NAME : MAHIDA BHUMIKA PRAKASHBHAI
M A SEM -1
ROLL NUMBER : 5
ENROLLMENT NUMBER :3069206420200021
PAPER - 2 (LITERATURE OF NEO CLASSICAL PERIOD)
TOPIC - TIMES OF BURNS AND GRAY
⚫ Robert Burns ⚫
Burns and His Times:
Robert Burns was born in 1759 at Alloway in Ayrshire, a county in which most of his life was spent. His
father, William Burnes, as he spelled it, was a tenant farmer in a region where rentals were so high as to
make certain the poverty of the tenant. In 1781 Burns spent some months in Irvine learning to dress fax, but
that work proving unattractive, he returned to the farm. Upon the death of their father , Robert and his
younger brothers moved the family to Mossgiel in Mauchline parish. Before this time Robert had commenced
writing verses and making love. During the following winter Burns was in Edinburgh, where he conducted himself
with dignity even though in more intellectual or aristocratic society than he had hither to seen. In 1787 in
Edinburgh came out two reprinting of his poems, with some additions. A second winter in Edinburgh was
devoted in part to adjusting financial returns, which were considerable. The volume of Burns’s poems was
also brought out in London. Within the next two years appeared the piracies of his poems in Dublin, Belfast,
Philadelphia, and New York. After his brief vocation tours in the summer of 1787, Burns once again decided to return to the farm. He also decided presently to marry Jean Armour. The wedded couple settled at Ellis-
land, near Dumfries. After making a last unsatisfactory attempt to make a rented farm pay, Burns moved to
Dumfries itself in 1791, where he got a place as an officer in the excise. In spite of gossip to the contrary, and
despite ill health, it is said to be certain that the last five years of Burns’s life were those of valued and
respected citizen, of a well-known poet, who until the last was busy in his effort to aid George Thomson in his
projected Select Scottish Airs, designed to glorify Scots song-writing.
His outcry against
such learned, or college, or university, wits as “Think to climb Parnassus By dint O’ Greek” would have
annoyed Pope’s critic:
As a Farmer poet ( Burns):
Burns followed the family tradition. No doubt, it was a hard life, and was
decidedly a losing battle. The boy Robert at the Mount Oliphant, overworking and thus undermining his
health, as well as the married poet with children later in life, continued the family struggle of wresting
livelihood from the occupation of farming. Almost from the start of Burns’s life there can be said to be three
worlds closing and opening on the poet bewilderingly. The first was the hard life of physical labour, for farm
life to Burns was never sincerely idyllic.
Most important was, of course, his love for his Scottish predecessors.
Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson were his special interests. His long and deep passion for Scots song
books encouraged his great lyric gift. In various other disciplines of knowledge Burns was widely read, such
as theology, philosophy, and even agriculture. From his readings in prose and poetry, as well as from the
contemporary controversies between the “Auld Lichts” and the “New Lichts” so hotly debated in the Scotland
of his day, quite violently in the more rustic parishes, Burns very likely acquired his anti-Calvinistic belief in
the natural goodness of man. This belief did much to develop a sense of the injustice of the poor farmer’s lot
to make him what he speedily became a social rebel.
As a Love poet (Burns):
Burns’s attitude of a social rebel was stimulated not merely by philosophy and by exhaustion from “the
thresher’s weary flinging tree,” but also through influence of the third world that opened so maddeningly
upon the high strong youth, when, as his Muse in The Vision says :
"Youthful Love, warm blushing, strong,
Keen shivering, shot thy nerves alon.
Wild send thee Pleasure’s devious way,
Misled by Fancy’s meteor – ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from Heaven"
He rationalizes excuses by
blaming Heaven or by such brilliant satire on the faults of others as is found in The Holy Fair. Burns
represents himself to this fair as accompanied by the hizzie Fun, to keep an eye on Superstition and Hypocrisy.
He concludes:
"There’s some are fou o’ love divine;
There’s some are fou o’ “brandy”;
An’ monie jobs that day begin
May end in houghmanandine
Some ither day."
Burns as a Scottish poet:
In the eventful year of
1706, the year before the Union of Parliaments was finally effected, an Edinburgh printer named James
Watson brought out the first of the three volumes of A Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots
Poems both Ancient and Modern, with two further volumes in 1709 and 1711. It need to be recalled here
that throughout the seventeenth century the line between folk poem and song and “art” poem was quite often
obscured in Scotland. What James Watson
printed seemed to represent things that were still going on in Scotland, though often not so much on the
surface. In bringing them to the surface, James Watson prevented them from being obscured by the new
face of Scottish culture. This confusion was finally to become a problem of serious difficulties for Robert
Burns.
