Herbert Willmarth Starr

1349 Twentieth Century Interpretations of Gray's Elegy A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Herbert W. Starr (23 July 1975) Since I have known the Elegy by heart since I was a boy, this book, collecting studies of it, much intrigued me. Considerable time is spent discussing the epitaph, and I concluded it refers, not to Gray, but to the "me" of the poem--a fictional "me." This interpretation avoids the claim Gray would not say such things about himself, and is also consistent with the words. Frank H. Ellis in 1951 said the elegy is a calculated rhetorical structure, not an autobiographical document and I was convinced this must be so. What do you think? Here is a link to enable you to read and comment: Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard".… (meer)