elegy written in a country churchyard was published in 1751.
elegy written in a country churchyard was published in 1751.
when was elegy written in a country churchyard published?
1751
modern critics emphasised the poem's use of language as a reason for its importance and popularity. in 1995, lorna clymer argued, "the dizzying series of displacements and substitutions of subjects, always considered a crux in thomas gray's "elegy written in a country churchyard" (1751), results from a complex manipulation of epitaphic rhetoric." later, robert mack, in 2000, explained that "gray's "elegy" is numbered high among the very greatest poems in the english tradition precisely because of its simultaneous accessibility and inscrutability." he went on to claim that the poem "was very soon to transform his life – and to transform or at least profoundly affect the development of lyric poetry in english". while analyzing the use of "death" in 18th-century poetry, david morris, in 2001, declared the poem as "a monument in this ongoing transformation of death" and that "the poem in its quiet portraits of rural life succeeds in drawing the forgotten dead back into the community of the living."
elegy written in a country churchyard
during the 1970s, some critics pointed out how the lines of the poems were memorable and popular while others emphasised the poem's place in the greater tradition of english poetry. w. k. wimsatt, in 1970, suggested, "perhaps we shall be tempted to say only that gray transcends and outdoes hammond and shenstone simply because he writes a more poetic line, richer, fuller, more resonant and memorable in all the ways in which we are accustomed to analyze the poetic quality." in 1971, charles cudworth declared that the elegy was "a work which probably contains more famous quotations per linear inch of text than any other in the english language, not even excepting "hamlet"." when describing how gray's "elegy" is not a conventional elegy, eric smith added in 1977, "yet, if the poem at so many points fails to follow the conventions, why are we considering it here? the answer is partly that no study of major english elegies could well omit it. but it is also, and more importantly, that in its essentials gray's "elegy" touches this tradition at many points, and consideration of them is of interest to both to appreciation of the poem and to seeing how [...] they become in the later tradition essential points of reference." also in 1977, thomas carper noted, "while gray was a schoolboy at eton, his poetry began to show a concern with parental relationships, and with his position among the great and lowly in the world [...] but in the "elegy written in a country churchyard" these longstanding and very human concerns have their most affecting expression." in 1978, howard weinbrot noted, "with all its long tradition of professional examination the poem remains distant for many readers, as if the criticism could not explain why johnson thought that "the "church-yard" abounds with images that find a mirrour in every mind". he continued by arguing that it is the poem's discussion of morality and death that is the source of its "enduring popularity".
elegy written in a country churchyard