Love and Death

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.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrld⁠⁠

In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsld

Further reading in the LRB:

John Mullan: Unpranked Lyre

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray1

Tony Harrison: ‘V.’

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray2

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

LRB Audiobooks

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld⁠

This episode looks at four poems whose subject would seem to lie beyond words: the death of a child. A defining feature of elegy is the struggle between poetic eloquence and inarticulate grief, and in these works by Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, Geoffrey Hill and Elizabeth Bishop we find that tension at its most acute. Mark and Seamus consider the way each poem deals with the traditional demand of the elegy for consolation, and what happens when the form and language of love poetry subverts elegiac conventions.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrld⁠⁠

In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsld

Read the poems here:

Ben Jonson: On My First Son

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/jonsoncrld⁠⁠

Anne Bradstreet:In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/bradstreetcrld⁠⁠

Geoffrey Hill: September Song

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/hillcrld⁠⁠

Elizabeth Bishop: First Death in Nova Scotia

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/bishopcrld⁠⁠

Read more in the LRB:

Blair Worden on Ben Jonson

https://lrb.me/ldch1

Blair Worden on puritanism

https://lrb.me/ldch2

Colin Burrow in Geoffrey Hill:

https://lrb.me/ldch3

Helen Vendler on Elizabeth Bishop

https://lrb.me/ldch4

Next episode:

Elegies by Thomas Gray:

⁠⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard⁠⁠

⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44305/on-the-death-of-richard-west⁠

⁠⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44302/ode-on-the-death-of-a-favourite-cat-drowned-in-a-tub-of-goldfishes⁠⁠

LRB Audiobooks

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld

Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet Edward King. As well as a great pastoral elegy, it is a denunciation of the ecclesiastical condition of England and a rehearsal for Milton’s later role as a writer of national epic. In the first episode of their new series, Seamus and Mark discuss the political backdrop to the poem, Milton’s virtuosic mix of poetic tradition and innovation, and why such a fervent puritan would choose an unfashionable, pre-Christian form to honour his friend.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrld⁠⁠

In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsld

Read 'Lycidas': ⁠⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44733/lycidas⁠⁠

Read more in the LRB:

Colin Burrow (on the 'two-handed engine'):

https://lrb.me/ldmilton1

Freya Johnston (on Samuel Johnson's criticism):

https://lrb.me/ldmilton2

Maggie Kilgour (on the young Milton):

https://lrb.me/ldmilton3

LRB Audiobooks

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry introduce Love and Death, a new Close Readings series on elegy from the Renaissance to the present day. They discuss why the elegy can be a particularly energising form for poets engaging with their craft and the poetic tradition, and how elegy serves an important role in public grieving, remembering and healing.

Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.