The Elegy in Thomas Gray and Shelley

LYRIC AND THE INNER LIFE COURSEWORK

‘Elegy is about mourning for one’s own condition’

Stuart Curran, ‘Romantic Elegiac Hybridity’, in The Oxford Handbook to Elegy (Oxford, 2010), ed. Karen Weisman, p. 249

Discuss Curran’s comment in relation to the work of Thomas Gray and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

'One of the major tasks of the work of mourning and of the work of the elegy is to repair the mourner 's damaged narcissism '[1]. This quote by literary critic Peter Sacks, flourishes from Sigmund Freud 's model of primary narcissism which suggests that 'we love others less for their uniqueness and separateness, and more for their ability to contract our own abundance, that is, to embody and reflect back that part of ourselves that we have invested in them '[2]. Sacks expands this coalescence in his criticism of elegies such as Milton 's Lycidas and Tennyson 's In Memoriam. Using this model of narcissism and literary mourning along with key aspects of history, language and critical reviews, I will explicate how an 'elegy is about mourning for one 's own condition[3] in Thomas Grays ' Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard and Percy Shelley 's Adonais, Before delving straight into how the poems serve as elegies to the poets themselves, I will first discuss how the poems appear and attempt in their best capacity not to do so. Samuel Johnson famously commented on Gray 's Elegy saying that 'The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo '[4]. The portrayal of such a literary universality springs from the poem 's apparent mourning of the common man. Gray laments a ubiquitous sense of mortality, paying homage to the archetypical 'weary plowman '[5] who falls prey to 'dumb Forgetfulness ' (85) and lies forgotten in his 'lowly bed ' (20). This notion that the poem 'is life in its most general form, reinterpreted so as to speak to mankind generally, where all men are comparable

Bibliography: Bieri, James, Percy Bysshe Shelley: a Biography (Massachusetts: Rosemont Publishing, 2005) Brown, Marshall, “Gray 's Churchyard Space”, in Preromanticism (California: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp Clewell, Tammy, 'Mourning Beyond Melancholia: Freud 's Psychoanalysis on Loss ', Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association, 52.1(2004), p. 46-48. Cox, Stephen, “Contexts of Significance: Thomas Gray”, in The Stranger within Thee: Concepts of Self in Late-Eighteenth Century Literature (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1980), pp. 82-98. Curran, Stuart, 'Romantic Elegiac Hybridity ', Oxford Handbook to Elegy (Oxford: Oxford Printing Press, 2010) Dillon, Andrew, “Depression and Release”, North Dakota Quarterly, 60.4 (1992), pp Duncan-Jones, Katherine, “The Review of English Studies”, New Series, 22.86 (1971), p. 75-171. Gray, Thomas, Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard: with the complete works of Thomas Gray (Virginia: Peter Pauper Press, 1947) Hutchens, Eleanor, “Cold and Heat in Adonais”, Modern Language Notes, 76.2 (1961), p Hurtz, Neil, The End of the Line (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) Jackson, Wallace, “Thomas Gray and the Dedicatory Muse”, ELH, 54.2 (1987), pp Roe, Nicholas, Keats and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Shelley, Percy Bysshe, The Selected Prose and Poetry of Shelley (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1994) Weinbrot, Howard, “Restoration and the Eighteenth Century”, Studies in English Literature 1500- 1900, 18.3 (1978), pp. 537-551. ----------------------- [1] Tammy Clewell, 'Mourning Beyond Melancholia: Freud 's Psychoanalysis on Loss ', Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association, 52.1(2004), p [3] Stuart Curran, 'Romantic Elegiac Hybridity ', Oxford Handbook to Elegy (Oxford: Oxford Printing Press, 2010), p. 249. [4] Neil Hurtz, The End of the Line (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 73. [5] Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard: with the complete works of Thomas Gray (Virginia: Peter Pauper Press, 1947), line 3 (all subsequent references will be made in the body of the text). [6] Marshall Brown, “Gray 's Churchyard Space”, in Preromanticism (California: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 42-8. [10] Stephen Cox, “Contexts of Significance: Thomas Gray”, in The Stranger within Thee: Concepts of Self in Late-Eighteenth Century Literature (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1980), pp. 82-98. [11] Wallace Jackson, “Thomas Gray and the Dedicatory Muse”, ELH, 54.2 (1987), pp. 277-98. [12] Howard Weinbrot, “Restoration and the Eighteenth Century”, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 18.3 (1978), pp. 537-551. [13] Andrew Dillon, “Depression and Release”, North Dakota Quarterly, 60.4 (1992), pp. 128-34. [19] Percy Shelley, The Selected Prose and Poetry of Shelley (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1994), line 1 (all subsequent references will be made in the body of the text). [20] Nicholas Roe, Keats and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 23. [23] Eleanor Hutchens, Cold and Heat in Adonais, Modern Language Notes, 76.2 (1961), p. 124. [27] Katherine Duncan-Jones, “The Review of English Studies”, New Series, 22.86 (1971), p. 75. [28] James Bieri, Percy Bysshe Shelley: a Biography (Massachusetts: Rosemont Publishing, 2005), p. 239.