'Where Ignorance is bliss/"Tis folly to be wise,' from Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College is one example. Extracts from his Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard have also become part of the literary heritage: 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,/ And waste its sweetness on the desert air'; 'Far from the madding Crowd's ignoble strife'; and a reference to life's 'cool sequestered vale' undoubtedly carry a familiar ring.
However, Gray (1716-71) would have been content for his name to rest in anonymity, his poems only circulating among his associates. The London-born son of a City scrivener, he was educated at Eton between 1725 and 1734, where one of his closest friends was Horace Walpole, who would arrange for the first, anonymous, publication of Gray's odes in 1747. Like Walpole, Gray attended Cambridge, but, although his intention was to prepare for a career as a London barrister, he returned to the university city after taking a two-year Grand Tour of Europe in the company of Walpole between 1739-41. In Cambridge, pursuing his literary interests as a gentleman scholar, he would effectively live for the remainder of his life.
Gray had begun writing English language poetry in the early 1740s, and Elegy may have had its origins in some lines penned on the death of another of his Eton friends, Richard West, in 1742, an event that caused him much grief. In fact, Gray had unknowingly sent
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds