Assignment - 2: Thomas Gray as a 'Transitional Poet'

TOPIC OF THE BLOG:-

This blog is part of an assignment for the paper 102 - Literature of the Neo-classical Period, Sem - 1, 2023. 

           

             Thomas Gray as a Transitional Poet 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

 ❍ Personal information

 ❍ Assignment Details

 ❍ Abstract

 ❍ Keywords

 ❍ Introduction

 ❍ Transitional Poets 

 ❍ Thomas Gray

 ❍ 'Elegy written in a country Churchyard.' Poem by Thomas Gray

 ❍ Thomas Gray as a Transitional Poet

 ❍ Quotes by Thomas Gray

 ❍ Conclusion

 ❍ Work cited

PERSONAL INFORMATION:-

 

Name: - Priyanshiba Kanaksinh Gohil

Batch No: M.A. Sem 1 (2023-2025)

Enrollment Number: - 5108230018 

E-mail Address: - priyabagohil7126@gmail.com

Roll Number: - 25

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS: -

Topic: - Thomas Gray as A 'Transitional Poet'

Paper & subject code: - 102 - Literature of the Neo-classical Period & 22393

Submitted to: - Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar.

Date of Submission: - 01st December, 2023

About Assignment: - In this Assignment, I try to Explore Thomas Gray as a Transitional poet.

 

ABSTRACT: -

Thomas Gray is a unique poet of the 18th-century. He is often regarded as a transitional poet in the history of English poetry. His works exhibit characteristics of both the neoclassical and romantic periods. These characteristics have made him an important transitional poet. In his works we find the rationality and order of the neoclassical era and the emotional and imaginative nature of the romantic era During Gray's lifetime (1716-1771), Neoclassicism was the dominant literary movement. This movement emphasized reason, order, and formal structures. The neoclassical poets adhered to strict rules of decorum. They often focused on moral themes, classical allusions, and didacticism. Gray, however, introduced a more personal and introspective approach to poetry. The emergence of romanticism was the result of this new approach. Gray's innovative and introspective approach laid a solid foundation for the development of the Romantic Movement. His emphasis on individual emotion and personal experience as well as his use of vivid imagery and evocative language resonate with the Romantic poets. His exploration of the inner self and the expression of subjective feelings contributed to the shift away from the strict formalism of neoclassicism.

KEYWORDS: 

Capricious, Fickle, Protean, Shifting, Unpredictable, Unsettled, 

INTRODUCTION: -

Thomas Gray is the greatest poet between Milton and Wordsworth. He is called the poetical classic of the 18th century. It is he who has offered some immortal poems to the literature of his nation. 'An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' is the best example of it.

Gray is a great and matchless elegiac poet in the annals of English poetry. He indulged himself in the luxury of tears. Melancholy is the distinguishing feature of his poems. His poetry is full of sorrow, suffering, disease and death. As a true mourner Gray mourns the tragic fate of mankind. He always deals with the mortality and meaninglessness of human life. His 'ELEGY...' is a sincere song of mourning. Thus, Gray is par excellence a poet of death and mourning. As a precursor of English Romantic movement Gray had no sympathy for the conventional verse. He tried to break through the bounds of the prevailing patterns of poetry. He stood strongly against the bondage of rules, conventions and customs. He sought and found inspiration in the literature of the past. He had love for nature, medieval-ism, Hellenism and melancholy. He had sympathy for the weak and the poor. These all are the prominent characteristics of the Romantic poetry.

Transitional Poet:

It was the mid-eighteenth century and poets were tiring of the neoclassical ideals of reason and wit. The Neoclassic poets, such as Alexander Pope, "prized order, clarity, economic wording, logic, refinement, and decorum. Theirs was an age of rationalism, wit, and satire." (Guth 1836) This contrasts greatly with the ideal of Romanticism, which was "an artistic revolt against the conventions of the fashionable formal, civilized, and refined Neoclassicism of the eighteenth century." (Guth 1840) Poets like William, "dropped conventional poetic diction and forms in Favour of freer forms and bolder language. They preached a return to nature, elevated sincere feeling over dry intellect, and often shared in the revolutionary Favour of the late eighteenth century." (Guth 589) Poets wanted to express emotion again. They wanted to leave the city far behind and travel back to the simple countryside where rustic, humble men and women resided and became their subjects. These poets, William Blake, Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns, caught in the middle of neoclassic writing and the Romantic Age, are fittingly known as the Transitional poets.

Thomas Gray:

Thomas Gray, (born Dec. 26, 1716, London—died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.), English poet whose “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” is one of the best known of English lyric poems. Although his literary output was slight, he was the dominant poetic figure in the mid-18th century and a precursor of the Romantic movement. Born into a prosperous but unhappy home, Gray was the sole survivor of 12 children of a harsh and violent father and a long-suffering mother, who operated a millinery business to educate him. A delicate and studious boy, he was sent to Eton in 1725 at the age of eight. There he formed a “Quadruple Alliance” with three other boys who liked poetry and classics and disliked rowdy sports and the Hogarthian manners of the period. They were Horace Walpole, the son of the prime minister; the precocious poet Richard West, who was closest to Gray; and Thomas Ashton. The style of life Gray developed at Eton, devoted to quiet study, the pleasures of the imagination, and a few understanding friends, was to persist for the rest of his years.

