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63-444: The Graveyard School is an indefinite literary grouping that binds together a wide variety of authors; what makes a poem a "graveyard" poem remains open to critical dispute. At its narrowest, the term "Graveyard School" refers to four poems: Thomas Gray's " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ", Thomas Parnell's "Night-Piece on Death", Robert Blair's The Grave and Edward Young's Night-Thoughts . At its broadest, it can describe

126-488: A Fellow first of Peterhouse , and later of Pembroke College, Cambridge . According to Britannica, Gray moved to Pembroke after the students at Peterhouse played a prank on him. Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin travelling again. Although he was one of the least productive poets (his collected works published during his lifetime amount to fewer than 1,000 lines), he

189-464: A Country Churchyard , published in 1751. Gray was a self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber , though he declined. Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London . His father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener and his mother, Dorothy Antrobus, was a milliner . He

252-601: A battle-cry for the young men of the Sturm und Drang movement. Young himself reinforced his reputation as a pioneer of romanticism by precept as well as by example. Young was forty-seven when he took holy orders. It was reported that the author of Night-Thoughts was not, in his earlier days, "the ornament to religion and morality which he afterwards became", and his friendships with the Duke of Wharton and with Dodington did not improve his reputation. A statement attributed to Alexander Pope

315-453: A classic of the romantic school. Questions as to the "sincerity" of the poet did arise in the 100 years after his death. The publication of fawning letters from Young seeking preferment led many readers to question the poet's sincerity. In a famous essay, Worldliness and Other-Worldliness , George Eliot discussed his "radical insincerity as a poetic artist." If Young did not invent "melancholy and moonlight" in literature, he did much to spread

378-493: A host of poetry and prose works popular in the early and mid-eighteenth century. The term itself was not used as a brand for the poets and their poetry until William Macneile Dixon did so in 1898. Some literary critics have emphasized Milton 's minor poetry as the main influence of the meditative verse written by the Graveyard Poets. W. L. Phelps, for example, said: "It was not so much in form as in thought that Milton affected

441-494: A letter that "low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me; make journeys and returns as I do; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company in the world". The works of the Graveyard School continued to be popular into the early 19th century and were instrumental in

504-411: A letter to bookseller Andrew Millar discussed a new edition of Young's poem, Night-Thoughts (1750), which was already very popular, and which would become one of the most frequently-printed poems of the eighteenth century. Millar had purchased the copyright to the second volume of Night-Thoughts (parts 7–11) from Young for £63 on 7 April 1749; the edition under discussion was the first in which Millar

567-473: A little before 11 of the clock at the night of Good Friday last, the 5th instant, and was decently buried yesterday about 6 in the afternoon" (Jones to Birch). Young is said to have been a brilliant talker. Although Night-Thoughts is long and disconnected, it abounds in brilliant isolated passages. Its success was enormous. It was translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese , Swedish , Russian , Welsh, Polish and Magyar . In France it became

630-430: A love for botany and observational science. Gray's other uncle, William, became his tutor. He recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College ". Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his time reading and avoiding athletics . He lived in his uncle's household rather than at college. He made three close friends at Eton: Horace Walpole , son of

693-404: A more contemplative mood is achieved in the celebrated opening verse of Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ( 1751 ): Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, and classical scholar at Cambridge University , being a fellow first of Peterhouse then of Pembroke College . He is widely known for his Elegy Written in

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756-424: A new impetus to the cult of Young’ (Harold Forster, ‘Some uncollected authors XLV: Edward Young in translation I’). The young Goethe told his sister in 1766 that he was learning English from Young and Milton, and in his autobiography he confessed that Young's influence had created the atmosphere in which there was such a universal response to his seminal work The Sorrows of Young Werther . Young's name soon became

819-521: A part of the first foreshadowing of the Romantic movement that dominated the early 19th century, when William Wordsworth and the other Lake poets taught people to value the picturesque, the sublime, and the Gothic. Gray combined traditional forms and poetic diction with new topics and modes of expression, and may be considered as a classically focused precursor of the romantic revival. Gray's connection to

