THOMAS GRAY - Life and works

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THOMAS GRAY 

(December 26, 1716 - July 30, 1771)

Life and works  

Thomas Gray was one of the most important poets of the eighteenth century. This scholar and poet was born in Cornhill, in London. He was the only child in his family of eight to survive infancy. 434j95e His father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener and his mother kept a milliner's shop. He was educated at Eton where he met Horace Walpole, son of the great prime minister Robert Walpole. After a tour in France, his friend Horace Walpole helped him to publish  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which soon became very popular. In 1757 he was offered the Poet Laureateship but Thomas turned it down. In 1768 he became Regius Professor of modern history at Cambridge. It was in Cambridge where his life ended in 1771. He was buried at Stoke Poges churchyard, the scene of the "Elegy," in 1771.

We can consider Thomas Gray a transitional poet, because he is still linked to it in style as testified by his use of poetic diction and his conviction that everyday language can not be the language of poetry.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray' s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was first published in 1751. Gray took more than seven years to write this elegy, which was probably inspired by the death of his friend Richard West. The Elegy is a lament for a dead person, a meditative poem.

Style

The poem is based on an alteration of descriptions and reflections. This tecnique was dear to neoclassic poets, as it enabled them to break the possible monotony deriving from using one only of these two types. This poem is written in heroic quatrains of ten-syllable lines; each stanza is complete in itself.

The elegy remains the most important poem in English literature. It was translated in many languages; in Italy it was translated by Melchiorre Cesarotti and poets like Ugo Foscolo.