Thomas Gray — a remark

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“Extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand beauties of lyric poetry.”

Summing up Gray's demanding ideal of clarity, brevity and musical expression in lyric verse · Letter to William Mason, 13 January 1758

About Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray

26 December 1716–30 July 1771

In the quiet churchyard of St. Giles' Church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, lies a simple grave that has drawn literary pilgrims for centuries. Here rests Thomas Gray (1716-1771), a man whose single greatest poem transformed him from an obscure Cambridge scholar into one of the most quoted poets in the English…

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