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"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

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The curfew tolls the knell of parting 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.

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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;

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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.

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Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,


Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

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The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,


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.

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For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,


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.

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Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,


Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

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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.

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The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,


And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

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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 anthem swells the note of praise.

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Can storied urn or animated 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?

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Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid


Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

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Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,


Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

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But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page


Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

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Full many a gem of purest ray serene,


The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

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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.

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The applause of listening 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,

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Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone


Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

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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.

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Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,


Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

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Yet even these bones from insult to protect


Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

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Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse,


The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

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For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,


This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

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On some fond breast the parting soul relies,


Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

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For thee, who mindful of the unhonoured dead


Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

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Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

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Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,


"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

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"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech


That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

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"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,


Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

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"One morn I missed him on the customed 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;

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"The next with dirges due in sad array


Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay,
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
The Epitaph

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Here rests his head upon the lap of earth


A youth to fortune and to fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

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Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,


Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

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No farther seek his merits to disclose,


Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

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Gray's annotations
1 [tolls]
[Era gia l' ora, che volge 'l disio
A' naviganti, e 'ntenerisce 'l cuore
Lo di ch' han detto a' dolci amici addio:
E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore
Punge, se ode] squilla di lontano
Che paia 'l giorno pianger, che si muore.
[(It was already the hour which turns back the desire
Of the sailors, and melts their hearts,

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The day that they have said good-bye to their sweet friends,
And which pierces the new pilgrim with love,
If he hears) from afar the bell
Which seems to mourn the dying day.]
Dante. Purgat. l. 8. [Canto 8 lines i-vi.]
92 Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
Fredda una lingua, & due begli occhi chiusi
Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville.
[For I see in my thoughts, my sweet fire,
One cold tongue, and two beautiful closed eyes
Will remain full of sparks after our death.]
Petrarch. Son. 169. [170 in usual enumeration]
127 paventosa speme. [ fearful hope]
Petrarch. Son. 114. [115 in usual enumeration]
http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc#128
The early years (1716-1741)
Thomas Gray was born on 26 December 1716 at 41 Cornhill, London, near St Michael's Church, in what
was then a small milliner's shop kept by his mother. He was the fifth and only surviving child of twelve
children born to Dorothy (1685-1753) and Philip Gray (1676-1741). His father Philip, a "money-scrivener" in
the City of London by profession, had married his mother Dorothy, whose maiden name was Antrobus, in
1709, and lived with her in the Cornhill house. Dorothy, originally from a Buckinghamshire family, kept the
small shop with her elder sister Mary (1683-1749), but the premises belonged to her husband Philip and
the two women had to support themselves and the children by its profits. The marriage was an unhappy
one, and Thomas had a troubled childhood because of his father's harsh treatment of his mother. It was at
Dorothy's expense that Thomas was removed from this unhealthy home environment to Eton College in
1725, where his maternal uncle Robert (1679-1729) who was at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and then assistant
master at Eton, took care of the boy and his education. Dorothy's other brother William (1688-1742) was at
King's College, Cambridge, and also an assistant master at Eton.
From 1725 to 1734 Gray attended Eton College, located opposite Windsor Castle on the other side of the
Thames. Although Thomas was a studious and literary boy who took little part in the boyish amusements
of his class-mates, he was extremely happy there. His closest, like-minded friends at Eton were Horace
Walpole (1717-97), the son of prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, Richard West (1716-42), whose father was
a Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Thomas Ashton (1715-1775). Together the precociously intelligent and
sensitive boys formed the "quadruple alliance" (Walpole), a friendship cemented by their common
temperaments and intellectual tastes. They gave themselves nicknames taken from poetry and mythology,
Gray was "Orozmades", Walpole was "Celadon", West was "Favonius" or "Zephyrus", and Ashton was
"Almanzor". They delved into the romantic atmosphere of the place, and this friendship profoundly
affected Gray's entire life. Less intimate Etonian friends were Jacob Bryant and Richard Stonhewer (17281809) who maintained friendly relations with Gray till the last. The influence of Eton, with its beauty and its
ancient traditions, remained with Gray throughout life. His antiquarian interests, which are central in many
of his works, and which he always was to follow passionately, were first roused here. All four young men
completed their early education at the normal pace.
In October 1734 Gray matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Ashton had entered King's College in August
1734, Walpole would join him there in March 1735, while West, alone of the four, was sent to Christ Church,
Oxford in May of the same year. Gray's habits at Cambridge, as at Eton, were studious and reflective, he
studied Virgil and began to write Latin verse. Walpole and Gray kept up a correspondence with West,
communicating poems, and occasionally writing in French and Latin. All three contributed to a volume of
hymeneals on the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, published as Gratulatio in 1736. Gray also wrote
at college the Tripos verses "Luna Habitabilis", published in the Musae Etonenses. Gray made at this time
the firmest and and most constant friendship of his life with Thomas Wharton (1717-94), then pensioner of
Pembroke College, Cambridge, who would in time become a doctor. Apart from a few humorous lines and

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translations, Gray had not yet composed any serious English poetry. Gray did not graduate at the normal
time, and though he studied hard, it seems the regular studies of the place were entirely uncongenial to
him. He particularly disliked mathematics and cared little about philosophy, but he read Greek, Latin,
French, and Italian voraciously, studied medieval history, architecture, natural history, and was interested
in such subjects as entomology and botany. His poems are full of reminiscences of other languages and
other literatures, living and dead. Gray studied for himself alone, and scarcely anything remains, apart
from a vast accumulation of notes, to attest to his profound and varied scholarship. Gray left Peterhouse in
1738 without having taken a degree, and passed some months at his father's house in Cornhill, probably
intending to study law at the Inner Temple to which he had been admitted as early as 1735. Yet Gray was
in no haste to begin his studies. He had inherited a modest property from his paternal aunt Sarah (16781736), and enjoyed relative financial freedom.
In 1738 Walpole, who had already been appointed to some sinecure office, invited Gray to accompany him
on the Grand Tour. Of course, Gray who had a confessed passion for French, Italian and classical culture
accepted. On 29 March, 1739, they set out on the prolonged continental tour. They spent the remainder of
that year in France, and crossed the Alps in November. It is typical of the scholarly bent of his mind that he
studied the De Bello Gallico as he travelled through France. Livy and Silius Italicus accompanied him as he
crossed the Alps later. In Paris Gray cultivated a taste for the French classical dramatists, especially Racine,
whom he afterwards tried to imitate in the fragmentary tragedy in blank verse Agrippina. They also visited
Versailles and the small town of Reims, before they travelled south towards Lyon and Geneva. The whole of
1740 was passed in Italy. Gray had already learned Italian and made translations from Dante, Guarini, and
Tasso. Gray made a long sojourn, principally at Florence, but Rome, Naples, and Herculaneum are also
described in his letters. The spring months were spent with Horace Mann, the British minister at Florence,
afterwards Walpole's well-known correspondent. In Florence Gray busied himself with a long work called
De principiis cogitandi, which he never finished. Gray and Walpole returned to Florence from a visit to
Rome in August, and remained there until April 1741 when they set out northwards for Venice. At Reggio,
however, a quarrel took place, the precise circumstances of which are unknown. Obviously, both Walpole
and Gray developed in rather different directions both in their personalities and respective interests. They
parted in anger and were not reconciled until 1745. Gray spent a few weeks in Venice, and from there
returned home alone, visiting for the second time the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse in its sublime
scenery. He left in the album of the brotherhood his Alcaic Ode, O Tu, severi religio loci. Throughout his
years abroad Gray had been a careful sightseer, made notes in picture-galleries, visited churches, and
brushed up his classical associations. He observed, and afterwards advised (see his letter dated "Stoke,
Sept. 6, 1758" [letter id 321]), the judicious custom of always recording his impressions on the spot. Gray
had continued his studies abroad throughout his journey, and had acquired an intimate knowledge of
classical and modern art, but, at the age of 25, he had not yet prepared himself for any sort of career.
On his return to England in 1741, London was Gray's headquarters for almost a year. Shortly after Gray's
return, his father Philip died on 6 November 1741. Several letters addressed to him by his son during the
foreign tour show no signs of domestic alienation. On his return home, Gray had also found his friend
Richard West, troubled by family problems and personal failures, in declining health. West who was then
living in London had, in the meantime, undertaken the study of law. They renewed their personal and
scholarly companionship, which was a source of strength to Gray after his quarrel with Walpole. Gray
resumed his work on the unfinished and unstageable tragedy Agrippina, which was inspired by a
performance of Racine's Britannicus in Paris. As part of their literary intercourse, Gray submitted the
fragment to his friend. West's criticism, however, seems to have put an end to it. In the next couple of
years Gray spent his summers at Stoke Poges, near Slough in Buckinghamshire, to which his mother and
Mary Antrobus had retired from business in December 1742. The two women were joined by their sister
Anne (1676-1758), the widowed Mrs Rogers, whose husband Jonathan had been a retired attorney who had
lived in Burnham parish till his death in October 1742. The three sisters took a house together at West End,
Stoke Poges.
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The middle years (1742-1758)
The spring and summer of 1742 - the interval between his return from abroad and his establishment at
Cambridge - witnessed Gray's first and most prolific period of creative activity. The year was fruitful in
poetic effort, of which, however, much was incomplete. The Agrippina, the De principiis cogitandi, the
"Hymn to Ignorance" in which he contemplates his return to the University, remain fragments. But besides
the poems already mentioned, the sights and sounds of the Buckinghamshire countryside inspired him to
write the masque-like "Ode on the Spring", which he also sent to West. Shortly after this, he received news
of the death of West, aged only 25, to whom he had drawn closer since his estrangement from Walpole,
and who was indeed his only intimate friend. His sorrow and loneliness found expression in the poems
which now followed in close succession - the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", the "Ode to
Adversity", and the "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" were written before the close of the summer.
The emphasis in these poems is on loss, grief, affliction, and nostalgia . He also mourned West in some
lines added to the ambitious philosophical epic De principiis cogitandi. This passage was the culmination
and the close of his Latin writing. Gray was apparently dispirited by both his friendlessness and want of
prospects and departed once again for the familiar surroundings of Cambridge.
On 15 October 1742, after more than three years, Gray finally returned to to his old college of Peterhouse.
He took up residence as a fellow commoner in order to read for a degree of bachelor of laws, with a not
very serious intention of an eventual career at the bar. He proceeded to a degree of Bachelor of Civil Law
in 1743, but he preferred the study of Greek literature to that of either civil or common law. The next four
or five years he devoted to reading, his chief study being the literature and history of ancient Greece.
Cambridge was Gray's headquarters for the rest of his placid life as a don, but he took little interest in the
society of the place. Gray saw it largely barren of distinguished men and he had few acquaintances.
Among his Cambridge contemporaries was Wharton, who was a then resident and fellow of Pembroke till
his marriage in 1747. Wharton afterwards became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and in
1758 settled in his paternal house at Old Park, Durham, where he died in 1794. A later friend, William
Mason (1724-97), was at St John's College, Cambridge, where he attracted Gray's notice by some early
poems, and partly through Gray's influence was elected a fellow of Pembroke in 1749. He became an
admirer, disciple and imitator of Gray and was his literary executor. In 1754 he took Holy Orders and
moved to York. Gray occasionally visited Wharton and Mason at their homes, and maintained a steady
correspondence with both. Other acquaintances included John Clerke, a Fellow at Peterhouse, and Dr
Conyers Middleton, the University Librarian. Gray wrote the "[Epitaph on Mrs Clerke]" for his friend's dead
wife in 1758. In the summer Gray generally spent some time with his mother at Stoke Poges. His aunt,
Mary Antrobus, died there on 5 November 1749. His mother died on 11 March 1753, aged 67. He was
tenderly attached to her, and placed upon her tomb an inscription to the "careful tender mother of many
children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her."
The friendship with Horace Walpole had been renewed in 1745, at first with more courtesy than cordiality,
although they afterwards corresponded upon very friendly terms. Gray was often at Walpole's Strawberry
Hill estate at Twickenham, and made acquaintance with some of Walpole's friends, although he was
generally shy in society. Walpole admired Gray's poetry and did much to urge him to publicity. His first
publication was the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", written in 1742, which at Walpole's desire,
was published anonymously by Dodsley in the summer of 1747. In the following year he began his
unfinished poem on the "Alliance of Education and Government". In 1748 appeared the first three volumes
of Dodsley's collection, the second of which contained Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College",
the "Ode on the Spring", and the "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes",
one of Gray's most light-hearted poems in memory of Walpole's drowned pet cat, Selima. These poems
hold an important place in Gray's exceptionally small output of verse. The "Ode on the Spring" and the
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" in particular revealed his ease and felicity of expression, his
wistful melancholy, and the evocative powers he possessed. On the other hand not even his own century
could wholly applaud the abstractions and personifications which abound in the "Ode on a Distant Prospect
of Eton College" and the "Ode to Adversity". The poems met with little attention, and yet there must have

