Thomas Gray and the Graveyard poetry

GRAVEYARD POETRY

WORKS

" The paths of glory lead but to the grave"Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

1716-1771

THOMAS GRAY

Foscolo: the grave is the symbol of the illusion of life after death and is the link between the dead and the living. The memory of the dead is kept alive thanks to those living who remember them. The dead people are the strong ones, those who will be remembered for their deeds.

Gray: death has a democratising effect in that it brings all people down to the same level. It doesn't matter if we have an impressive monument or a humble tomb, in the end death takes us all.

• 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College' (1742)
• 'Elegy written in a Counrty Chuchyard' (1742-51)
• 'The Bard' (1757)
• 'On Lord Holland's Seat Near Margate, Kent' (1769)

He was a professor in Modern History in Cambridge.He did not produce many literary works as he was conditioned by the neoclassical search for perfection in writing, typical of the first century.

Biography

Although his poetical production was slight, he was a dominant poetical figure in the mid-18th century and a precursor of the Romantic movement.

The Graveyard poets were a group of poets of the 18th century. Poetry characterized by meditations on mortality in a graveyard.Christian clergymen

Contemplation of human motality Man's relation to the divine Gloomy and funerary images Influence on the gothic novel, on its dark and mysterious elements of the plot Early precursor of the Romantic movement in Europe