As a regional poet ( Burns):
Burn's inheritance was four hundred unbroken years. He schooled himself,
deeply and devotedly, in the inherited art of his country. He left it higher than it had ever been. He became so
puissant a representative of it that he generally blotted out the figures both of his creditors and his debtors. He
owned nothing to Cowper or Crabbe, although he read the former with admiration. He was brought up on his
native song and legend. He lived nearer to the brown earth, upturned for sowing and crowded with life, than
any other of the poets in Great Britain. But he never portrays in his poetry any scenery for its own sake,
though he can do so brilliantly. The scenery in his poetry is always a habitation for men and mice. It always
provides a background, a chorus, a thing subordinate to the life that swarms in it.Burns was one of those who are deeply rooted in the soil of the region in which they happen to have been
born, so deeply rooted that they become the soil, the air, the feel of that region. Wherever they might go, or
be transplated, they carry the smells and sounds of their regions with them. Born and brought up in Scotland,
Burns identified himself with his native place and became a voice of his place. For him, the past of his place
was also the present. He found in full life the native verse, with its ancestral forms and themes. He became
the sovereign artist of the same.
Burns as a song writer:
Nearly two hundred songs were sent by Burns to his employers. He scattered many more in broadcast. He had freedom in the Museum to virtually edit his songs,and he was then at his best. When he contributed to Scottish Airs, his finer hour seems to have passed.
Nearly all the pieces he treated are by nameless and untraceable authors. He claimed to have taken
“old songs of olden times”, and how much he added to them, we shall perhaps never know. However, we can
be sure that he stripped away all lusterless patches and substituted his own silver and gold. The “old man”
may have had purer versions than those available to us. They may have been just an invention of our poet.
That, too, we shall perhaps never know.
As a freedom poet (Burns):
The kind of freedom we are talking about need not imply revolutionary or explosive tenets, though it often
accompanies them. The Scottish nature has it except where artificially bound down or cramped in some
fashion. But the English writers, whom Burns read in his youth, have it not. They are highly limited and
controlled. These writers, namely Thomson and Gray, admirable as they are, have around them all kinds of
abstractions Reason, Decorum, Custom, Virtue, standing in arms on all the four sides of their field. Social
ordinance governs the outlook of Crabbe and Cowper. In Wordsworth, life is everywhere regulated by a lofty
self-prescription, often with supreme success, but never without the borders of that self-prescription. Even
Coleridge, otherwise the freest mind of his age, is haunted by the phantom of that order and self-possession
which he could not in his life attain. On the other hand, Blake likes to think that these old sentinels go over as
nine pins at his thrust. He seems stronger here than Burns, because he is quite happy in his freedom. He
never repents, having no cause for headaches. Burns, on his side, has many headaches, having courted
nature’s slap in the face. He versifies them in moderately good lines. He is indeed all the more a Scot for that.
Finally, Burns achieves his poetic superiority over Blake, not only by his constantly perfect poetic form, but
because he demonstrates more of plain humanity in him.
Burns as a excellent poet :
There is nothing new or mysterious in Burns, except his excellence, his perfection.
Even here the secret is an open one. It is his power to represent all things of life, all feelings as they come. As
these things and feelings come, his attempt is to have done with them. When we say that he is a classic, we
do not mean merely that he has left behind poetry that would endure, though that, too, is true. Nor do we
mean to say that he owes something to the narrowly classical school of Pope, though that is true also. We
mean to say rather that he reminds us of the antique, that he represents real life and life with the clearness,
rightness, and beauty of the antique. It can be said that it is the characteristic of Burns. It is why he is so
deeply satisfactory, and why we come back to him again and again, and why we feel that when he is as
remote as Theocritus is today, people will take the trouble to learn his language, and will treat him as an
ancient writer who perennially gives pleasure and entertainment. And all this is there because of his form.
During the period of more than a century that has lapsed after Burns, his perfection, his power of survival,
have asserted themselves continuously.
⚫Thomas Gray⚫
Gray's life
The famous volume of
poems, Collection of Poems by Several Hands, better known as Dodsley’s
Collection, gave representation to these poets who showed a marked change of
poetic style, moving away from the neoclassical. From the middle of the eighteenth century onward there appeared in English
poetry certain trends which constituted a departure from the neoclassical tradition
that had been in vogue since the time of John Dryden. Among these poets one of the
most prominent figures was Thomas Gray. Another prominent poet in the
anthology was William Collins. When we speak of the pre-romantic poets of the
eighteenth century, the names of Gray and Collins always figure together, just as
do the names of Dryden and Pope, of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Cray became
more famous than Collins on the basis of his greatly popular “Elegy”, better known
as “Gray’s Elegy.”
Critical Opinion
Thomas Gray is one those few English poets who have the honour of having
been recognized as great right at the time they wrote. All of his contemporaries,
except those blindly committed to neoclassicism, lavished praise on Gray’s poetry.
It is only a critic like Dr Johnson who could be cold in his appreciation of Gray’s
genius. No wonder Gray himself disliked Johnson, so much so that he refused to
make his acquaintance. It may be for this very reason that Johnson wrote with
some irritation. Even otherwise, Johnson was not fitted by nature to do justice to
Gray and his poetry. Even before Macaulay, it
had received many censures. Gray’s poetical reputation grew and flourished
despite what Johnson chose to say about his poetry.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Beattie wrote to Sir William Forbes,
saying, “Of all the English poets of this age Mr. Gray is most admired, and I think
with justice.” William Cowper, a contemporary of Gray, wrote, “I have been
reading Gray’s works and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the
character of sublime.”