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been an awareness that a new poet had arrived on a scene lately impoverished by the death of Alexander
Pope (1688-1744).
Perhaps as early as 1742, perhaps at a later date, Gray embarked on a long meditative elegy in the
tradition of the Retirement Poem. The "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was composed over a long
period of time, it was probably taken up again in the winter of 1749, upon the death of his aunt Mary. The
poem, though immediately informed by the deaths both of West and of his aunt, in time turned into a
memento mori meditation on and lament for the inevitable fate of all human beings. Opinions will continue
to differ about the progress and the several stages of this poem's composition, but the work of polishing it
was very slow and it was certainly concluded at Stoke Poges, and it was sent to Walpole in a letter dated
12 June 1750 (letter id 173). Walpole admired it greatly, and showed it to various friends and
acquaintances in MS. Gray, however, would certainly not have published it even when he did, had he not
been forced to do so in self-defence. In February 1751 the publisher of the rather third-rate Magazine of
Magazines, who had chanced to obtain a copy, wrote to Gray that he was about to publish the "Elegy". In
order to forestall its piratical printing, Gray instantly wrote to Walpole to get the poem printed by Dodsley.
It was duly published, anonymously, on 15 February 1751. Its success was instantaneous and
overwhelming. It remains the most celebrated poem of its century, one of the most frequently quoted and
still one of the best-known English poems for its eloquent expression of "universal feelings". The poem
shows the tension and synthesis between Classicist and Romantic tendencies, and was admired by
generations to come. Alfred Lord Tennyson, a century later, spoke of its "divine truisms that make us
weep." It went through four editions in two months, and eleven in a short time, besides being imitated,
satirized, translated into many languages, and constantly pirated. The poem enjoyed an unusually wide
and comprehensive audience. Gray left all the profits to Dodsley, declining to accept payment for his
poems.
Walpole's admiration of the poem led to the one incident in Gray's biography which has a touch of
conventional romance. Walpole had shown the "Elegy" among others to Lady Cobham, widow of Sir
Richard Temple, afterwards Viscount Cobham, who was the grande dame of Stoke Poges and had come to
live in Stoke Manor House with her young niece and protegee Miss Henrietta Jane Speed (1728-1783). She
was a great admirer of the poem and persuaded Miss Speed and a Lady Schaub, who was staying with her,
to pay a visit to Gray at his mother's house. Not finding him at home they left a note, and the visit led to
an acquaintance and to Gray's poem "A Long Story", written in August 1750, celebrating their first
meeting. The poem is a delightful and fanciful example of Gray's humorous vein. A platonic affection
developed between him and the young woman of fashion, Miss Speed. Lady Cobham died in April 1760,
leaving 20l. for a mourning-ring to Gray and 30,000l. to Miss Speed. Some vague rumours, which Gray
mentions with indifference, pointed to a match between the poet and the heiress. They were together at
Park Place, Henley, in the summer, where Gray's spirits were worn by the company of "a pack of women".
In November 1761 Miss Speed married the Baron de la Perriere, son of the Sardinian minister, and went to
live with her husband on the family estate of Viry in Savoy, on the lake of Geneva. This sole suggestion of a
conventional romance in Gray's life is of the most shadowy kind, he never married. Gray's erotic and
possibly sexual ambivalence has in fact long been neglected by scholarship. Only recently have scholars
focused on the apparent homoeroticism in his poems and letters.
Another outcome of the summer of the "Elegy" was the publication in 1753 of the first authorized collected
edition of Gray's poems, except for the sonnet on the death of West. At this time Richard Bentley (17081782), the son of the master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, was on intimate terms with Walpole. He made
remarkable drawings or illustrations of Gray's poems, by which Gray himself was delighted. Gray's
modesty and reluctance to appear as a public poet is reflected in the title: in March 1753 appeared
Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray in a handsome volume published by Dodsley. The
poems included those already published, the "Ode on the Spring", the "Ode on the Death of a Favourite
Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes", the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", the "Elegy", and,
for the first time, "A Long Story" and the "Ode to Adversity". A portrait of Gray is introduced in the

