05 Aug Thomas Gray
In the mid-18th Century Thomas Gray was famous. His masterpiece – still popular and widely admired – is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) for which he found inspiration in the graveyard of St Giles’ Church in Stoke Poges (20 miles west of London). The Elegy is one of only thirteen of his poems to be published. Even so, many of Gray’s lines have found their way into popular culture: “Ignorance is Bliss”, “Paths of Glory”, “Far from the Madding Crowd” (used by Thomas Hardy for the title of his great 1874 novel).
Gray was first and foremost a classical scholar. He spent most of his adult life at Cambridge, first as a student and later as a professor. He died there in 1771 at the age of 54. Fittingly, however, he was buried in the St Giles’ Church graveyard. Adjacent to the church there’s an area of open parkland known as Gray’s Field (managed by the National Trust). Prominently positioned in the field stands an unattractive four-sided monument inscribed with the Elegy. A visit to Stoke Poges is a worthwhile diversion on any literary tour of England.