The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard
(1751) and The Eton College Manuscript, by Thomas Gray
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Title: An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript
Author: Thomas Gray
Release Date: March 18, 2005 [EBook #15409]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ELEGY WROTE IN A COUNTRY ***
Produced by David Starner, Diane Monico and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
The Augustan Reprint Society
THOMAS GRAY
_An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard_
(1751)
and
_The Eton College Manuscript_
With an Introduction by
George Sherburn
Publication Number 31
Los Angeles
Williams Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1951
GENERAL EDITORS
H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
INTRODUCTION
To some the eighteenth-century definition of proper poetic matter is
unacceptable; but to any who believe that true poetry may (if not
"must") consist in "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed,"
Gray's "Churchyard" is a majestic achievement--perhaps (accepting the
definition offered) the supreme achievement of its century. Its
success, so the great critic of its day thought, lay in its appeal to
"the common reader"; and though no friend of Gray's other work, Dr.
Johnson went on to commend the "Elegy" as abounding "with im
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