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frontispiece and in the design for "A Long Story", where are also Miss Speed and Lady Schaub. Gray
withdrew the poem from later editions of his works, considering it too private for the public.
Through these years Gray had been living quietly at Peterhouse, reading, studying, taking short summer
tours about England, cultivating his modest circle of friends and writing his admirable letters. He took no
part in university or college business, but simply resided in college as a gentleman of leisure and taking
advantage of the intellectual amenities of a university. Gray was in possession of the small fortune left by
his father, which was sufficient for his wants. Nor did the new-found celebrity make the smallest difference
to the habits or the social pattern of his daily life. His health, however, was weakening. After a visit in 1755
to his and Walpole's friend, Chute, in Hampshire, he was taken ill and remained for many weeks laid up at
Stoke. In March 1756, he moved from Peterhouse across the street to Pembroke Hall. According to Gray, he
had been repeatedly vexed by riotous fellow commoners at Peterhouse. At Pembroke, he occupied rooms
in a corner of a court which came to be known as Ivy Court.
By the year 1752 Gray was beginning his Pindaric Odes. Already in 1752 he had almost completed "The
Progress of Poesy" in which, and in "The Bard", the imagery is largely furnished forth by Gray's early
romantic love of wild and rugged landscape, mountain and torrent. On 26 December 1754, aged 38, he
sent the "Progress of Poesy" to Thomas Wharton. Walpole was setting up his printing-press at Strawberry
Hill, and begged Gray to let him begin with the two odes as the first-fruits of the press. They were
accordingly printed and were published by Dodsley in August 1757. The book contained only the "Progress
of Poesy" and "The Bard" in a slender volume. "The Bard" was partly written in the first three months of
1755, and finished in May 1757, when Gray was stimulated by some concerts given at Cambridge by John
Parry, the blind harper. The poems themselves were odes in the strict Pindaric form, and Gray intended
that they, and not the celebrated "Elegy", should form the crown of his achievement. In "The Progress of
Poesy" he set himself to glorify the poet's high calling with every adornment of rhetoric and eloquence. In
"The Bard" he chose the genre of the historical poem to depict a traditional episode during the final
conquest of Wales. Unlike the rather private "A Long Story" or even the "Elegy", both poems were very
much intended for a public audience.
The odes met with a mixed reception, they were warmly praised and much discussed as well as criticized.
Goldsmith reviewed them in the Monthly Review, and Warburton and Garrick were enthusiastic. Gray was
rather vexed, however, by the general complaints about their obscurity, although he took very goodnaturedly the parodies published in 1760 by Colman and Lloyd, called "An Ode to Obscurity" and "An Ode
to Oblivion". According to Mason, Gray meant his bard to declare that poets should never be wanting to
denounce vice in spite of tyrants. The odes are clear examples of Gray's adherence to a patriotic and
Whiggish programme of national freedom and eminence. Unquestionably they are difficult poems, and
were still more difficult without the aid of the footnotes which Gray refused to provide in the original
edition. The majority of his contemporaries remained perplexed. The poems are full of metaphor, rhetoric,
veiled allusion, and rhapsody. Gray, of course, remarked that "[t]he language of the age is never the
language of poetry" (letter to Richard West, 8 April 1742), and his poetry has been the subject of much
critical debate on poetic diction. Though the odes did not attain the popularity of the "Elegy", they marked
an epoch in the history of English poetry. Gray yielded to the impulse of the Romantic movement, he had
long been an admirer of ballad poetry.
Small as the amount of Gray's poetical work had been he was recognized as one of the greatest living
poets. In December 1757 Lord John Cavendish, an admirer of the Odes, induced his brother, the Duke of
Devonshire, who was Lord Chamberlain, to offer the Laureateship, vacated by Cibber's death, to Gray.
Gray, however, shunned publicity and wisely declined it, knowing the Laureateship had become a farcical
post. Consequently, William Whitehead held the post from 1757-85. In September 1758 Gray's aunt, Mrs.
Rogers, with whom his paternal aunt, Mrs. Olliffe, had resided since his mother's death, died, leaving Gray
and Mrs. Olliffe executors. Stoke Poges now ceased to be in any sense a home. When at the beginning of
1759 the British Museum first opened, Gray settled in London in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, to study

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in the reading-room almost daily. He did not return to Cambridge except for flying visits until the summer
of 1761.
Top of page | Bottom of page
The later years (1759-1771)
The reception and criticisms of the two Pindaric odes accelerated Gray's movement away from public
critical debate, and thereafter he virtually ceased to write original poetry. He devoted himself even more
completely to private study, especially in English antiquities and in natural history. He greatly admired the
productions which James Macpherson published as Fragments of Ancient Poetry (Ossian) in 1760, and
made investigations of his own into the Celtic and Scandinavian past. Before he wrote "The Bard" he had
begun to study Scandinavian literature, and the two "Norse Odes", finished in 1761, were in style and
metrical form strangely anticipative of Coleridge and Scott. The Specimens of Welsh Poetry, published by
Evans in 1764, suggested the later fragments. Gray states also that he intended these imitations to be
introduced in his projected "History of English Poetry". He had long contemplated such a work, and made
some translations from Welsh and Icelandic originals for incorporation into it. "The Descent of Odin", "The
Fatal Sisters" and the rest were translations, by way of an intermediate Latin version, from Icelandic and
Welsh originals. He translated four fragments of varying length from the Welsh, of which "The Triumphs of
Owen" alone was published during his lifetime. Gray tended to limit the circulation of any such pieces to
his closest friends. They have their place in the history of the Romantic revival in England and indeed in
Europe, where Gray came to be widely read. His only other writings during this stretch of years (17571769) were occasional verses in a satirical vein. Most of these were destroyed by Mason after his death,
but two pieces, a political squib entitled "The Candidate" and the sombre and impressive lines "On L[or]d
H[olland']s Seat near M[argat]e, K[en]t", a villa built by Henry Fox on the North Foreland, have survived.
After his return to Cambridge in November 1761, Gray became attached to Norton Nicholls (1742-1809),
an undergraduate at Trinity Hall. Nicholls was ordained in 1767 and afterwards became rector of Lound and
Bradwell, Suffolk, and died in his house at Blundeston, near Lowestoft, 22 November 1809, aged 68. He
was an accomplished youth, and attracted Gray's attention by his knowledge of Dante. During Gray's later
years Nicholls was among his best friends, and he left some valuable "Reminiscences of Gray", and an
interesting correspondence with him.
During the last years of his life Gray became rather less sedentary in his habits, and went on several long
walking tours in place of the Buckinghamshire countryside he used to visit in previous years. Gray's
summer tours sometimes took him further afield than had previously been his custom. He visited various
picturesque districts of Great Britain, exploring great houses and ruined abbeys, noting and describing in
the spirit now of the poet, now of the art critic, now of the antiquary. In 1762 he travelled in Yorkshire and
Derbyshire. In autumn he travelled in the south of England, he went to Southampton and its
neighbourhood. In 1765 he made a tour in Scotland, visiting Killiecrankie and Blair Athol. He stayed for
some time at Glamis castle, where the poet and essayist James Beattie (1735-1803), Professor of Moral
Philosophy in the Marischal College, Aberdeen, came to pay him homage. He declined the doctor degree of
laws from Aberdeen, on the ground that he had not taken it at Cambridge. His most notable achievement
in this direction was his journey among the English lakes in 1769. His journal of the tour was fully published
by Mason in 1775, and contains remarkable descriptions of the "sublime" scenery, then beginning to be
visited by painters and men of taste, but not yet generally appreciated. Even in 1770, the year before his
death, he visited with his young friend Norton Nicholls "five of the most beautiful counties of the kingdom".
Some of Gray's finest letters date from this period.
In 1767 Dodsley proposed to republish his poems in a cheap form. Foulis, a Glasgow publisher, made a
similar proposal through Beattie at the same time. Both editions appeared in 1768, both contained the
same poems, including "The Fatal Sisters", "The Descent of Odin", and "The Triumphs of Owen", then first
published. Gray took no money, but accepted a present of books from Foulis. This edition of 1768, in which

Page | 10
Gray himself had a hand and for which he provided the much desired annotations, is the final revised
edition of the collected poems of Thomas Gray ("Ausgabe letzter Hand").
Gray had applied to Lord Bute for the professorship of history and modern languages at Cambridge,
founded by George I in 1724, and then vacant by the death of Hallett Turner in 1762. Lawrence Brockett,
however, was appointed in November of that year. Brockett was killed 24 July 1768 by a fall from his horse.
Gray's appointment was suggested by his old college friend Stonhewer, who was at that time secretary to
the Duke of Grafton. The Duke of Grafton immediately offered Gray the professorship, his warrant being
signed 28 July. Gray treated this office as a sinecure, although he had at first intended to deliver lectures
and was much disturbed in conscience by his failure to do so.
In April 1769 Gray had to show his gratitude to Grafton, who had been elected chancellor of the University,
by composing the customary "Installation Ode" to be set to music and sung at the elaborate ceremony of
his installation as chancellor of the University. The ode was set to music by J. Randall, the professor of
music at the University, performed at the Senate House on 1 July 1769, and printed by the University.
Since the ode celebrating and commemorating the occasion was to be set to music, it was designed in the
irregular form of a cantata, with sections of uneven lengths allotted to various soloists and to the chorus.
Gray had no personal acquaintance with Grafton and was much attacked and ridiculed for his praises of
this highly unpopular figure. Gray's final poetic accomplishment, often considered as a deliberate
counterpoint to and parody of his best-known work, may also be considered as his tribute of homage and
farewell to Cambridge.
Gray lived in great retirement in Cambridge; he did not dine in the college hall, and sightseers had to
watch for his appearance at the Rainbow coffee-house, where he went to order books from the circulating
library. His ill-health and nervous shyness made him a bad companion in general society, though he could
expand among his intimates. Late in 1769 Gray made the acquaintance of Charles Victor de Bonstetten
(1745-1832), an enthusiastic young Swiss nobleman, who had met Norton Nicholls at Bath in December
1769, and was by him introduced to Gray. Gray developed a deep devotion for him, probably the most
profound emotional experience of his life. Gray was fascinated by de Bonstetten, directed his studies for
several weeks and saw him daily. De Bonstetten left England at the end of March 1770. Gray accompanied
him to London, pointed out the "great Bear" Johnson in the street, and saw him into the Dover coach. He
promised to pay de Bonstetten a visit in Switzerland. De Bonstetten only remained a few months in
England, and Gray's letters after his departure reveal how intensely he felt their separation. Gray, indeed,
valued their friendship as highly as his earliest friendship with West and Walpole.
Gray's health, which was never robust, and of which he was overly careful, had been declining for some
years. He was contemplating a journey to Switzerland to visit his youthful friend de Bonstetten when, in
the summer of 1771, he was seized with a sudden illness. Nicholls proposed to go there with Gray in 1771,
but Gray was no longer equal to the exertion, and sent off Nicholls in June. Gray was then in London, but
soon returned to Cambridge, feeling very ill. He had an attack of gout in the stomach, and his condition
soon became alarming. He was affectionately attended by his friend and joint executor of Gray's will, the
Rev James Brown (1709-84), master of Pembroke, and his friend Stonhewer came from London to take
leave of him. Gray died in his rooms at Pembroke on 30 July 1771, and was laid in the same vault as his
mother in the churchyard of St Giles at Stoke Poges on 6 August. Owing to his shyness and reserve he had
few intimate friends, but to these his loss was irreparable. On 6 August 1778 the monument, by John
Bacon the Elder (1740-1799), to the memory of Gray was opened in Westminster Abbey. It is located in
Poets' Corner just under the monument to Milton and next to that of Spenser, two of the poets Gray
admired the most. It was erected by Mason and consists of an allegorical figure holding a medallion, and
an inscription: "No more the Graecian Muse unrival'd reigns, / To Britain let the Nations homage pay; / She
felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains, / A Pindar's rapture in the Lyre of Gray." In 1799 a monument to
Gray's memory was erected adjoining the churchyard at Stoke Poges. Other memorials are at Eton College
and Cambridge.

