Early Life:

Born on 26 December 1716 at 41 Cornhill London, Thomas Gray was the fifth and only surviving Child in infancy out of eight children born to Dorothy and Philip Gray. His father Philip was a money-scrivener in London. Thomas’s parents were not in a happy and good relation. Like most of men of letters, Thomas also had a distressed and broken childhood and the consequences of that misery were quite obvious on his later life and his works.

Education:

From 1725 to 1734 Gray was an attendee of Eton College; In October 1734 Gray matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Gray left Peterhouse in 1738 without having taken a degree, and spent some months at his father’s house in Cornhill with the intentions to study law at the Inner Temple to which he had been acknowledged as early as 1735. In 1738 he joined his old school-friend Walpole on his Grand Tour that was sponsored by Walpole. They had a quarrel and parted in Tuscany because Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. However, their quarrel came to an end after few years.

The Period of Creative enthusiasm:

The spring and summer of 1742 was the period when Gray could be seen at the pinnacle of his creative enthusiasm. Though he did tremendous poetic efforts during this period of time yet most of his works like “Agrippina”, “The De principiis cogitandi”, the “Hymn to Ignorance” remained incomplete. In addition to these poems, the scenery and natural songs of Buckinghamshire countryside inspired him so much as he had to write an opera-like “Ode on the spring”. Gray also sent that to his intimate friend Richard West and soon after he received the news of West’s death. The sorrow and pain Gray received due to death of his friend could be easily observed in “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” it also revealed his deep melancholic strain, flow of expression and photographic imagination. The other poems like “Ode to Adversity”, and the “Sonnet on the Death of Richard West” were also full of such rich elements. In 1743 he started study to get a degree of Bachelor of Civil Law but as he had a natural bent of mind towards literature he began to study Greek literature. The next four or five years he devoted to study literature and history of ancient Greece.

Publications:

Gray’s first publication was the “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College“, written in 1742. In 1747 and the following year Gray began to complete his incomplete poem on the “Alliance of Education and Government”. In 1748, the first three volumes of Dodsley collection appeared, the second volume was consisted of Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College“, the “Ode on the Spring”, and the “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes” the last was one of Gray’s most light-hearted poems in memory of Walpole’s drowned pet cat, Selma. It is said that Gray’s master piece “Elegy” was written in the graveyard of the church. Gray ranked his two Pindaric odes “The Progress of Poesy” and “The Brad” his best works.

Gray as a less productive poet:

Gray’s works and his poems got little attentions at that time but there was some awareness that a new poet had arrived on a scene. Gray’s self critical nature and fear of failure not permitted him to be a productive poet; His published works was consisted of only 13 poems and less than 1000 lines. However, his poems are a precious treasure of English literature and his services that he provided in the form of his works will always be remembered.

Death:

On July 30, 1771 Gray Died in Cambridge and was buried along with his mother in the Churchyard of Stoke Pages.