Thomas Gray: The Progress of a Poet"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. |
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Page 58
... lines or was simply following the logic of the figure . These lines explicitly include West as a mythological participant in the pastoral idyll . As a postscript to the letter in Latin containing the above poem , Gray added a four - line ...
... lines or was simply following the logic of the figure . These lines explicitly include West as a mythological participant in the pastoral idyll . As a postscript to the letter in Latin containing the above poem , Gray added a four - line ...
Page 126
... lines - sounds in the poem ( like bells ) are separate - will bring us to an awareness of what the poem is about , how its changes are wrought , how the narrator progresses in the poem , and what the tone is — that is , not what , but ...
... lines - sounds in the poem ( like bells ) are separate - will bring us to an awareness of what the poem is about , how its changes are wrought , how the narrator progresses in the poem , and what the tone is — that is , not what , but ...
Page 127
... lines , which Ian Jack says falls after six syllables in lines 1 and 3 , after four in lines 2 and 4,14 creates a bell - like swing of long line , short line , long line , short line , imitating the curfew's tolling . Nevertheless ...
... lines , which Ian Jack says falls after six syllables in lines 1 and 3 , after four in lines 2 and 4,14 creates a bell - like swing of long line , short line , long line , short line , imitating the curfew's tolling . Nevertheless ...
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