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Top of page | Bottom of page
Conclusion
As a poet Gray was admired and influential out of all proportion to his ambitions and modest output of
verse. The whole of his anthumously published poetry amounts to less than 1,000 lines. He was
unquestionably one of the least productive and yet, besides William Collins (1721-1759), the predominant
poetic figure of the middle decades of the 18th century, and an important reference point for the Romantic
revival which was soon to come. Gray's poetry was strongly marked by the taste for sentiment controlled
by classical ideals of restraint and composure that characterized the later Augustans, but prepared the
way for the the inward emotional exploration displayed by the Romantics of the 1790-1820 generation. He
shows sensitive response to natural environment without the sense of organic union with human nature
predominant in the later generation. Yet Gray was neither a half-hearted Augustan, nor a timid Romantic,
he may rather be considered as the Classicist variant of the transition into the Romantic era. He combined
traditional forms and poetic diction with new topics and modes of expression. He almost worshipped
Dryden and loved Racine as heartily as Shakespeare. He valued polish and symmetry as highly as the
school of Pope, and shared their taste for didactic reflection and for pompous personification. Yet he also
shared the taste for sensibility, which found expression in the Romanticism of the following period. In
poetry he was regarded as an innovator, for, like Collins, he revived the poetic diction of the past. The
adverse judgements of Johnson (Life of Gray [27ff.]), Wordsworth (Preface to Lyrical Ballads [1802]) and
others upon his work are, in fact, seldom more than a defence of current literary practice. Gray was in his
own time a distinguished practitioner of poetic form, exemplified by his abandonment of the close
discipline of the heroic couplet for the greater rhetorical freedom of his odes, a form nevertheless
sanctioned by antiquity. A man of studious instincts, of a retiring and somewhat melancholy temperament,
he nevertheless set his mark upon his age. And his one poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard", considered as the representative poem of its age, was to become a lasting contribution to the
English heritage. It is no doubt thanks to the "Elegy" that Gray has been able to continuously attract the
attention of literary scholarship. It has spared Gray the fate of many 18th-century poets falsely considered
as "minor": if reception history is incomplete or ceases and an author drops out of informing the reception
and interpretation of an age and other writers, he becomes a relic, a thing of another period altogether,
and isolated from literary discourse.
It had been a lifetime of reading, of reflection, of essentially unsupervised and uncreative study and
research in the academic seclusion of Cambridge, diversified only by little outward incident. Gray's
favourite maxim was "to be employed is to be happy", and "to find oneself business is the great art of life."
In pursuance of this end he made himself one of the best Greek scholars at Cambridge, and cultivated his
fine taste in music, painting, prints, gardening and architecture. He was interested in metaphysics,
criticism, morals, and politics, and his correspondence includes a wide survey of European history and
culture, with criticisms of a fresh and modern cast. These multifarious studies are illustrated in the
frequently densely-lined pages of the commonplace books, in 3 vols. fol., preserved at Pembroke College
Library, Cambridge. Besides his collections and observations on a great variety of subjects, they contain
original copies of many of his poems in very clear and legible hand-writing. Gray was also one of the
supreme letter-writers in English literature in the best age of letter-writing. His letters are fascinating not
only for the tender and affectionate nature through the mask of reserve, but for gleams of the genuine
humour which Walpole pronounced to be his most natural and original vein:
"[Sketch of his Own Character]"
Too poor for a bribe and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune:
Could love and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;
No very great wit, he believed in a God.

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A post or a pension he did not desire,
But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.
Works cited

[BrJ_1903] The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life,
notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London:
George Bell and sons, 1903 [1st edition 1891, reprinted 1901].
[CrJ_1948] Gray: Poetry and Prose. With essays by Johnson, Goldsmith and others. With an
Introduction and Notes by J. Crofts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1948 [1st ed. 1926] [Contains a collection of
contemporary essays on Gray, including those by Johnson, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Hazlitt, and Campbell].
[DrJ_1912] Gray's Poems, Letters and Essays. Introduction by John Drinkwater. Biographical Notes
by Lewis Gibbs. London [etc.]: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1912 [reprinted 1955].
[EnB_1957] Encyclopedia Britannica. A New Survey of Universal Knowledge. In 24 vols. Chicago /
London / Toronto: Encyclopedia Britannica, Ltd., 1957, 1971, vol. 10.
[K-C_1980] Ketton-Cremer, R. W.: "Thomas Gray (1716-1771)". In: British Writers. Edited under the
auspices of the British Council by Ian Scott-Kilvert. In 8 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1980, vol. III, pp. 136-145.
[MaT_1996] Thomas Gray. Edited by Robert L. Mack. Everyman Paperback Classics. Everyman's
Poetry Library. London: Everyman, 1996.
[MaT_2000] Mack, Robert L.: Thomas Gray: a life. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2000.
[P/C_1933] The British Encyclopedia Illustrated. With an introduction by Cyril Norwood. Edited by J.
M. Parish, R. Crossland, and Angelo S. Rappoport. In 12 vols. London: Odhams Press, 1933, vol. 5.
[PhW_1894] Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray. Ed. with an introduction and
notes by William Lyon Phelps. The Athenaeum press series. Boston: Ginn & company, 1894.
[ReJ_1973] The Complete English Poems of Thomas Gray. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
James Reeves. The Poetry Bookshelf Series. London: Heinemann; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1973.
[S/L_1950] The Dictionary of National Biography. Founded in 1882 by George Smith. Edited by Sir
Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee. From the earliest times to 1900. In 22 vols. London: Oxford UP,
1950 [1st ed. 1917], vol. VIII.
[TuK_1997] Selected poems of Thomas Gray, Charles Churchill and William Cowper. Ed. with an
introduction and notes by Katherine Turner. Penguin English poets series. London [etc.]: Penguin
Books, 1997.
http://www.thomasgray.org/materials/bio.shtml
ENL 3230
British Literature 1616-1780
***** LITERATURE AND IDEAS: AN ENDING *****

Reading Assignment:
Thomas Gray, "An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard" (1751)
Recommended: "The Progress of Poesy" (1768)
Demaria, pp. 750, 753
DUE: Weekly Post#15 England and Wales group
The poems for our last classes will nicely illustrate some of the aesthetic principles introduced by Burke.
Keep in mind what effect these poems have on the viewing/reading subject. In other words, assess the
psychological or subjective impact of the language. Collin's "Ode to Evening" and Gray's "Elegy" will be
particularly important for here.

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Although I have lessened the reading for class, you should be aware that the second poem by Gray, "The
Progress of Poesy," helps bring our discussion of eighteenth-century literature to a close. In our final
classes, I'd like for us to look at ways to draw the ideas of the course together. One thing we won't have
much time to discuss is the changing attitude toward poetry expressed at mid-century. In this line of
thinking, Gray's "Progress of Poesy" and Collins' "Ode on a Poetical Character" make useful comparisons
with the first poems on the syllabus, including Addison's "Account of the Greatest English Poets," Pope's
Essay on Criticism and Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe."

