DOCSLIB.ORG

Unit 6 Thomas Gray

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Unit 6 Thomas Gray UNIT 6 THOMAS GRAY Structure \ 6.0 objectives 6.1 Introduction , 6.2 Thomas Gray 6.3 Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard 6.3.1 Text 6.3.2 Interpretation 6.3.3 Poetic Devices 6.4 Let Us Sum Up 5.5 Anwers to Exercises 6.0 OBJECTIVES In this unit on Thomas Gray, you will read one of his well-known poems Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard. Gray wrote this poem towards the second half of the 18th century. Gray's poetry marks the transition from the neo-classical poetry of Pope and Dryden and looks forward to the advent of Romantic poetry of Wordsworth and other poets of the 19tn century. At the end of your study of this unit, you will be able to : i) discuss Gray's Elegy in detail ' ' ii) identify the Ptrains of classicism and' romanticism in Gray's Elegiand iii) appreciate the poetic techniques used in the Elegy. 6.1 INTRODUCTION - In Unit 3 of this block you studied Milton's Lycidas as a pastoral elegy. In this unit we shall discuss Thomas Gray's Elegy as a poem of transitional period and thereby identify both the strains of Romanticism and Classicism in his poetry. In the course of your study of Gray's Elegy you will also notice that it is an elegy with a difference in the sense that he does not mourn the death of a specific person. It partakes of elegiac characteristics through its concern with the frailty of human life in the :ontext of death. We shall also discuss features of landscape poetry which emphasised death, graveyard and gloom. We would like you to first read the poem. Then you'should read it again, with the help of interpretation of lines and words given in 6.3.2. After you have followed the interpretation, read the note on poetic devices in 6.3.4. After you have read and understood the poem and critical comments, write down the answers to the exercises. Your answers should then be checked with the answers given by us at the edof the unit. 6.2 THOMAS GRAY I I THOMAS GRAY Thomas Gray ($7 16-177 1) began his career as a poet by writing Latip verses. Later he turned :26 . - ... -. -. -. -. Distant Prospect of Eton College. With the exception of the Elegy (published in 1751), Thomas Gray Gray's poetry can be broadly categorised into two groups : i) poetry which grew out of his interest in medieval literature and history (for e.g. The Progress of Poesy and The Barn) and written in the form of Pindaric odes with an elaborate classical metric form and ii) poetry which was realistic and contemporary in form and mood (for e.g. Ode On The Death of a Favourite Cat).Gray was also a remarkable letter-writer and his correspondence is one of the four or five finest in English language. 6.3 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD Gray's Elegy can be related to two of the distinct poetic traditions of the first half of the 18th century, namely the Elegy &d Landscape Poetry. In Unit 3, you studied Milton's Lycidas as a pastoral elegy. Gray was influenced by Lyci&s and he introduces ethical and philosophical discussions in his poem. The poem also partakes of certain features of Landscape poetry that include the use of a scene oflhe countryside (churchyard) to embody the poet's philosophic reflections. Gray's Elegy alternates between description and reflection and this sets a pattern and contributes to the basic structure of the pem. Frank H. Ellis in his essay on Gray's Elegy has given the following analysis of the poem: Lines 1-16 Description of the churchyard 17-76 Reflections on the scene a) 17-28 The rural life which the dead no longer enjoy. b) 29-44 Admonition to the 'proud' not to mock the poor people's graves C) 45-76 Opportunities for good as well as possibilities for evil are denied to the poor. 77-84 Description of the gravestones in the country churchyard 85-92 Reflections on the psychology of dying 93-1 1 1 Description of the stone cutter - his life and death 1 12-126 Reflections on the stone cutter - the Epitaph. 6.3.1 Text Now let us read Gray's 'ElegyWritten in a Country Churchyard' THE curfew tolls the knell of pafting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. The ploughman\ homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheelghis droning flight, ' And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower -The moping owl does to the moon compiain 'Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade - '@here heaves the turf in many a mouldeting heap, ,jEachuinhis narrow cell for ever laid. 'The rir& Forefathers of the hamlet sleep, c 16 27 Understanding Poetry The breeezy call of incense-breathing mom, The swallow twittering from the straw built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall bum Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickly yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke! How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy storke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the Poor. I The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:- The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthemswells the note of praise. Can storied urn or anihated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem df purest.ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of.ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 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. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, ' The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. And read their history in a nation's eyes Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone Their growing vimes, but theircrimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, Thomas Gray And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. * Yet e'en these bones from idsult to protect Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. ~bf.thee,who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Spme kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,- Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn i Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. One morn 1 miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; The next with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,- Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn Understanding Poetry The Epitaph Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Note on Thomas Gray's Elegy
    A NOTE ON THOMAS GRAY'S ELEG Y By CHUJI MIYASHITA* I Reading Thomas Gray's poems and letters in chronological order,1 when I came to the Elegy written in a Country Church- Ya7~d (1751), I was deeply impressed that something that had been long troubling him in the innermost part of his mind was finally settled when he wrote the poem. What was the something that troubled him ? What sufferings did the Elegy settle ? Needless to say the Elegy is one of the most important works in eighteenth century English literature. There is no history of English literature that does not make any comment on the poem, and we have a number of critical essays and monographs on it. Yet most of the literary historians, though understanding the importance of the poem in the history of English poetry, stop explaining their appreciation and criticism halfway. They admire the fine descriptions of the English evening scene, the feeling towards the fate of death common to all people, the grand style with its dignified and sonorous rhythm of iambic pentameter and apt imageries ; then they turn their attention to the melancholic emotion implied in the poem, and to the democratic thought hinted in the notion that death falls on everybody, rich and poor, high and low, which prematurely reflects the transition of thought in the English society at the time ; until at last they almost unanimously go back to the famous observation of Dr. Johnson : "In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader ; for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtlety and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical hon- ours.
