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British Poetry

Notes and destructive. Hardy was very much influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin, who maintained
that the development of a biological species and, by extension, of human society and history is
shaped by chance and not by the design of a God.
Another theme is the danger and destruction inherent in romantic love and marriage; Hardy exposes
the inconsistencies, irrationalities, and betrayals that often plague romantic relationships. Bathsheba
begins the novel an independent woman, but by falling in love with Troy, she nearly destroys her
life. Similarly, Hardy presents us with many couples in which one partner is more in love than the
other, and he shows what disastrous events result from this inequality.

25.1 Introduction to the Author

Thomas Gray (26 December 1716–30 July 1771) was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and
professor at Cambridge University.
Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, the son of an exchange broker and a milliner. He was
the fifth of 12 children and the only child of Philip and Dorothy Gray to survive infancy. He lived
with his mother after she left his abusive father. He was educated at Eton College where his uncle
was one of the masters. He recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his
time reading and avoiding athletics. It was probably fortunate for the sensitive Gray that he was
able to live in his uncle’s household rather than at college. He made three close friends at Eton:
Horace Walpole, son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Thomas Ashton, and Richard West. The
four prided themselves on their sense of style, their sense of humour, and their appreciation of
beauty.
In 1734 Gray went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He found the curriculum dull. He wrote letters to
his friends listing all the things he disliked: the masters (“mad with Pride”) and the Fellows (“sleepy,
drunken, dull, illiterate Things.”) Supposedly he was intended for the law, but in fact he spent his
time as an undergraduate reading classical and modern literature and playing Vivaldi and Scarlatti
on the harpsichord for relaxation.
In 1738 he accompanied his old school-friend Walpole on his Grand Tour of Europe, possibly at
Walpole’s expense. The two fell out and parted in Tuscany, because Walpole wanted to attend
fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. However, they were reconciled a
few years later.
Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. Gray may,
however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close friend Richard
West. An elegy is a poem which laments the dead. Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not of great or famous people, but of common men. The
speaker of this poem sees a country churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the
nature of human mortality. The poem invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latin phrase
which states plainly to all mankind, “Remember that you must die.” The speaker considers the fact
that in death, there is no difference between great and common people. He goes on to wonder if
among the lowly people buried in the churchyard there had been any natural poets or politicians
whose talent had simply never been discovered or nurtured. This thought leads him to praise the
dead for the honest, simple lives that they lived.
Gray did not produce a great deal of poetry; the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” however,
has earned him a respected and deserved place in literary history. The poem was written at the end
of the Augustan Age and at the beginning of the Romantic period, and the poem has characteristics
associated with both literary periods. On the one hand, it has the ordered, balanced phrasing and
rational sentiments of neoclassical poetry. On the other hand, it tends toward the emotionalism and
individualism of the Romantic poets; most importantly, it idealizes and elevates the common man.

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