Notes and Discussion Questions:

An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751)


1.
Be sure to read the headnote to Gray to learn about the history and success of this famous poem.
As background or prepatory work for appreciating this poem, consider and compare the ways in which we
commemorate the dead. Who do we commemorate and how? Why do we honor the dead? What words do
we leave behind for the dead? Read some obituaries and compare their meaning with the ideas of the
poem. See St. Petersburg Times online for examples.
To glimpse an idea of the form of pomp and pageantry granted to the honored dead, visit the website for
Westminster Abbey, the most famous collection of memorials for the dead in Britain. In particular take the
360 degree tour of Poet's Corner.
This poem investigates the dangers of the glamorous world and contrasts that with the humble simplicity
of the country villagers, but unlike the representation of rural life in Duck and Collier, for instance, this
poem is written from the perspective of the educated outsider poet. How does this differ?
The poem is considered a pastoral elegy -- that is an elegy or poem in honor of a dead person set in the
country, with conventions of shepherds, swains, nymphs. To what extent does Burke's category of the
sublime apply to this meditation on death?
The style is elegiacal with the traditional ABAB four line stanza. What is the effect of this rhyme scheme on
the sound of the poem? How does this heighten the effect of the language?
Whose elegy is this? What is the speaker's relationship to those he writes about? Why is he writing this
elegy?
The first three stanzas describe the rural landscape at dusk, once again invoking this liminal state -- this inbetweenness that is not day and is not night. What is the significance of the country church yard, as
opposed to, say, Westminster Abbey? What does the setting suggest about the poet's place in this
context?
The poet considers the "rude Forefathers of the Hamlet" in lines 17 and on. What virtues do these rustics
possess? What are the implications of this description?
Analyze line 36: "The Paths of Glory lead but to the Grave" -- how does the poem develop this theme?
Compare this to the representation of mortality in other works, like Rasselas or Gulliver's Travels or Satire
against Reason and Mankind.

Page | 14
Who does the speaker address in the next lines (37-40):
"Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault/ If Mem'ry o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise, / Where thro' the
long-drawn Isle and fretted Vault / The pealing Anthem swells the Note of Praise."
Examine the beautiful lines 49-56 "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen...." What do these lines
suggest about fame? About the laboring classes?
Examine the implications of the poet's thoughts on "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, / some
Cromwell guiltless of his Country's Blood" (59-60).
The speaker makes his own unambiguous decision in favor of a life of rural innocence in the first stage of
the poem. However, the inadequacy of the solution -- the escape into the country -- surfaces in the
conclusion. What are some of the problems with rural country innocence? How is the poet barred from the
experience?
The poet changes his mind regarding the state of this class. What makes him reconsider? What does this
new value for ignorance have to do with the country versus the city?
The last section centers on the role of poetry -- how one remembers the dead. How does one remember
the unlettered dead?
The speaker imagines a rustic muse, creating epitaphs for the dearly departed. Everybody needs to be
remembered: "ev'n from the Tomb the Voice of Nature Cries,/ Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires"
What are the implications of this?
He then offers these lines -- the poem -- to those who are "mindful of th'unhonoured dead" (93). What does
this suggest about the poet's attitude toward the laboring people? Toward poetry?
The closing lines here return to the poet himself, as he imagines what one of the country folk would say of
his death. The division between the country people and the poet himself becomes evident. Examine the
final lines.
The poem celebrating the unhonored dead ends with a fantasy of the poet's own death, where he
envisions his anonymity (and marginality) but creates his own fame (both in the epitaph, and in the poem
which literally made Gray famous). How does this illustrate the problems of fame and immortality that the
poem tries to work out?

The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode (1768)


3.
These notes and questions are for your information only.
This poem attempts to create a poetic lineage for British poets by reaching back to the mythical origins of
poetry and describing the creative power of poetry. In this way, the poem makes a far more erudite and
elaborate attempt at a literary history than, say, Addison's "Account of the Greatest English Poets." Pay
particular attention to the last stanza of the antistrophe (part II) and the epode (part III).
Gray constructs a lineage from Greece to Rome to Albion (England); what are the implications of this
legacy?

Page | 15
Note in section three the dominant poetic influences on English poetry. How does this differ from Addison's
nine? What are the dominant characteristics of Shakespeare? What does this praise suggest about the shift
in literary values by the 1760s?
To what extent does Gray borrow ideas from Burke in his description of Milton?
In the final stanza Gray bewails the silence of the Pindaric lyre (111), and asks prophetically "what daring
Spirit / Wakes thee now?" (112-113). In the lines that follow he describes his vision of lyric poetry. How do
you interpret these lines? What does he see as the fate of lyric poetry?
Note too that this poem attempts a more precise imitation of the Pindaric mode than earlier versions (we
have read, for instance, Ann Finch's Ode to Spleen and William Collins' Ode to Evening, neither of which
adopts the tripartite structure of the Greek form). What does Gray's poem suggest about the nature of
imitation? About the nature of poetic creativity? How does this differ from earlier statements on poetry, like
Pope's Essay on Criticism or Dryden's "Mac Flecknoe"?
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~runge/3230_class28.html
Early life and education
Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, the son of an exchange broker and a milliner. He was the fifth of
12 children and the only child of Philip and Dorothy Gray to survive infancy. [1] He lived with his mother after
she left his abusive father. He was educated at Eton College where his uncle was one of the masters. He
recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton
College. Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his time reading and avoiding athletics. It was
probably fortunate for the sensitive Gray that he was able to live in his uncles household rather than at
college. He made three close friends at Eton: Horace Walpole, son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole,
Thomas Ashton, and Richard West. The four prided themselves on their sense of style, their sense of
humour, and their appreciation of beauty.
In 1734 Gray went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge.[2] He found the curriculum dull. He wrote letters to his
friends listing all the things he disliked: the masters ("mad with Pride") and the Fellows ("sleepy, drunken,
dull, illiterate Things.") Supposedly he was intended for the law, but in fact he spent his time as an
undergraduate reading classical and modern literature and playing Vivaldi and Scarlatti[disambiguation needed] on
the harpsichord for relaxation.
In 1738 he accompanied his old school-friend Walpole on his Grand Tour of Europe, possibly at Walpole's
expense. The two fell out and parted in Tuscany, because Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties
and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. However, they were reconciled a few years later.
[edit] Writing and academia
Gray began seriously writing poems in 1742, mainly after his close friend Richard West died. He moved to
Cambridge and began a self-imposed programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men
of his time, though he claimed to be lazy by inclination. He became a Fellow first of Peterhouse, and later
of Pembroke College, Cambridge. It is said that the change of college was the result of a practical joke.
Terrified of fire, he had installed a metal bar by his window on the top floor of the Burroughs building at
Peterhouse, so that in the event of a fire he could tie his sheets to it and climb to safety ...
Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin travelling again.
Although he was one of the least productive poets (his collected works published during his lifetime
amount to fewer than 1,000 lines), he is regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th
century. In 1757, he was offered the post of Poet Laureate, which he refused.

Page | 16
In 1762, the Regius chair of Modern History at Cambridge, a sinecure which carried a salary of 400, fell
vacant after the death of Shallet Turner, and Gray's friends lobbied the government unsuccessfully to
secure the position for him. In the event, Gray lost out to Lawrence Brockett, but he secured the position in
1768 after Brockett's death.[3]
Gray was so self critical and fearful of failure that he only published thirteen poems during his lifetime, and
once wrote that he feared his collected works would be "mistaken for the works of a flea". Walpole said
that "He never wrote anything easily but things of Humour."
Gray came to be known as one of the "Graveyard poets" of the late 18th century, along with Oliver
Goldsmith, William Cowper, and Christopher Smart. Gray perhaps knew these men, sharing ideas about
death, mortality, and the finality and sublimity of death.
[edit] "Elegy" masterpiece
It is believed that Gray began writing his masterpiece, the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, in the
graveyard of the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, in 1742, completing it, after several years lying
unfinished, in 1750.[citation needed] It is an Elegy. The poem was a literary sensation when published by Robert
Dodsley in February 1751 (see 1751 in poetry) and has made a lasting contribution to English literature.
[citation needed]
Its reflective, calm and stoic tone was greatly admired, and it was pirated, imitated, quoted and
translated into Latin and Greek.[citation needed] It is still one of the most popular and most frequently quoted
poems in the English language.[citation needed] In 1759 during the Seven Years War, before the Battle of the
Plains of Abraham, British General James Wolfe is said to have recited it to his officers, adding:
"Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec tomorrow". [citation needed] The poem's
famous depiction of an "ivy-mantled tow'r" could be a reference to St. Laurence's Church in Upton, Slough.
[citation needed]

The Elegy was recognised immediately for its beauty and skill.[citation needed] It contains many phrases which
have entered the common English lexicon, either on their own or as quoted in other works. [citation needed] These
include:

"The Paths of Glory"

"Celestial fire"

"Some mute inglorious Milton"

"Far from the Madding Crowd"

"The unlettered muse"

"Kindred spirit"

Gray also wrote light verse, including Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold
Fishes, a mock elegy concerning Horace Walpole's cat. After setting the scene with the couplet "What
female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?", the poem moves to its multiple proverbial
conclusion: "a fav'rite has no friend", "[k]now one false step is ne'er retrieved" and "nor all that glisters,
gold". (Walpole later displayed the fatal china vase on a pedestal at his house in Strawberry Hill.)
Grays surviving letters also show his sharp observation and playful sense of humour.
He is also well known for his phrase, "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." This is from his Ode on
a Distant Prospect of Eton College This phrase is one of the most misunderstood phrases in English