    [Show full text]
  • Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” Sophie Condon University of Edinburgh United Kingdom
    The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 3 2009 The iS gnificance of the Sublime in Thomas Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” Sophie Condon University of Edinburgh United Kingdom Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Condon, Sophie (2009) "The iS gnificance of the Sublime in Thomas Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”," The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol11/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The iS gnificance of the Sublime in Thomas Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” Keywords Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Sublime This article is available in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol11/iss1/3 The Significance of the Sublime in Thomas Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” Sophie Condon University of Edinburgh United Kingdom he Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, Tin reference to Longinus’ description, defines the “sublime” as a “terrifyingly impressive natural phenomen[on]” (Baldick 248).
    [Show full text]
  • Pre-Romantics & Romantics
    Biyani's Think Tank Concept based notes Pre-Romantics & Romantics [MA Prev] Paper-III Ms Abeer Mathur Department of Arts Biyani Girls College, Jaipur 2 Published by : Think Tanks Biyani Group of Colleges Concept & Copyright : Biyani Shikshan Samiti Sector-3, Vidhyadhar Nagar, Jaipur-302 023 (Rajasthan) Ph : 0141-2338371, 2338591-95 Fax : 0141-2338007 E-mail : [email protected] Website :www.gurukpo.com; www.biyanicolleges.org Edition : 2013 Price : While every effort is taken to avoid errors or omissions in this Publication, any mistake or omission that may have crept in is not intentional. It may be taken note of that neither the publisher nor the author will be responsible for any damage or loss of any kind arising to anyone in any manner on account of such errors and omissions. Leaser Type Setted by : Biyani College Printing Department For free study notes log on: www.gurukpo.com PreRomantics and Romantics 3 Preface I am glad to present this book, especially designed to serve the needs of the students. The book has been written keeping in mind the general weakness in understanding the fundamental concept of the topic. The book is self-explanatory and adopts the “Teach Yourself” style. It is based on question-Ans.wer pattern. The language of book is quite easy and understandable based on scientific approach. Any further improvement in the contents of the book by making corrections, omission and inclusion is keen to be achieved based on suggestions from the reader for which the author shall be obliged. I acknowledge special thanks to Mr. Rajeev Biyani, Chairman & Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry 3 Student Sample
    Contents How to Use This Study Guide with the Text & Literature Notebook ........5 Notes & Instructions to Student ..........................................................................................7 Taking With Us What Matters .............................................................................................9 Four Stages to the Central One Idea ..............................................................................13 How to Mark a Book................................................................................................................18 ROMANTIC ERA Introduction ................................................................................................... 22 Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ...................................................... 23 William Blake The Tyger ....................................................................................................... 27 Piping Down the Valleys Wild ...................................................................... 31 The Lamb ....................................................................................................... 32 Robert Burns A Red, Red Rose ............................................................................................ 33 A Man's a Man for A' That .......................................................................... 36 To a Mouse .................................................................................................... 39 Highland Mary .............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
    B.A.II (Opt. Eng.), Semester III Study of Poetry: Sonnet & Elegy, Paper No. V Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, And froze the genial current of the soul. The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 55 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, The little Tyrant of his fields withstood; And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s 60 The moping owl does to the moon complain 10 blood. Of such, as wandering near her secret bower, The applause of listening senates to command, Molest her ancient solitary reign. The threats of pain and ruin to despise, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade, To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering And read their history in a nation’s eyes, heap, Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone 65 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 15 Their growing virtues, but their crimes The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
    [Show full text]
  • The Way to Otranto: Gothic Elements
    THE WAY TO OTRANTO: GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH POETRY, 1717-1762 Vahe Saraoorian A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 1970 ii ABSTRACT Although full-length studies have been written about the Gothic novel, no one has undertaken a similar study of poetry, which, if it may not be called "Gothic," surely contains Gothic elements. By examining Gothic elements in eighteenth-century poetry, we can trace through it the background to Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel. The evolutionary aspect of the term "Gothic" itself in eighteenth-century criticism was pronounced, yet its various meanings were often related. To the early graveyard poets it was generally associated with the barbarous and uncouth, but to Walpole, writing in the second half of the century, the Gothic was also a source of inspiration and enlightenment. Nevertheless, the Gothic was most frequently associated with the supernatural. Gothic elements were used in the work of the leading eighteenth-century poets. Though an age not often thought remark­ able for its poetic expression, it was an age which clearly exploited the taste for Gothicism, Alexander Pope, Thomas Parnell, Edward Young, Robert Blair, Thomas and Joseph Warton, William Collins, Thomas Gray, and James Macpherson, the nine poets studied, all expressed notes of Gothicism in their poetry. Each poet con­ tributed to the rising taste for Gothicism. Alexander Pope, whose influence on Walpole was considerable, was the first poet of significance in the eighteenth century to write a "Gothic" poem.
