INTRODUCTION


To some the eighteenth-century definition of proper poetic matter is
unacceptable; but to any who believe that true poetry may (if not
"must") consist in "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed,"
Gray's "Churchyard" is a majestic achievement--perhaps (accepting the
definition offered) the supreme achievement of its century. Its
success, so the great critic of its day thought, lay in its appeal to
"the common reader"; and though no friend of Gray's other work, Dr.
Johnson went on to commend the "Elegy" as abounding "with images which
find a mirrour in every mind and with sentiments to which every bosom
returns an echo." Universality, clarity, incisive lapidary
diction--these qualities may be somewhat staled in praise of the
"classical" style, yet it is precisely in these traits that the
"Elegy" proves most nobly. The artificial figures of rhetorical
arrangement that are so omnipresent in the antitheses, chiasmuses,
parallelisms, etc., of Pope and his school are in Gray's best
quatrains unobtrusive or even infrequent.

Often in the art of the period an affectation of simplicity covers and
reveals by turns a great thirst for ingenuity. Swift's prose is a fair
example; in the "Tale of a Tub" and even in "Gulliver" at first sight
there seems to appear only an honest and simple directness; but pry
beneath the surface statements, or allow yourself to be dazzled by
their coruscations of meaning, and you immediately see you are
watching a stylistic prestidigitator. The later, more orderly dignity