Page | 17
literature. Gray is not promoting ignorance, but reflecting nostalgically on a time when he was allowed to
be ignorant, his youth.(1742).
[edit] Forms
Gray himself considered his two Pindaric odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bard, his best works.
Pindaric odes are supposedly written with fire and passion, unlike the calmer and more reflective Horatian
odes such as Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College. The Bard tells of a wild Welsh poet cursing the
Norman king Edward I after his conquest of Wales and prophesying in detail the downfall of the House of
Plantagenet. It is melodramatic, and ends with the bard hurling himself to his death from the top of a
mountain.
When his duties allowed, Gray travelled widely throughout Britain to places like Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and
Scotland in search of picturesque landscapes and ancient monuments. These things had not generally
been valued in the early 18th century, when the popular taste ran to classical styles in architecture and
literature and most people liked their scenery tame and well-tended. Some have seen Grays writings on
this topic, and the Gothic details that appear in his Elegy and The Bard as the first foreshadowing of the
Romantic movement that dominated the early 19th century, when William Wordsworth and the other Lake
poets taught people to value the picturesque, the sublime, and the Gothic. Gray combined traditional
forms and poetic diction with new topics and modes of expression, and may be considered as a classically
focused precursor of the romantic revival.
Gray's connection to the Romantic poets is vexed. In the prefaces to the 1800 and 1802 editions of
Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth singled out Gray's "Sonnet on the
Death of Richard West" to exemplify what he found most objectionable in poetry, declaring it was "Gray,
who was at the head of those who, by their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation
betwixt prose and metrical composition, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the
structure of his own poetic diction."[4] Indeed, it was Gray who had written, in a letter to West, that "the
language of the age is never the language of poetry."[4]
[edit] Death
Gray died on 30 July 1771 in Cambridge, and was buried beside his mother in the churchyard of Stoke
Poges, the setting for his famous Elegy. His grave can still be seen there. A plaque in Cornhill marks his
birthplace.
[edit] References
1.

^ John D. Baird, Gray, Thomas (17161771), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography


(Oxford University Press, 2004) Accessed 21 Feb 2012

2.

^ Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (19221958). "Thomas Gray". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols)
(online ed.). Cambridge University Press.

3.
4.

^ Edmund William Gosse, Gray (London: Macmillan, 1902), p. 133 at books.google.com


^ a b Abrams, M. H.; et al. (1979). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2 (Fourth ed.).
New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 167. ISBN 0-393-95039-5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gray
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings... 2003
Revised and Enlarged in 2009, 2010.

Page | 18
Type of Work
......."Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" isas the title indicatesan elegy. Such a poem centers on
the death of a person or persons and is, therefore, somber in tone. An elegy is lyrical rather than narrative
that is, its primary purpose is to express feelings and insights about its subject rather than to tell a story.
Typically, an elegy expresses feelings of loss and sorrow while also praising the deceased and commenting
on the meaning of the deceased's time on earth. Gray's poem reflects on the lives of humble and
unheralded people buried in the cemetery of a church.
Setting
.......The time is the mid 1700s, about a decade before the Industrial Revolution began in England. The
place is the cemetery of a church. Evidence indicates that the church is St. Giles, in the small town of
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, in southern England. Gray himself is buried in that
cemetery. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, once maintained a manor house
at Stoge Poges.
Years of Composition and Publication
.......Gray began writing the elegy in 1742, put it aside for a while, and finished it in
1750. Robert Dodsley published the poem in London in 1751. Revised or altered versions of the poem
appeared in 1753, 1758, 1768, and 1775. Copies of the various versions are on file in the Thomas Gray
Archive at Oxford University.

Meter and Rhyme Scheme


.......Gray wrote the poem in four-line stanzas (quatrains). Each line is in iambic pentameter, meaning the
following:
1..Each line has five pairs of syllables for a total of ten syllables.
2..In each pair, the first syllable is unstressed (or unaccented), and the second is stressed (or accented), as
in the two lines that open the poem:
.......The CUR few TOLLS the KNELL of PART ing DAY
.......The LOW ing HERD wind SLOW ly O'ER the LEA
.......In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the third and the second line rhymes with the fourth (abab),
as follows:
a.....The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
b.....The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
a.....The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
b.....And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Stanza Form: Heroic Quatrain
.......A stanza with the above-mentioned characteristicsfour lines, iambic pentameter, and an abab rhyme
schemeis often referred to as a heroic quatrain. (Quatrain is derived from the Latin word quattuor,
meaning four.) William Shakespeare and John Dryden had earlier used this stanza form. After Gray's poem
became famous, writers and critics also began referring to the heroic quatrain as an elegiac stanza.
.

Page | 19

.
Complete Poem With Explanatory Notes
Compiled by Michael J. Cummings 2003, 2009, 2010
Stanza 1
1.
2.
3.
4.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,


The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Notes
(1) Curfew: ringing bell in the evening that reminded people in English towns of Grays time to put out fires
and go to bed. (2) Knell: mournful sound. (3) Parting day: day's end; dying day; twilight; dusk. (4) Lowing:
mooing. (5) O'er: contraction for over. (6) Lea: meadow.

Stanza 2
5.
6.
7.
8.

Now fades the glimm'ring 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.

Notes
(1) Line 5: The landscape becomes less and less visible. (2) Sight . . . solemn stillness . . . save: alliteration.
(3) Save: except. (4) Beetle: winged insect that occurs in more than 350,000 varieties. One type is the
firefly, or lightning bug. (5) Wheels: verb meaning flies in circles. (6) Droning: humming; buzzing;
monotonous sound. (7) Drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: This clause apparently refers to the gentle
sounds made by a bell around the neck of a castrated male sheep that leads other sheep. A castrated
male sheep is called a wether. Such a sheep with a bell around its neck is called a bellwether. Folds is a
noun referring to flocks of sheep. (8) Tinklings: onomatopoeia.

Stanza 3
9. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
10. The moping owl does to the moon complain
11. Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
12. Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Notes
(1) Save: except. (2) Yonder: distant; remote. (3) Ivy-mantled: cloaked, dressed, or adorned with ivy. (4)
Moping: gloomy; grumbling. (5) Of such: of anything or anybody. (6) Bow'r: bower, an enclosure
surrounded by plant growthin this case, ivy. (7) Molest her ancient solitary reign: bother the owl while it

Page | 20
keeps watch over the churchyard and countryside. (8) Her ancient solitary rein: metaphor comparing the
owl to a queen.

Stanza 4
13.
14.
15.
16.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,


Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Notes
(1) Where heaves the turf: anastrophe, a figure of speech that inverts the normal word order (the turf
heaves). (2) Mould'ring: mouldering (British), moldering (American), an adjective meaning decaying,
crumbling. (3) Cell: metaphor comparing a grave to a prison cell. (4) Rude: robust; sturdy; hearty; stalwart.
(4) Hamlet: village.

Stanza 5
17.
18.
19.
20.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,


The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

Notes
(1) Breezy call of incense-breathing Morn: wind carrying the pleasant smells of morning, including dewy
grass and flowers. Notice that Morn is a metaphor comparing it to a living creature. (It calls and breathes.)
(2) Swallow: Insect-eating songbird that likes to perch. (3) Clarion: cock-a-doodle-doo. (4) Echoing horn:
The words may refer to the sound made by a fox huntsman who blows a copper horn to which pack hounds
respond.

Stanza 6
21.
22.
23.
24.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,


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.

Notes
(1) hearth . . . housewife . . . her: alliteration. (2) Climb his knees the envied kiss to share: anastrophe, a
figure of speech that inverts the normal word order (to share the envied kiss).

Page | 21

Stanza 7
25.
26.
27.
28.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle 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 stroke!

Notes
(1) Sickle: Harvesting tool with a handle and a crescent-shaped blade. Field hands swing it from right to left
to cut down plant growth. (2) Furrow: channel or groove made by a plow for planting seeds. (3) Glebe:
earth. (4) Jocund: To maintain the meter, Gray uses an adjective when the syntax call for an adverb,
jocundly. Jocund (pronounced JAHK und) means cheerful.

Stanza 8
29.
30.
31.
32.

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.

Notes
(1) Ambition: Personification referring to the desire to succeed or to ambitious people seeking lofty goals.
(2) Destiny obscure: the humble fate of the common people; their unheralded deeds. (3) Lines 29-30:
anastrophe, a figure of speech that inverts the normal word order (let not Ambition obscure their destiny
and homely joys).
(4) Grandeur: personification referring to people with wealth, social standing, and power. (5) Annals:
historical records; story.

Stanza 9
33.
34.
35.
36.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,


And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Notes
(1) Boast of heraldry: Proud talk about the aristocratic or noble roots of one's family; snobbery. Heraldry
was a science that traced family lines of royal and noble personages and designed coats of arms for them.
(2) Pomp: ceremonies, rituals, and splendid surroundings of nobles and royals. (3) Pomp of pow'r:
alliteration. (4) E'er: ever. General meaning of stanza: Every personno matter how important, powerful,
or wealthyends up the same, dead.

Page | 22

Stanza 10
37.
38.
39.
40.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,


If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Notes
(1) Impute: Assign, ascribe. (2) Mem'ry: Memory, a personification referring to memorials,
commemorations, and tributesincluding statues, headstones, and epitaphsused to preserve the
memory of important or privileged people. (3) Where thro' . . . the note of praise: Reference to the interior
of a church housing the tombs of important people. Fretted vault refers to a carved or ornamented arched
roof or ceiling. (4) Pealing anthem may refer to lofty organ music.

Stanza 11
41.
42.
43.
44.