'Elegy written in a country Churchyard.' Poem by Thomas Gray:

Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 'belongs to the genre of elegy. An elegy is a poem written to mourn a person’s death. Gray wrote this elegy in the year 1742. However, he published it only in the year 1751. He wrote this poem after the death of his friend Richard West.

Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” presents the omniscient speaker who talks to the reader. First, he stands alone in a graveyard deep in thought. While there, he thinks about the dead people buried there. The graveyard referred to here is the graveyard of the church in Stoke Pogoes, Buckinghamshire. The speaker contemplates the end of human life throughout the poem. He remarks on the inevitability of death that every individual has to face. Besides mourning the loss of someone, the speaker in the elegy reminds the reader that all people will die one day. Death is an unavoidable and natural thing in everyone’s life. When one dies today, tomorrow, a stranger will see the person’s tombstone. Out of curiosity, he will ask about the person buried there to a villager. The villager will reply that he knew the man. He would add that he had seen him in various spots. Sometimes, he will also remark that he had stopped seeing the man one day, and then there was the tombstone.

   In the poem, Gray, the poet himself, writes the epitaph of his own. He says that his life is full of sadness and depression. However, he feels proud of his knowledge. He calls it incomparable. In addition to this, he says that ‘No one is perfect in this world.’ So, he asks the reader not to judge anyone in the graveyard. Each and every soul is different and takes rest for eternity in the graveyard. In conclusion, the poet, through the speaker, ends the elegy by saying that death is an inevitable event in this world. Also, he says that man’s efforts and his struggles to succeed in life comes to an end in death. Thus, death conquers man regardless of his successes and/or failures in his endeavors during his life.

Thomas Gray as a Transitional poet:

Thomas Gray is transitional poet. He showed his merit between the Neo-Classical and Romantic Age. Thus, his position as a classic and as a precursor of Romanticism is established. It is said that he began his career as Classicist but ended as a romantic poet.

One of Gray's most famous poems, ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ is the best example of his transitional style. This poem follows some significant conventions of neoclassicism. Here Gray has used heroic quatrains and formal diction. But at the same time this poem also explores deeply personal and melancholic themes. Gray contemplates the lives and deaths of ordinary people buried in a rural churchyard. Here he expresses a sense of empathy and emotional connection with their plight. This emotional depth matches with the attitude of the romantic poets. Moreover, Gray's poetry often showcases his interest in nature and the sublime. In poems like ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ and ‘The Bard,’ he portrays nature as a powerful and awe-inspiring force.

As a precursor of English Romantic movement Gray had no sympathy for the conventional verse. He tried to break through the bounds of the prevailing patterns of poetry. He stood strongly against the bondage of rules, conventions and customs. He sought and found inspiration in the literature of the past. He had love for nature, medieval-ism, Hellenism and melancholy. He had sympathy for the weak and the poor. These all are the prominent characteristics of the Romantic poetry.

Quotes by Thomas Gray: 

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

- Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”

― Thomas Gray, Gray and Collins: Poetical Works

conclusion: 

In short, Thomas Gray can be considered a transitional poet. It is because his works embody elements of both neoclassical and romantic poetry. His contributions to poetry set the stage for the transformation of English literature.

As a great poet Gray showed his metrical excellence but he never sacrificed sense to sound. He was in the habit of using antithesis, personification, epigrams, circumlocutions, allegories and compound words. His poetry is lyrical in form and refined in style. There is musical virtuosity in his poetry. He avoided the predominant couplet and preferred the stanza. Thus, Gray is great, matchless and immortal poet. He wrote poetry with a great degree of ease and comfort. He will be remembered for ever for his simplicity, tenderness, human touch and universal feelings. In his poems he attained the sublimity of Milton and the harmony of Pope.

work cited:

❖Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2023, July 26). Thomas Gray. Encyclopedia Britannica. Thomas Gray | English Poet & Elegy Writer | Britannica

❖ Ram, Kevin. "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray". Poem Analysis, https://poemanalysis.com/thomas-gray/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard/. Accessed 21 November 2023. 

❖Goodreads, Quotes by Thomas Gray,

Thomas Gray Quotes (Author of An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard) (goodreads.com)

❖Thomas Gray as a Transitional poet, englishliteraturemail,

https://www.englitmail.com/2023/05/thomas-gray-as-transitional-poet.html

❖Thomas Gray as a Transitional poet, englishliteraturemail,

https://www.englitmail.com/2017/04/thomas-gray-as-transitional-poet.html

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