Borrowings of Gray
Gray’s borrowings are also not limited to those taken from Spensor,
Shakespeare and Milton.
Other parallels indicate that certain words and phrases were the common poetic
property of the age. They do not propose any particular source. Certain parallels
can also emphasize new poetic vogues or preoccupations of the period, as they do
in the case of Gray . the final
inteest of the parallels is perhaps a matter of literary personality or the creative
process. In the case of Gray, one is at times confronted with a kind of literary
kleptomania, such is his dependence on the phrasing and thoughts of other poets.
In the context of the eighteenth century, the question of borrowings may not be a
great literary sin. We know how “learning” was valued by the neoclassical critical
credo, how it was the first step of learning to initate the great masters, and how it
was a great mark of excellence to come up with similar, parallel, or improved
construction of phrases and clauses, echoing the earlier poets. From Chaucer to
Spensor to Dryden to Pope, the tradition is seen enriched by these “borrowings”
and imitations of the Greek, Latin, and French masters. By the time Gray came on
the scence, masters like Spensor, Shakespeare and Milton had emerged in the
native English tradition as well. Hence, we need not make much of Gray’s
“borrowings,” except taking note of them for the useful awareness of his affinities
and relationships with the neoclassical, and its opposite, tradition in English
Poetry.
Elegy written in a country churchyard
Gray’s famous Elegy contains many “borrowings” from earlier poets, in
particular such classical poets as Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, etc. The poem also
echoes Dryden’s translation of Virgil, and Milton’s early poetry. Even lines from
contemporary poets can be seen copied in modified forms. Of special interest in
this regard are Thomas Waston, Akenside, Young Thomson, Collins, Parnell and
many more. The poem runs into 128 lines, consisting of 32 stanzas of 4 lines each
called quatrain, with the rythme scheme of a b a b. The popular balland stanza
form has a charm of its own, as it can be easily to music. Let us analyse the poem
in terms of its theme, mood, and atmosphere, noting how the poet arrives at certain
effects through the use of several poetic devices.
The progress of poesy: A pindaric ode
Gray wrote this poem in Sept. 1751 and Dec. 1754. He wrote to Walpole
saying, “I don’t know I may send him very soon an ode
to his own tooth, a high Pindarick upon stilts, which one must be a better scholar
than he is to understand but a little matter here and there.
As an ode
Highly learned as he was, Gray did not require the guidence of Congreve to
know what Pindaric ode was like. In his notes on Pindar, Gray transcribed several
of the passages from the Greek poet which he was later to imitate in The Progress
of Poesy. It is not surprising, therefore, that Gray closely observed the principles of
Pindar’s ode, more faithfully than was done by any other English poet. Gray also
tried to capture the manner of Pindar’s odes by imitating the highly allusive and
concise narrative technique and the swift transitions from one topic to another
which characterize them. Gray’s repeated emphasis on the learned character of his
Pindaric odes indicates his desire to dissociate himself from the debased, irregular
form, which had, in any case, lost much of its popularity by the middle of the
eighteenth century. Gray’s own preference for the length of stanza desirable in the
strophe and antistrophe is expressed in the following words: “If it is too great, it
has little or no effect upon the ear, which scarce perceives the regular return of Metres at so great a distance from one another, to make it succeed, I am persuaded
the stanzas must not consist of above 9 lines each at the most.”
As a progress poem
Gray’s The Progress of Poesy, as the litle itself suggests, is a “progress
poem.” As such it belongs to the most popular poetic genres of the neoclassical
period. The genre of the progress poem flurished as the Augustans developed a
historical pesspective establishing them as heirs to the ancient civilization of
Greece and Rome. The purpose of the progress poem was to expound this
genealogy, tracing back their arts and virtues to greece and then describing the
continuous historical and geographical progress westward to Britain. The route
could show minor varitions, but usually proceeded through Rome and medieval
Italy.
Ode on the spring
This poem, Ode on the Spring, is one of the early odes of Gray. He wrote it
in 1742. Richard West, the dearest friend of Gray, had sent him his Ode on May, in
reply to which Gray wrote his Ode on Spring. It was composed during a visit to his
uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs Rogers. West died on June 1742. Gray’s letter
containg this poem came back unopened since his friend was no longer in this world.
Thus, we can conclude our discussion of Gray by remarking that his poetry
has a charm of its own. Although firmly grounded in classical learning, he never
remained a solitude, he never became confessional like the romantics. In a way, we
come across in his poetry the virtues of both classical restraint and romantic
individualism. No doubt, a highly learned poet, relying on the wealth of allusions,
but reading his poems like the Elegy one does not feel handicapped by one’s lack
of his level of learning.
⚫ Refferences
Biography of Thomas Gray https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gray
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns biography of Robert Burns.
Poetry foundation's poetry about Robert Burns and Thomas Gray https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-burns
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