Can storied urn or animated bust


Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Notes
(1) Storied urn: Vase adorned with pictures telling a story. Urns have sometimes been used to hold the
ashes of a cremated body. (2) Bust: sculpture of the head, shoulders, and chest of a human. (3) Storied urn
. . . breath? Can the soul (fleeting breath) be called back to the body (mansion) by the urn or bust back?
Notice that urn and bust are personifications that call. (4) Can Honour's . . . Death? Can honor (Honour's
voice) attributed to the dead person cause that person (silent dust) to come back to life? Can flattering
words (Flatt'ry) about the dead person make death more "bearable"? (5) General meaning of stanza: Lines
41-45 continue the idea begun in Lines 37-40. In other words, can any memorialssuch as the trophies
mentioned in Line 38, the urn and bust mentioned in Line 41, and personifications (honor and flattery)
mentioned in Lines 43 and 44bring a person back to life or make death less final or fearsome?

Stanza 12
45.
46.
47.
48.

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 wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

Notes
(1) Pregnant with celestial fire: Full of great ideas, abilities, or goals (celestial fire). (2) Rod of empire:
scepter held by a king or an emperor during ceremonies. One of the humble country folk in the cemetery
might have become a king or an emperor if he had been given the opportunity. (3) Wak'd . . .lyre: Played

Page | 23
beautiful music on a lyre, a stringed instrument. In other words, one of the people in the cemetery could
have become a great musician if given the opportunity, "waking up" the notes of the lyre.

Stanza 13
49.
50.
51.
52.

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.

Notes
(1) Knowledge . . . unroll: Knowledge did not reveal itself to them (their eyes) in books (ample page) rich
with treasures of information (spoils of time). (2) Knowledge . . . unroll: Personification and anastrophe a
figure of speech that inverts the normal word order (knowledge did ne'er enroll). (3) Chill . . . soul: Poverty
(penury) repressed their enthusiasm (rage) and froze the flow (current) of ideas (soul).

Stanza 14
53.
54.
55.
56.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,


The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Note
Full . . . air: These may be the most famous lines in the poem. Gray is comparing the humble village people
to undiscovered gems in caves at the bottom of the ocean and to undiscovered flowers in the desert.

Stanza 15
57.
58.
59.
60.

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.

Notes
(1) John Hampden (1594-1643). Hampden, a Puritan member of Parliament, frequently criticized and
opposed the policies of King Charles I. In particular, he opposed a tax imposed by the king to outfit the
British navy. Because he believed that only Parliament could impose taxes, he refused to pay 20 shillings in
ship money in 1635. Many joined him in his opposition. War broke out between those who supported
Parliament and those who supported the king. Hampden was killed in battle in 1643. Gray here is
presenting Hampden as a courageous (dauntless) hero who stood against the king (little tyrant). (2) Milton:
John Milton (1608-1674), the great English poet and scholar.

Page | 24

Stanza 16
61.
62.
63.
64.

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 hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Notes
The subject and verb of Lines 61-64 are in the first three words of Line 65, their lot forbade. Thus, this
stanza says the villagers' way of life (lot) prohibited or prevented them from receiving applause from
politicians for good deeds such as alleviating pain and suffering and providing plenty (perhaps food) across
the land. These deeds would have been recorded by the appreciating nation.

Stanza 17
65.
66.
67.
68.

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone


Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

Note
General meaning: Their lot in life not only prevented (circumbscrib'd) them from doing good deeds (like
those mentioned in Stanza 16) but also prevented (confin'd) bad deeds such as killing enemies to gain the
throne and refusing to show mercy to people.

Stanza 18
69.
70.
71.
72.

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.

Notes
(1) General meaning: This stanza continues the idea begun in the previous stanza, saying that the
villagers' lot in life also prevented them from hiding truth and shame and from bragging or using pretty or
flattering words (incense kindled at the Muse's flame) to gain luxuries and feed their pride. (2) Muse's
flame: an allusion to sister goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology who inspired writers, musicians,
historians, dancers, and astronomers. These goddesses were called Muses.

Page | 25

Stanza 19
73.
74.
75.
76.

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.

Note
(1) General meaning: The villagers plodded on faithfully, never straying from their lot in life as common
people. (2) Madding: maddening; furious; frenzied. (3) Noiseless tenor of their way: quiet way of life.

Stanza 20
77.
78.
79.
80.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,


Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Note
General meaning: But even these people have gravestones (frail memorial), although they are engraved
with simple and uneducated words or decked with humble sculpture. These gravestones elicit a sigh from
people who see them.

Stanza 21
81.
82.
83.
84.

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.

Notes
(1)Their . . . supply: Their name and age appear but there are no lofty tributes. (2) Unletter'd muse:
Uneducated writer or engraver. (2) Holy text: probably Bible quotations. (3) She: muse. See the second
note for Stanza 18. (4) Rustic moralist: pious villager.

Stanza 22
85.
86.
87.
88.

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, ling'ring look behind?

Page | 26
Note
General meaning: These humble people, though they were doomed to be forgotten (to dumb Forgetfulness
a prey), did not die (did not leave the warm precincts of cheerful day) without looking back with regret and
perhaps a desire to linger a little longer .

Stanza 23
89.
90.
91.
92.

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,


Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

Note
General meaning: The dying person (parting soul) relies on a friend (fond breast) to supply the engraved
words (pious drops) on a tombstone. Even from the tomb the spirit of a person cries out for remembrance.

Stanza 24
93.
94.
95.
96.

For thee [32], who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead


Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate [33],

Notes
(1) For thee . . . relate: Gray appears to be referring to himself. Mindful that the villagers deserve some sort
of memorial, he is telling their story (their artless tale) in this elegy (these lines). (2) Lines 95-96: But what
about Gray himself? What if someone asks about his fate? Gray provides the answer in the next stanza.

Stanza 25
97. Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
98. "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
99. Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
100. To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
Notes
(1) Haply: Perhaps; by chance; by accident. (2) Hoary-headed swain: Gray-haired country fellow; old man
who lives in the region.

Page | 27

Stanza 26
101.
102.
103.
104.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech


That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

Notes
(1) Nodding: bending; bowing. (2) Listless length: his tired body. (3) Pore upon: Look at; watch.

Stanza 27
105.
106.
107.
108.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,


Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

Notes
(1) Wood, now smiling as in scorn: personification comparing the forest to a person. (2) Wayward fancies:
unpredictable, unexpected, or unwanted thoughts; capricious or flighty thoughts. (3) Rove: wander. (4)
Craz'd . . . cross'd: alliteration.

Stanza 28
109.
110.
111.
112.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,


Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

Notes
(1) Another came: another morning came. (2) Nor yet: But he still was not. (3) Rill: small stream or brook.

Stanza 29
113.
114.
115.
116.

"The next with dirges due in sad array


Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

Notes

Page | 28
(1) The next: the next morning. (2) Dirges: funeral songs. (3) Lay: short poemin this case, the epitaph
below.

THE EPITAPH
117.
118.
119.
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.

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.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

Note
General meaning: Here lies a man of humble birth who did not know fortune or fame but who did become a
scholar. Although he was depressed at times, he had a good life, was sensitive to the needs of others, and
followed God's laws. Don't try to find out more about his good points or bad points, which are now with him
in heaven.
..

Themes
Death: the Great Equalizer
.......Even the proud and the mighty must one day lie beneath the earth, like the humble men and women
now buried in the churchyard, as line 36 notes: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Lines 41-44
further point out that no grandiose memorials and no flattering words about the deceased can bring him or
her back from death.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Missed Opportunities
.......Because of poverty or other handicaps, many talented people never receive the opportunities they
deserve. The following lines elucidate this theme through metaphors:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Page | 29
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Here, the gem at the bottom of the ocean may represent an undiscovered musician, poet, scientist or
philosopher. The flower may likewise stand for a person of great and noble qualities that are "wasted on
the desert air." Of course, on another level, the gem and the flower can stand for anything in life that goes
unappreciated.
Virtue
.......In their rural setting, far from the temptations of the cities and the courts of kings, the villagers led
virtuous lives, as lines 73-76 point out:
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.
Inversion
.......For poetic effect, Gray frequently uses inversion (reversal of the normal word order). Following are
examples:
Line 6: And all the air a solemn stillness holds (all the air holds a solemn stillness)
Line 14: Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap (Where the turf heaves)
Line 24: Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. (Or climb his knees to share the envied kiss)
Line 79: With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd (deck'd with uncouth rhymes and shapeless
sculpture)
Syncope
Omitting letters or sounds within a word.
Gray also frequently uses a commonplace poetic device known as syncope, the omission of letters or
sounds within a word.
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea (line 2)
Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight (line 5)
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r (line 9)
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed (line 18)
Figures of Speech
.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem.
Alliteration
Repetition of a Consonant Sound
The plowman homeward plods his weary way (line 3)
.
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn (line 19)
.
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? (line 88)
.
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn (line 107)

Page | 30
.
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. (line 108)
Anaphora
Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave (line 34)
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse (line 81)
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. (lines 91-92)
Metaphor
Comparison between unlike things without using like, as, or than
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. (lines 53-56)
Comparison of the dead village people to gems and flowers
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. (lines 71-72)
Comparison of flattering words to incense
Metonymy
Use of a word or phrase to suggest a related word or phrase
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land
Land stands for people.
Personification
A form of metaphor that compares a thing to a person
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. (lines 29-32)
Ambition and Grandeur take on human characteristics.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll (line 49-50)
Notice that Knowledge becomes a person, a female.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. (lines 119-120)
Science and Melancholy become persons.
Assessment of the Poem
.......Scholars regard "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" as one of the greatest poems in the English
language. It weaves structure, rhyme scheme, imagery and message into a brilliant tapestry that confers
on Gray everlasting fame. The quality of its poetry and insights reach Shakespearean and Miltonian
heights.

