Gray, Thomas
Gray, Thomas ( 1716 – 71 ),born in London, the son of a scrivener; his mother and aunt kept a milliner's shop. He was educated at Eton, with Horace Walpole , and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He accompanied Walpole on a tour of France and Italy in 1739 – 41 (see grand tour ), but they quarrelled and returned home separately. Also in 1741 his father died, leaving the family financially insecure. In 1742 Gray moved to Cambridge, where he was to live, apart from travels and visits, for the rest of his life, first at Peterhouse, then from 1756 at Pembroke College; in 1741 – 2 he began to write English rather than Latin poetry, producing a fragment of a Racinian tragedy, Agrippina (first published 1775 ), and his first odes, including Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College ( 1747 ), the first of his works to appear in print. In June 1742 his Etonian friend Richard West died, just after...
[The entire page is 481 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
