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Thomas Gray: Transitional Poet

Mrs. Cumberland

Objectives
To become acquainted with the work of Thomas Gray To examine the elegy To study an example of the literary transition from Neoclassical to Romantic literature

Thomas Gray
Born in London on December 26,1716 His father was a violent-tempered man who worked as a scrivener ( public copyist or writer, such as a notary) His mother supplemented income by keeping a shop
Allowed Gray to go to Eton and Cambridge
He studied classical literature

Gray traveled for three yrs. after graduating. Never married Professor of modern history and languages at Cambridge.
Spent time as a poet and scholar Explored British museum ( opened 1759) Died in Cambridge in 1771 after a long illness

Gray as a Poet
Represents a transition from the Neoclassical couplet of Pope to the more expansive verse forms of the Romantic poets

Gray as a Poet ( continued)


Four-line stanza form with abab rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter became known as the elegiac stanzain honor of his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Gray as a Poet ( continued)


Alternating rhyme of this verse differs from the classical couplet form, but preserves the emphasis on following a pattern Diction has much of the precision and polish of the Neoclassical school.

Shows Romantic tendencies in the spirit and themes of his poetry more than in his form.

His depiction of nature and the common life anticipates later Romantic poets like Wordsworth

Grays focus on the life of the common people and the effect of nature upon ones mood are characteristic of the Romantic poet.

Elegyin a Churchyard
Most famous of his poems Spent six years composing the poem Reveals personality in emotional expressions on nature and death.

Elegy..in aChurchyard
Reflects Popes epigram, What oft was thought, but neer so well expressed

Definitions
Elegy:
A poem lamenting the death of a friend or a famous person Compare Tennysons In Memoriam or Whitmans When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom

Eulogy:
A speech or writing extolling the virtues and services of a personespecially referring t a funeral oration Note: Grays Elegy does not refer to a particular death, but rather reflection of the lives of people buried in the churchyard and, by extension, of humankind in general.

Poetic diction/classical and topical allusions in Elegy


Line 2: lea
Line 11: Bower Line 18: horn Line 33: The boast of Heraldry

pasture
dwelling horn of the hunter Heraldry is the study of family cots of arms; thus the phrase refers to the pride of having

Elegy
Lines 33-36: The subject is hour; the verb is wait; lines 33 and 34 are the direct object of wait The ornamental arched ceiling of a church roof An urn inscribed with the story of the deceased Life-like

Line 39: fretted vault

Line 41: Storied urn

Line 41: animated

Elegy
Line 43: Provoke Line 52: genial Line 57: Hampden Arouse or call forth Warm or living
John Hampden ( 1594-1643), a British landowner who resisted the tax assessment to maintain the fleet of Charles I, thus becoming the hero of Englands Civil War, in 1642.

Lines 61-64

Direct objects of the word forbade in line 65

Elegy
Line 73: madding
Line 76: tenor Line 79: uncouth Line 81: unlettered Muse

Wild, furious
Even course strange The spirit of folk art

Elegy
Line 84: moralist
Line 92: wonted Line 93: For thee

Moral man
customary Probably Gray himself; perhaps the stonecutter poet of this graveyard perhaps

Line 97: Haply

Elegy
Line 97: swain
Line 116: thorn Line 119: science Line 121: bounty

Rustic, country youth


Hawthorne tree knowledge bounteousness

READ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Answer discussion questions

Reflect
The poem is Neoclassical in style
Regular iambic pentameter lines
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

Poetic in diction
storied urn the dull cold ear of Death

The poem is Romantic in tone


Scenes of nature Exaltation of humble country folk and gentle melancholy tone

Additional Activities

Read Elegy and Edward Youngs Night Thoughts or Robert Blairs The Grave and compare their views on death with Grays

One of Grays contemporaries is William Collins. Read Collinss ode to Evening and compare its Neoclassical and Romantic elements with those of Grays Elegy

Two modern elegies are Elegy for Jane by Theodore Roethke ( 1908-1963) and Elegy for William Hubbard by Tony Connor ( 1930) Compare the subject matter of these two elegies with Grays poem

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