    [Show full text]
  • The Trope of Exceptionality
    “SAVE WHERE . .”: THE TROPE OF EXCEPTIONALITY BY ERIK GRAY Near the beginning of his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray introduces a poetic formulation so simple yet so effective that it became a standard trope, both of loco-descriptive poetry and, later, of high-Romantic subjective poetry. In Gray’s poem it appears twice in quick succession. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.1 The poet makes a blanket statement (All is dark and still), followed by a specific, vivid exception: “Save where . .” The formula is so straightforward that it may seem strange to offer to trace its popularity to a single source, but the evidence is undeniable. A search of English poetry in the two and a half centuries before the elegy (written c.1746, published 1751) yields a half-dozen instances of the phrase “save where”; between 1751 and 1830, there were over two hundred. Gray certainly did not invent the trope: it had appeared already in the previous century. Several of Gray’s contemporaries, moreover, used the same formula in their own descriptions of evening, which may well have contributed to the trope’s subsequent dissemination.2 But it was almost certainly Gray’s elegy, which became famous immediately upon its publication and quickly achieved the status of a classic, that gave the device its remarkable popularity.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
    20 NOT QUITE A RECLUSE THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771) here could hardly be a greater contrast to the gregarious, philosophical, bawdy, ten- Tder-hearted and usually happy novelist Laurence Sterne than the austere, solitary, brood- ing, forlorn poet Thomas Gray. Yet despite his melancholy temperament, there are two joyous high points in Gray’s correspondence as well as a final low point of emotional desolation. As a youth, Gray is a member of a “Quadruple Alliance” of intimate friends at Eton; the other three are Thomas Ashton, Richard West, and the Prime Minister’s son, Horace Walpole. Gray and West go up to Cambridge in 1734, a year before the younger Walpole. In letters to the latter touched with the humour of bantering schoolfellows yet shot through with mel- ancholy, Gray castigates a university where “The Masters of Colleges are twelve grey-haired gentlefolks, who are all mad with pride; the Fellows are sleepy, drunken, dull, illiterate things; the Fellow-Commoners are imita- tors of the Fellows, or else beaux, or else nothing.” To his dismay, the instruction is not in the Greek and Roman poetry Gray has learnt at Eton to love, but in philosophy and mathematics. “I have made such a wonderful progress in philosophy,” he announces, “that I be- gin to be quite persuaded that black is white, & that fire will not burn … they tell me too, that I am nothing in the world, & that I only fancy, I exist.” Proceeding to Oxford, West finds himself in no better plight, his university being “a country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are equally unknown.” Gray’s social discomfort is acute: “do but imag- ine me,” he adjures Walpole, “pent up in a room hired for the purpose, & none of the largest, from 7 o’clock at night, till 4 in the morning! ’midst hogsheads of liquor & quantities of tobacco, surrounded by 30 of these creatures infinitely below the meanest people you could even form an idea of.” He yearns for Walpole to join him and enviously reads the account of plays, operas and masquerades his friend enjoys during a visit to London.
