Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contemporary poetry. Mark and Seamus explore three of Gray’s elegiac poems and their peculiar emotional power. They discuss Gray’s ambiguous sexuality, his procrastination and class anxieties, and where his humour shines through – as in his elegy for Horace Walpole’s cat.

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Further reading in the LRB:

John Mullan: Unpranked Lyre

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n24/john-mullan/unpranked-lyre

Tony Harrison: ‘V.’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n01/tony-harrison/v

Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist

Read the texts online:

https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/sorw

https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/elcc

https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/odfc

Next episode: Mid-20th century elegies: Berryman, Lowell, Bishop

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