Thomas Gray and Robert Burns : The Transitional Poets
The two greatest poets Gray and Burns made the century visible to the world of literature. In the mid-eighteenth century the poets were tiring of the neoclassical ideals of reason and wit.Theirs was an age of rationalism, wit, and satire. This contrasts greatly with the ideal of Romanticism, which was
"an artistic revolt against the conventions of the fashionable formal, civilised, and refined Neoclassicism of the eighteenth century."
Many of such Poet like Burns dropped conventional poetic diction and forms in favour forms and bolder language. They preached a return to nature, elevated sincere feeling over dry intellect, and often shared in the revolutionary of the late eighteenth century.Poets wanted to express emotion again. They wanted to leave the city far behind and travel back to the simple countryside where rustic, humble men and women resided and became their subjects. Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns caught in the middle of neoclassic writing and the Romantic Age, are fittingly known as the Transitional poets.
Robert Burns and Tomas ray
Thomas Gray transitioned these phases nicely; he kept "what he believed was good in the old, neoclassic tradition" but adventured forth into "unfamiliar areas in poetry." In particular, Gray brought back to life the use of the first-person singular, for example
"One morn I missed him on the customed hill…"
which had been considered a barbarism by eighteenth century norm. Thomas Gray’s poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a wonderful example of natural settings in transitional poetry. It reflects on the lives of common unknown, rustic men and women, in terms of both what their lives were and what they might have been. Gray is unafraid to see the poor, and emotionally illustrates how death affects their life:
"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire’s return…."
However, humble settings were also readily used by Robert Burns, a Scottish poet counted wholly as a romantic poet" , but who’s work often makes him a more transitional as it incorporates both neoclassical and romantic verse ideals. To a Mouse, also takes place in the country, and this time the humble subject is not a man, but a lowly mouse.This public display of emotion, such as the affection and concern for the mouse, as well as a depressing revelation that life can go wrong for all, would have been surprising to pre-romanticism readers. One of Burns most significant influences though, was his use of Scottish dialect to write his poems it was a great departure from the elegant and artificial diction of eighteenth-century poetry.His use of dialect gave the reader a sense of connection to the common man and the humble subjects of this poetry. It created a rawer, more real mood that would have been lost in the ornamental heroic couplets used by the Neoclassic writers.
The transitional poets Robert Burns and Thomas Gray were no longer afraid to feel and were brave men who put their hearts on paper for all to see. They expressed a simple affection for uncomplicated country life, and used such settings to make profound comments on mankind in general, death, and religion. These poets idealised the humble man the country setting, and universal truths. It is fitting to call Gray and Burns adventurers, whose guides to new lands were their pens. They dared change through the use of unconventional devices, such as dialect and the egotistic use of the first person singular. These changes in verse, and the subsequent popularity, and admiration received from the public, for Gray and Burns and their transitional poetry marked the beginning of the end of Neoclassicism. Now, these two poets having forged the way, it was time for the Romantics to follow.
Thomas Gray was an English poet, scholar, and professor at pembroke college Cambridge . He is widely known for his Elegy writtern in a country churchyard published in 1751.
Thomas Gray's birth place at 39 Cornhill,London
Gray was an extremely talented writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. His writing is conventionally considered to be historic but recent critical developments deny such teleological classification.Although it is very important to understand the effect of his writtings.
Gray's Writing style :
Gray was the transitional poet of neo-cassical age.He had made notable contribution to the literature.Gray began seriously writing poems mainly after the death of his close friend Richard West, which inspired "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West". He moved to Cambridge and began a self-directed programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men of his time.Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin travelling again. Although he was one of the least productive poets . He is regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th century. Gray was so self-critical and fearful of failure that he published only thirteen poems during his lifetime. He once wrote that he feared his collected works would be "mistaken for the works of a flea." Walpole said that ,
"He never wrote anything easily but things of Humour."
Works of Thomas Gray :
☞Ode on the Spring( 1742)
☞On the Death of Richard West ( 1742)
☞Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes( 1747)
☞Ode to a Distant Prospect of Eton College ( 1747 and published anonymously)
☞Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard(written between 1745 and 1750)
☞The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode(written between 1751 and 1754)
☞The Bard: A Pindaric Ode (written between 1755 and 1757)
☞The Fatal Sisters: An Ode ( 1761)
All his work are a mirror of steady tone of volume and creative art.Elegy contemplates such themes as death and afterlife. These themes foreshadowed the upcoming Gothic movement. It is suggested that perhaps Gray found inspiration for his poem by visiting the gravesite of his aunt, Mary Antrobus. The aunt was buried at the graveyard by the St. Giles' churchyard, which he and his mother would visit. This is the same grave-site where Gray himself was later buried.
After setting the scene with the couplet,
"What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?"
the poem moves to its multiple conclusion.
Gray's surviving letters also show his sharp observation and playful sense of humour. Samuel Johnson who said of the poem,
"I rejoice to concure with the common reader ... The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo"
With all these concent indeed, Gray's poem follows the style of the mid-century literary endeavour to write of "universal feelings."Samuel Johnson also said of Gray that he spoke in two languages. He spoke in the language of "public" and "private" and according to Johnson, he should have spoken more in his private language as he did in his "Elegy" poem.
Robert burns :
Robert Burns ( 1759 – 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, the National Bard, Bard of Ayrshire and the Ploughman Poet was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the scots language, although much of his writing is in English and a light scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.Also with the comparision to all the transituonal poets his works are having different tone of chance.
He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic Movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on scotish literature.
As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem and song "Auld Lang Syne" is often sung at Hogmanay it is the last day of the year, and "Scots Wha Hae" served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known across the world today include,
☞ "A Red, Red Rose",
☞"A Man's a Man for A' That",
☞ "To a Louse", "To a Mouse",
☞ "The Battle of Sherramuir",
☞"Tam o' Shanter"
☞"Ae Fond Kiss".
The important theme of burn's style composes to an individuality of the charcter in his art.Burns's style is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity, and ranges from the tender intensity of some of his lyrics through the humour of "Tam o' Shanter" and the satire of "Holy Willie's Prayer" and "The Holy Fair".
He drew the official work and his's poetry drew upon a substantial familiarity with and knowledge of Classical, Biblical, and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makartradition. Burns was skilled in writing not only in the Scots language but also in the Scottish English dialect of the English language. Some of his works, such as "Love and Liberty" also known as "The Jolly Beggars", are written in both Scots and English for various effects.
Although the main denotion of his themes included republicanism he lived during the French Revolutionary period and Radicalism, which he expressed covertly in Scots Wha Hae, Scottish patriotism, anticlericalism, class inequalities, gender roles, commentary on the Scottish Kirk of his time, Scottish cultural identity, poverty, sexuality, and the beneficial aspects of popular socialising carousing, , folk songs, and so forth and at large it also shows the ideal virtue of his work.
His masterpiece:
The bound and social srurcture which insticates hus works through a strong emotional highs and lows associated with many of Burns's poems have led some, such as Burns biographer Robert Crawford, to suggest that he suffered from manic depression a hypothesis that has been supported by analysis of various samples of his handwriting. Burns himself referred to suffering from episodes of what he called "blue devilism". The National Trust for Scotland has downplayed the suggestion on the grounds that evidence is insufficient to support the claim."A Red, Red Rose" is a 1794 song in Scots by Robert Burns based on traditional sources. The song is also referred to by the title "Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose", "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose" or "Red, Red Rose" and is often published as a poem.
My luve is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in june;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune;
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry;
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
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