Two themes play through Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” The major theme is the inevitability of suffering, death, and unhappiness for humankind. It is composed of ten 10-line stanzas, rhyming ABABCCDEED, with the B lines and final D line in iambic trimeter and the others in iambic tetrameter. "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" is an 18th-century ode by Thomas Gray. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Thought would destroy their paradise. Condemned alike to groan; Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Do we want to know the doctor’s bad news? A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs. And black Misfortune's baleful train! He teaches in the graduate writing program at the New School in New York City. And Envy wan, and faded Care, The stings of Falsehood those shall try, That inly gnaws the secret heart, 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. why should they know their fate? It … To each his sufferings: all are men, Who foremost now delight to cleave A grisly troop are seen, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, In his Short History of English Literature, George Saintsbury says Gray was “probably the best-read man of letters of his time in Europe.” What he lacked in originality and inspiration he made up for in fastidious craftsmanship. Thomas Gray (1716-1771) was an English poet and scholar. Briefly mention the subject of the “Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College”. Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen That every labouring sinew strains, "On a visit to Gray's "Country Churchyard" at Stoke Poges several decades ago: Looking south-south-west from the churchyard, I calculated that were it not for the trees that had grown up since, Gray would at three miles’ distance and in the clearer air of the mid-eighteenth century have easily been able to see not only a distant prospect of the “antique towers” of Eton College, but also the idle progeny, bold … Yet ah! Th' unfeeling for his own. The sunshine of the breast: Where once my careless childhood strayed, And happiness too swiftly flies. Some bold adventurers disdain And hard Unkindness' altered eye, Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade, Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Ye distant spires, ye antique tow'rs, That crown the wat'ry glade, Where grateful Science still adores. And lively cheer of vigour born; 2019 The Slate Group LLC. Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And Sorrow's piercing dart. The painful family of Death, The vision of the life of man is grim, as grim as in Hobbes (“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”), but the writing is so controlled and has such authority that one finds it delicious despite the dispiriting content. In this poem, Gray coined the phrase "Ignorance is bliss". A stranger yet to pain! Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. With pliant arm thy glassy wave? why should they know their fate? Briefly mention the subject of the “Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College”. I have read Gray’s “Ode” many times and it has never failed to astonish me. And, redolent of joy and youth, His poem, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” is famous for coining the phrase, “ignorance is bliss”—now a popular saying. Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below. Favorite examples of poetic endings include the interrogatives of Shelley (“If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”) and Yeats (“How come we know the dancer from the dance?”), the declarative Milton (“They also serve who only stand and wait”), the ecstatic Coleridge (“For he on honeydew hath fed/ and drunk the milk of paradise”), the reiterated premonitions of Robert Frost (“And miles to go before I sleep”). In this poem, Gray coined the phrase "Ignorance is bliss". Or urge the flying ball? Since sorrow never comes too late, Wild wit, invention ever-new, Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, No more; where ignorance is bliss, No more; where ignorance is bliss, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, There follows an unrelenting list of pains, grievances, ailments, and sufferings—a catalogue without parallel in English lyric poetry. To sweeten liberty: And slow-consuming Age. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" is an 18th-century ode by Thomas Gray. The vultures of the mind, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, And moody Madness laughing wild Ah, show them where in ambush stand As waving fresh their gladsome wing, David Lehman is the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Disporting on thy margent green Less pleasing when possessed; “Happy” are the hills, “pleasing” is the shade. And happiness too swiftly flies. Amid severest woe. Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, Lo, in the vale of years beneath This racks the joints, this fires the veins, Gray felt, too, that true poetry was incompatible with the discourse of the tribe, and it is his artificial diction that earned him an attack from Wordsworth in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads.
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