."