Gray's father was a scrivener while his mother and aunt kept a milliner's shop. He led a quiet, studious life in the main, training in law after his degree at Cambridge and then becoming a history done at Peterhouse.
Gray formed a friendship with Walpole which was broken off as a result of a disagreement during a "Grand Tour of Europe" (1734-39), though they were eventually reconciled in 1745. This friendship was important to Gray's literary career and Walpole later published The Progress of Poetry and The Bard, an impassioned summary of English history, on his Strawberry Hill Press. Gray sent his Ode on the Spring to an Etonian friend, Richard West, who died shortly afterwards, prompting the Sonnet on the Death of West. Gray was immensely popular and helped to create a new taste in poetry; fertile ground for the romantic poets to follow him. In 1757 at the death of the Poet
Laureate Cibber, the post was offered to Gray, but he refused it.
Poems by this Poet
Poem |
Post date | Rating | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ode On The Death Of A Favourite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Goldfishes | 31 May 2013 |
(3 votes) |
0 |
| Ode On The Pleasure Arising From Vicissitude | 31 May 2013 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| Ode On The Spring | 31 May 2013 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| On Lord Holland's Seat near Margate, Kent | 19 May 2014 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| On the Death of Richard West | 3 June 2013 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! | 29 November 2013 |
(8 votes) |
0 |
| Sketch of His Own Character | 5 September 2014 |
No votes yet |
0 |
| Song | 29 November 2013 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| Sonnet on the Death of Mr Richard West | 31 July 2013 |
(1 vote) |
0 |
| Stanzas to Mr. Bentley | 5 September 2014 |
(1 vote) |
0 |