Thomas Gray: The Progress of a PoetFairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997 - 279 pages "The book is divided into five chapters. The first examines Gray's earliest poems and imitations for evidence of his sense of himself as poet, of prosody, diction, sources, or traditions to utilize. By chapter 2, Gray's impulses toward his goal as a poet become more evident, as he is manifestly determined toward a life of poetry. The "Elegy" occupies chapter 3 - his drafts and composition of the poem, and the poem itself, the resolution to his complex of problems as poet and as man. Close study of Gray's notebooks in chapter 4 shows that the Pindaric odes, "The Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard," though ostensibly radically different from the "Elegy," were conceived at the same time as the "Elegy" and thus draw crucial depictions of his movement toward serious revision of English poetic style and his own role as poet in society. Chapter 5 continues Gray's scholarly impulse that led to the study and imitation of Pindar, as he turned to Northern European sources for proof of poetic antiquity equal to the Greek. He found what he wanted in Welsh and Norse lore and wrote several poems imitating their style."--BOOK JACKET. |
From inside the book
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Page 113
... final draft , we see graphically how Gray changed words and phrases : Hard by yon wood , now smiling as in scorn , Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove , Now drooping , woeful wan , like one forlorn , Or crazed with care , or ...
... final draft , we see graphically how Gray changed words and phrases : Hard by yon wood , now smiling as in scorn , Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove , Now drooping , woeful wan , like one forlorn , Or crazed with care , or ...
Page 140
... final word a reply to the plaintive cry of the West sonnet : " A different object do these eyes require " ? The final two lines stress the rising emphasis with their trochaic " Ev'n from " and " Ev'n in , ” and we hear as well four ...
... final word a reply to the plaintive cry of the West sonnet : " A different object do these eyes require " ? The final two lines stress the rising emphasis with their trochaic " Ev'n from " and " Ev'n in , ” and we hear as well four ...
Page 143
... final stanza's caesuras vary 4/6 , 5/5 , 4/6 , and the long 7/3 line creates a placidity in preparation for the final prayerful " and his God . " The effective pace of the swain's 4/6 line serves as an alternative to the epitaph's ...
... final stanza's caesuras vary 4/6 , 5/5 , 4/6 , and the long 7/3 line creates a placidity in preparation for the final prayerful " and his God . " The effective pace of the swain's 4/6 line serves as an alternative to the epitaph's ...
Contents
Introduction | 9 |
Early English Poems | 44 |
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard | 105 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
allusion antistrophe Arthur Johnston audience Augustan Bard bardic British caesura Cambridge classical Common-Place Books composition couplets dance Dante death dramatic Dryden Dunciad echoes edition Eighteenth-Century Elegy emotional English poetry epitaph Essays Eton College Eton ode eyes final Gray wrote Gray's Elegy Greek harmony history of poetry human imagination imitation John joys language later Latin lines London Lonsdale Lucretius lyre lyric Mason Milton mind Muses narrator narrator's nature o'er Oxford Paradise passion pastoral personification Petrarch phrases Pindaric poem poem's poet poet's Pope Pope's Principiis Progress of Poesy Propertius prophetic prosody revision rhyme role satire says scene seems sense song sonnet sound speaker spirit Spring ode stanza Statius swain syllables syntax Tasso themes Thomas Gray Thomas Warton thou thought translation University Press verb verse vision voice Walpole Welsh West West's Wharton William words writing written