Such judgments sum up the major critical history of Gray's reception and reputation as a poet. He has always attracted attentive critics precisely because of the extraordinary continuing importance of the "Elegy," which, measured against his other performances, has seemed indisputably superior.
Born in Cornhill on 26 December 1716, Gray was the fifth of twelve children of Philip and Dorothy Antrobus Gray and the only one to survive infancy. His father, a scrivener given to fits of insanity, abused his wife. She left him at one point; but Philip Gray threatened to pursue her and wreak vengeance on her, and she returned to him. From 1725 to 1734 Thomas Gray attended Eton, where he met Richard West and Horace Walpole, son of the powerful Whig minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
In 1734 Gray entered Peterhouse College, Cambridge University.
This is a free page. This page contains 136 words. This
biography contains 6,086 words (approx. 20 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Thomas Gray Access Pass.
