Thomas Gray among the Disciplines

Throughout the 250 years that have passed since Thomas Gray?s death, he has primarily been celebrated as a poet. This makes sense because, although he published relatively little verse, he published less ? indeed, precisely nothing ? of his abundant polymathic writing in other fields. His place within the history of scholarship has therefore been obscured. Like many eighteenth-century antiquaries, however, he shared his learning through correspondence and manuscript circulation, and thereby influenced intellectual as well as literary life. This book explores Gray?s scholarship within the changing norms of eighteenth-century disciplines, at once locating him within histories of specialisation and examining the ways in which he challenges their narratives. Scholars from across the humanities reveal his methods and global interests, and analyse many newly uncovered manuscripts. Offering fresh understanding of broader fields through focused investigation of Gray?s multidisciplinary writings, the book will appeal to scholars of eighteenth-century literary, intellectual, and scientific history.

?At last a book that examines the full range of Thomas Gray?s extraordinary scholarly achievement, revealing, for the first time, his central place in the world of eighteenth-century learning.?

--Peter Sabor, Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University, Canada

?This book brings together a range of cultural, intellectual and literary historians to explore the full range of Gray?s intellectual interests and their relation to his poetry. In a patient series of readings, the book allows a range of different relationships between Gray?s scholarship and his poetry to emerge. The closely integrated studies collected here offer the only modern consideration of Gray as a multidisciplinary researcher, thinker and writer. By bringing new intellectual historical contexts to bear and demonstrating their relevance to particular poems, these essays will reinvigorate study of Gray as a poet.?

--Tom Jones, Professor, University of St Andrews, UK