Love and Death: ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray
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://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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.