WorkThomas Gray

“Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard", in Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) · 1751

InferredHudspeth identified Fuller's allusions to stanzas 3 and 14 of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": the first references Gray's "ivy-mantled tow'r" and "mopeing owl," while the second echoes his "gem of purest ray serene." Fuller modifies these images—contrasting the "ivy-mantled tower" with nettles and comparing Alcott to a "star of purest ray" rather than a gem—to counter hostile critics and praise Alcott's luminous worth.

QuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1837

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1837—

Letter to Frederic H. Hedge

p265

quoted · read

“your wit would never lend its patronage to the ugly blinking owls who are now hooting from their snug tenements, overgown rather with nettles than with ivy, at this star of purest ray serene”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Hudspeth identified Fuller's allusions to stanzas 3 and 14 of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": the first references Gray's "ivy-mantled tow'r" and "mopeing owl," while the second echoes his "gem of purest ray serene." Fuller modifies these images—contrasting the "ivy-mantled tower" with nettles and comparing Alcott to a "star of purest ray" rather than a gem—to counter hostile critics and praise Alcott's luminous worth.