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Biographical Information
.......Thomas Gray was born in London on December 26, 1716. He was the only one of twelve children who
survived into adulthood. His father, Philip, a scrivener (a person who copies text) was a cruel, violent man,
but his mother, Dorothy, believed in her son and operated a millinery business to educate him at Eton
school in his childhood and Peterhouse College, Cambridge, as a young man.
.......He left the college in 1738 without a degree to tour Europe with his friend, Horace Walpole, the son of
the first prime minister of England, Robert Walpole (1676-1745). However, Gray did earn a degree in law
although he never practiced in that profession. After achieving recognition as a poet, he refused to give
public lectures because he was extremely shy. Nevertheless, he gained such widespread acclaim and
respect that England offered him the post of poet laureate, which would make him official poet of the
realm. However, he rejected the honor. Gray was that rare kind of person who cared little for fame and
adulation. Click here for a more detailed biography.
Study Questions and Essay Topics

Gray was the only one of twelve children who survived childhood. Do you believe the memory of his
dead brothers and sisters influenced him in the writing of his poem?

What was Gray's opinion of high-born persons vis-a-vis the low-born?

Write an essay that develops the idea expressed in line 36: The paths of glory lead but to the
grave.

Read "Ozymandias," a poem by another English writer, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Then write an essay
that compares and contrasts Shelley's idea of posthumous glory with Gray's.

In an essay, discuss Gray's use of animal and insect imagery in "Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard."

Which of the following adjectives best describes the mood of the elegy: peaceful, gloomy, solemn,
desolate, morbid?

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/ThoGray.html
European literature in the 18th century
European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama and novels) produced in Europe
during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact
many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 Robinson
Crusoe is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary
novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel.
18th Century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In
the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism.

[edit] The Enlightenment


The 18th century in Europe was The Age of Enlightenment and literature explored themes of social
upheaval, reversals of personal status, political satire, geographical exploration and the comparison
between the supposed natural state of man and the supposed civilized state of man. Edmund Burke, in his
A Vindication of Natural Society (1757), says: "The Fabrick of Superstition has in this our Age and Nation
received much ruder Shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the Chinks and Breaches of our

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Prison, we see such Glimmerings of Light, and feel such refreshing Airs of Liberty, as daily raise our Ardor
for more"
[edit] By year
In 1700 William Congreve's play The Way of the World premiered. [1] Although unsuccessful at the time The
Way of the World is a good example of the sophistication of theatrical thinking during this period, with
complex subplots and characters intended as ironic parodies of common stereotypes.
In 1703 Nicholas Rowe's domestic drama The Fair Penitent, an adaptation of Massinger and Field's Fatal
Dowry, was pronounced by Dr Johnson to be one of the most pleasing tragedies in the language. Also in
1703 Sir Richard Steele's comedy 'The Tender Husband achieved some success.
In 1704 Jonathan Swift published A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books [2] and John Dennis published
his Grounds of Criticism in Poetry. The Battle of the Books begins with a reference to the use of a glass
(which, in those days, would mean either a mirror or a magnifying glass) as a comparison to the use of
satire. Swift is, in this, very much the child of his age, thinking in terms of science and satire at one and
the same time. He was one of the first English novelists and also a political campaigner. His satirical writing
springs from a body of liberal thought which produced not only books but also political pamphlets for
public distribution. Swift's writing represents the new, the different and the modern attempting to change
the world by parodying the ancient and incumbent. The Battle of the Books is a short writing which
demonstrates his position very neatly.
From 1704 to 1717, Antoine Galland published the first European translation of the One Thousand and One
Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights in English).[3] His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes
and exerted a huge influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world.
Galland's translation of the Nights was immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions of the
Nights were written by Galland's publisher using Galland's name without his consent.
In 1707, Henry Fielding was born (22 April) and his sister Sarah Fielding was born 3 years later on 8
November 1710. In 1711 Alexander Pope began a career in literature with the publishing of his An Essay
on Criticism. In 1712 French philosophical writer Jean Jacques Rousseau born 28 June and his countryman
Denis Diderot was born the following year 1713 on the 5 October. Also in 1712 Pope published The Rape of
the Lock and in 1713 Windsor Forest.
In 1708, Simon Ockley publishes an English translation of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, a 12th-century
philosophical novel, as The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. This
was the first English translation directly from the Arabic original.
Horace Walpole was born on 24 September 1717.
Daniel Defoe was another political pamphleteer turned novelist like Jonathan Swift and was publishing in
the early 18th century. In 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, in 1720, Captain Singleton and, in 1722,
Moll Flanders.
Other authors publishing in 1722 included Sir Richard Steele, Penelope Aubin and Eliza Haywood.
From 1726 to 1729 Voltaire lived in exile mainly in England.
Also in 1726, Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels, one of the first novels in the genre of satire.
In 1728 John Gay wrote The Beggar's Opera which has increased in fame ever since. The Beggar's Opera
began a new style in Opera, the "ballad opera" which brings the operatic form down to a more popular

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level and precedes the genre of comic operettas. Also in 1728 came the publication of Cyclopaedia, or, A
Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (folio, 2 vols.), an encyclopedia by Ephraim Chambers. The
Cyclopaedia was one of the first general encyclopedias to be produced in English and was the main model
for Diderot's Encyclopdie (published in France between 1751 and 1766).
In 1729 Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal, a satirical suggestion that Irish families should sell
their children as food. Swift was, at this time, fully involved in political campaigning for the Irish.
In 1731 George Lillo's play The London Merchant was a success at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane. It was
a new kind of play, a domestic tragedy, which approximates to what later came to be called a melodrama.
In 1740 Samuel Richardson published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.
1744 Alexander Pope died.
1745 Jonathan Swift died.
1749 Henry Fielding published The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.
1751 Thomas Gray wrote Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Denis Diderot began the Encyclopdie,
ou dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers. Over the next three decades Encyclopdie
attracted, alongside of those from Diderot, notable contributions from other great intellectuals of the 18th
Century including Voltaire, Rousseau and Louis de Jaucourt
1752 a satirical short story by Voltaire, Micromgas featured space travellers visiting earth. It was one of
the first stories leaning toward what later became Science fiction. Its publication at this time is indicative
of the trend toward scientific thinking prevalent in the age of enlightenment.
1754 Henry Fielding died 8 October.
1759 Voltaire published Candide. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born 10 November.
1760 - 1767 Laurence Sterne wrote Tristram Shandy.
1761 Rousseau published Julie, ou la nouvelle Hlose.
1762 Rousseau published mile.
1764 Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto (initially under a pseudonym and claiming it to be a
translation of an Italian work from 1529.) The first gothic novel.
1766 Oliver Goldsmith published The Vicar of Wakefield.
1767 August Wilhelm von Schlegel was born 8 September.
1768 Sarah Fielding died.
1770 April birth of William Wordsworth.
1772 Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel was born 10 March.
1773 Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer, a farce, was performed in London.

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1774 Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel which approximately marks the beginning of
the Romanticism movement in the arts and philosophy. A transition thus began, from the critical, science
inspired, enlightenment writing to the romantic yearning for forces beyond the mundane and for foreign
times and places to inspire the soul with passion and mystery.
1777 the comedy play The School for Scandal, a comedy of manners, was written by Richard Brinsley
Sheridan.
1778 Death of Voltaire. Death of Jean Jacques Rousseau 2 July. Two major contributors to Diderot's
Encyclopdie dead in the same year.
1783 Washington Irving was born.
1784 Denis Diderot died 31 July. Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot have all died within a period of a few short
years and French philosophy had thus lost three of its greatest enlightened free thinkers. Rousseau's
thinking on the nobility of life in the wilds, facing nature as a naked savage still had great force to influence
the next generation as the romantic movement gained momentum. Beaumarchais wrote The Marriage of
Figaro. Maria and Harriet Falconar publish Poems on Slavery. The anti-slavery movement was growing in
power and many poems and pamphlets were published on the subject.
1785 William Cowper published The Task
1786 Robert Burns published Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The mood of literature was swinging
toward more interest in diverse ethnicity. Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) was
adapted into a comic opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.
1789 James Fenimore Cooper was born 15 September in America.
1791 Dream of the Red Chamber is published for the first time in movable type format.
1792 Percy Bysshe Shelley was born (August 4).
1793 Salisbury Plain by William Wordsworth.
1794 Robert Goldsmith was born.
In 1795 Samuel Taylor Coleridge met William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. The two men published a
joint volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads (1798), which became a central text of Romantic poetry.
1796 Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born. Denis Diderot's Jacques le fataliste was published
posthumously.
1796 Matthew Lewis published his controversial, anti-catholic novel The Monk.
1796 Charlotte Turner Smith published her novel Marchmont.

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