The Poetry of Gray (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Thomas Gray
- First Published: 1751
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Literature, Poetry or poets, England or English people, Eighteenth century, Death or dying, Cemeteries, Neoclassicism
Critical Evaluation:
Although the poem now titled “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is justly the most famous of Thomas Gray’s poems, anyone reading through the whole of his work will decide that he is not a poet of only one tone or one mode of sensibility. True, Gray could strike and maintain admirably a specific mood, such as that of gentle melancholy and regret that informs the “Elegy.” This, however, was only one of his effects. The poetry of his great contemporary, Samuel Johnson, is sustained in one mode from beginning to end—abstract, moralistic,...
[The entire page is 1056 words long]
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