Thomas Gray: poetry and poetic identity

Luisa Camaiora

• Publisher: EDUCatt Università Cattolica
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9788883118555
• eBook ISBN: 9788867801800
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

These studies propose a critical interpretation of the poetry of Thomas Gray with specific focus on the concept of poetic identity. Particular consideration will therefore be dedicated to the poet's presentation and construal of himself within the poems, but attention will also be directed to the evaluation and appraisal of the thematic, formal and imagerial structure of the poetic texts.
The critical analysis of the two early odes, Ode on the Spring and Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, sustains that in these works Gray oscillates between two poetic identities, one personality being essentially formal and conventional and the other more introspective and emotive. It is however retained that Gray succeeds in maintaining his own unique and unifying poetic voice. In the Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, four different contexts of identity are identified: the animalfable one, the human-exemplum one, the literarymythological identity and the speculative-artistic one, all four articulated within the wider sphere of the interrelationships existing between society, literature and the artist-identity.
The Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard is interpreted as a double oration, in the first of which Gray proposes himself as upholder and defender of rustic and simple people, and in the second of which he assumes the identity of advocate and vindicator of himself. The two orations balance and reflect one another, furnishing insights into the nature of the poet-orator's relationship to poetry and fame. The analysis of Gray's two Pindaric Odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bard, examines the two poems documenting the problems connected with their composition and publication, as also those tied to the public reaction to them and the critical acclaim in response to their appearance. The reading here proposed highlights how, in the first ode, the poet elaborates his idea of the identity of poetry through time and space, while the second he proposes a figure and identity of poet as embodiment of moral and aesthetic values, thus reflecting his own forma mentis and cultural identity. (Tratto dall'Introduzione dell'Autrice)