22 pages 44 minutes read

Thomas Gray

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1768

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Background

Literary Context

Thomas Gray’s “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” is one of many diverse poems from the 1700s. The poem’s theme links to works by 18th-century poets like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. Gray’s contempt for adults relates to Pope’s “An Essay on Man” (1732-34), where Pope describes humans as “so weak, so little, and so blind.” Like Gray’s adults, Pope’s humanity is neither great nor pure. Swift, too, often mocked the adult world. In “A Description of a City Shower" (1710), Swift describes a world as treacherous and terrible as Gray’s adults, with “dung, guts, and blood.” In terms of diction, Gray’s poem reflects the 18th-century’s commitment to refined, poetic words, like “ye,” “thou,” and “alas.”

Unlike works by Pope, Swift, Charles Churchill, and other 18th-century poets, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” is neither satirical nor explicitly political. Gray does not mock adults the way Churchill does in "Night" (1761), and he does not describe the atrocities of adults through a discussion of politics. Rather, Gray's poem is earnest and personal; it expresses his beliefs on the joys of childhood and his impressions of the difficult processes involved in growing up.

Related Titles

By Thomas Gray

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE

logo

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray

Study Guide

logo

The Progress of Poesy

Thomas Gray

The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode

Thomas Gray