    [Show full text]
  • Page 1 of 22 GIS, Texts, and Images: New Approaches. © Ian Gregory
    Poetess Archive Journal 2.1 (20 December 2010) GIS, Texts, and Images: New approaches. © Ian Gregory* and David Cooper** 2010 Slide 1: Title page Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have become widely accepted in historical research, and there are increasing calls for them to be used in disciplines further across the humanities. The difficulty is, however, that GIS comes from a quantitative, social science paradigm that is frequently not well suited to the kinds of sources that are widely used in the humanities. The challenge for GIS, if it is to become a widely used tool within the humanities, is thus two-fold. First, approaches need to be developed that allow humanities sources to be used within a data model that is usable by GIS. Second, and more importantly, researchers need to demonstrate that by using GIS they can make significant new and substantive contributions to knowledge within humanities disciplines such as Literary Studies. This paper explores both of these questions focussing primarily on cultural representations of the English Lake District but also looking at seventeenth century newsbooks published in London. Slide 2: What is GIS? Page 1 of 22 Poetess Archive Journal 2.1 (20 December 2010) Slide 2 shows a ‘traditional’ GIS database as used in historical research. It takes mortality data from the 1900s. These data are in tabular form: each row refers to a particular place for which there are columns of mainly numeric data providing information about that place. What makes a GIS different from a conventional database is that in the GIS each row of data is linked to a map-based representation of where that place is, in this case in the form of ‘polygons’ – areas that represent the districts of the time.
    [Show full text]
  • 1002773566-Sosbee.Pdf
    Wo.I9 "A GRACE BEYOND THE REACH OF ART:" A STUDY OF THE LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES UPON THOMAS GRAY AND HIS ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Geral W. Sosbee, B. A. Denton, Texas December, 1974 Sosbee, Geral W., A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art: A Study of the Literary and Biographical Influences Upon Thomas Gray and His Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Master of Arts (English), December, 1974, 49 pp., bibliography, 29 titles. This study focuses on the poetic temperament of Thomas Gray and considers his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard as representative of a change in sensibility which took place roughly in the last half of the eighteenth century. The first chapter considers the literary and biographical influences on the author's changing aesthetic sensibility. The second chapter concerns the early life and education of Gray and his friendship with Walpole and West. The third chapter is a study of the Elegy itself and how it represents the poetic and aesthetic ideas of the author and the age in which he lived. In the concluding chapter Gray is considered as a transitional figure whose work embodies unresolved tensions between the Neoclassic and the Romantic. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: GRAY AS A TRANSITIONAL FIGURE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1 II. GRAY: THE MAN AND THE POET........... ... 8 III. GRAY'S INDEBTEDNESS AND CONTRIBUTION TO THE AESTHETIC IDEAS OF HIS AGE..........
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 10 Thomas Gray: Elegy Written in a Country
    Samuel Johnson: The Vanity UNIT 10 THOMAS GRAY: ELEGY of Human Wishes WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD Structure 10.0 Objectives 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Thomas Gray (1716-71) 10.3 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD (1749) 10.4 Let Us Sum Up 10.5 Suggested Reading 10.6 Answers to Self-Check Exercises 10.0 OBJECTIVES The aim of this unit is to analyze and explicate Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyardin thebiographical, historical and literary perspective. The unit will also discover how far Gray’s Elegyreflects the first rumblings of Romanticism through the choices the poet makes regarding the selection and treatment of his theme in this poem. 10.1 INTRODUCTION This unit will begin with providing some brief biographical information about Thomas Gray, paying special attention to the important poems he wrote during his literary career. And then the unit will come straight to examine Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyardand bring out the special literary merits of the poem. The discussion of the poem will be based entirely on selected extracts from the poem, and an attempt will be made to see how far the Elegy reveals Romantic features which are later built on by William Wordsworth and other Romantic poets. 10.2 THOMAS GRAY (1716-71) Thomas Gray, the sole survivor of twelve children, a man of poor physique himself, was born in Cornhill, London in 1716. His father, a scrivener, was mentally unbalanced, and Gray was brought up by his mother who sent him to Eton where he made friends with Horace Walpole.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Transcript
    Poetry & Remembrance: Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Transcript Date: Tuesday, 14 April 2015 - 6:00PM Location: Museum of London 14 April 2015 Poetry and Remembrance: Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Professor Belinda Jack Good evening and welcome. For those who haven’t been before, this is eleventh of a series of sixteen lectures on ‘the mysteries of reading and writing’. In the first six I explored reading as an activity, its history and how the manner in which we red and what we read has changed over time. I then gave four lectures on the novel as a genre, a peculiarly ‘baggy’ genre into which all sorts of human experience and ideas can be bundled. We considered various themes in relation to the four novels – morality, political history, idealism and human psychology. Tonight I will be giving the first of four lectures on poetry. Unlike the language of prose, the language of poetry is endlessly flexible. Prose is generally grammatically correct whereas poetry can break all the rules. Prose is linear – words make sense read across the page from left to right. In poetry, techniques like rhyme create links within lines or between lines – in the case of terminal rhymes. So tonight we embark on an exploration of Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ asking two seemingly simple questions: ‘In what sense is the elegy about ‘remembering’ and ‘remembrance’, and why is it deemed such a great poem?’ Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, Londonon December 26, 1716. His father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener here in the City of London (arranging for the loan of money to others) and his mother, Dorothy Antrobus, was a milliner.
    [Show full text]