Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771), was an English poet, classical scholar and professor of history at Cambridge University. Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London and lived with his mother after she left his abusive father. He was educated at Eton College and became a Fellow first of Peterhouse and, later, of Pembroke College, Cambridge. While a student, he met Horace Walpole (whom he accompanied on the Grand Tour).
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 less than 1,000 lines), he is regarded as {excluding William Collins (1721 - 1759)}, the predominant poetic figure of the middle decades of the 18th century. In 1757, he was offered the post of Poet Laureate, which he refused. In 1768, he succeeded Lawrence Brockett as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, a sinecure.
Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), believed to have been written in the churchyard of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, has become a lasting contribution to English literary heritage. It is still one of the most popular and most frequently quoted poems in the English language. 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". The poem's famous depiction of an "ivy-mantled tow'r" could be a reference to the early-mediaeval St Laurence's Church in Upton, Slough.
Gray combined traditional forms and poetic diction with new topics and modes of expression and may be considered as a classically focussed precursor of the romantic revival.
The Elegy was recognised immediately for its beauty and skill, and the Churchyard Poets are so named because they wrote in the shadow of Gray's great poem. It contains many outstanding phrases which have entered the common English lexicon, either on their own or as referenced in other works. A few of these include:
- "Far from the madding crowd"
- "The paths of glory"
- "Celestial fire"
- "The unlettered muse"
- "Kindred spirit"
Gray also wrote light verse, such as Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, concerning Horace Walpole's cat, which had recently died trying to fish goldfish out of a bowl. The poem moves easily to its double proverbial conclusion: "[a] fav'rite has not friend" and "[k]now one false step is ne'er retrieved".
He is also well known for his statement that "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," from his 1742 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
There is a plaque on Cornhill, marking the place where was born.
External links
- The Thomas Gray Archive, ed. by Alexander Huber
- The Elegy and the Internet by Gilbert Wesley Purdy; this essay provides considerable information on Thomas Gray, his influences and on the "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard".
- Works by Thomas Gray. Project Gutenberg
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