In her famous essay, "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf claimed that, to suceed as an artist, a woman needed a room of her own and an income of 500 pounds/year (that is, enough to allow one to live in independently). She argued that women writers have historically failed to flourish for want of these two things.
Thomas Gray (unlike the other authors we've read in the course of thinking about poetic vocation) had both of these things. At the age of 19, his aunt died, leaving him a small but comfortable inheritance, and so Gray was able to devote himself to the quiet life of the mind and the cultivation of his poetic talents, without regard to whether or not his works would make money. Leapor, Jones, Pope, and Wheatley did not have this advantage. (Neither did Collier or Duck, for that matter.)
Do these material circumstances make a difference as to how we read Gray's representation of the poetic vocation in the Elegy? Is a disinterested, dispassionate commitment to writing excellent poetry the consequence of a strong poetic gift--or of life circumstances that offer few obstacles to one's vocation?
Discuss. Cite evidence to support your claims.
Deadline: Friday (2/20), noon.
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I kind of think that the disinterestedness comes from a combination of his strong poetic gift, and the fact that he doesn’t have many monetary obstacles blocking his way. An obstacle somewhere, somehow is what drives people to overcome it thus adding to their passion; and I’m not saying that Gray isn’t passionate at all, but he does resemble being a poet who knows he is so good that it makes reading his poem a bit difficult without seeing his big floating head next to the words. Lines 38-40 make it sound like after Gray dies, he is waiting for people to commemorate him, “Nor you ye proud…where through the long drawn isle and fretted vault, the pealing anthem swells the note of praise.” He is arrogant because of his poetic gift—the whole poem could be seen as arrogance; who writes their own elegy? Granted it is creative because most people write elegies for other people, but if you are going to be praising yourself a whole lot, obviously you think a lot of yourself. Having said that, I think it becomes obvious that any dispassion comes from his natural talent. His boastfulness can be seen at the end when he lets some “hoary swain” write a ‘fake’ epitaph for him. After it is done, he writes one himself that is much more sophisticated to show the difference between him (a supposed professional) and a layman.
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