882-486: A sum of £600 in consideration of his expenses as a candidate for parliamentary election at Cirencester . In view of these promises Young refused two livings in the gift of All Souls' College, Oxford , and sacrificed a life annuity offered by the Marquess of Exeter if he would act as tutor to his son. Wharton failed to discharge his obligations, and Young, who pleaded his case before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke in 1740, gained

945-536: A tub of water which had been placed below his window. In 1738, he accompanied his old school friend Walpole on his Grand Tour of Europe , possibly at Walpole's expense. The two fell out and parted in Tuscany because Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities . They were reconciled a few years later. It was Walpole who later helped publish Gray's poetry. When Gray sent his most famous poem, "Elegy", to Walpole, Walpole sent off

1008-550: A ‘dreadful god’ who from his cave issues groans and shrieks to predict the fall of Babylon .” In 1734, Gray went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge . He found the curriculum dull. He wrote letters to friends listing all the things he disliked: the masters ("mad with Pride") and the Fellows ("sleepy, drunken, dull, illiterate Things"). Intended by his family for the law, he spent most of his time as an undergraduate reading classical and modern literature, and playing Vivaldi and Scarlatti on

1071-543: Is least genius. As virtue without much riches can give happiness, so genius without much learning can give renown... Learning is borrowed knowledge; genius is knowledge innate, and quite our own. In 1759, at the age of 76, he published a piece of critical prose under the title of Conjectures on Original Composition which put forward the vital doctrine of the superiority of "genius," of innate originality being more valuable than classic indoctrination or imitation, and suggested that modern writers might dare to rival or even surpass

1134-489: Is not exclusive), in 1742. After several years of leaving it unfinished, he completed it in 1750 (see elegy for the form). The poem was a literary sensation when published by Robert Dodsley in February 1751 (see 1751 in poetry ). Its reflective, calm, and stoic tone was greatly admired, and it was pirated, imitated, quoted, and translated into Latin and Greek. It is still one of the most popular and frequently quoted poems in

1197-401: Is reflected in how their writings focus on human mortality and man's relation to the divine. The religious culture of the mid-eighteenth century included an emphasis on private devotion, as well as the end of printed funeral sermons. Each of these conditions demanded a new kind of text with which people could meditate on life and death in a personal setting. The Graveyard School met that need, and

1260-453: Is regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th century. In 1757, he was offered the post of Poet Laureate , which he refused. Gray was so self-critical and fearful of failure that he published only thirteen poems during his lifetime. He once wrote that he feared his collected works would be "mistaken for the works of a flea." Walpole said that "He never wrote anything easily but things of Humour." Gray came to be known as one of

1323-464: Is that: "He had much of a sublime genius, though without common sense; so that his genius, having no guide, was perpetually liable to degenerate into bombast. This made him pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets; but his having a very good heart enabled him to support the clerical character when he assumed it, first with decency and afterwards with honour" (O Ruffhead, Life of A. Pope , p. 291). Other works by Young are: Night-Thoughts

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1386-462: Is the same grave-site where Gray himself was later buried. Gray also wrote light verse, including Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes , a mock-heroic elegy concerning Horace Walpole 's cat. Even this humorous poem contains some of Gray's most famous lines. Walpole owned two cats: Zara and Selima. Scholars allude to the name Selima mentioned in the poem. After setting

1449-542: Is well known for his phrase, "where ignorance is bliss , 'tis folly to be wise," from Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College . It has been asserted that the Ode also abounds with images which find "a mirror in every mind". This was stated by Samuel Johnson who said of the poem, "I rejoice to concur with the common reader ... The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo". Indeed, Gray's poem follows

1512-525: The 1st Earl of Lichfield . Her daughter, by a former marriage with her cousin Francis Lee, married Henry Temple, son of the 1st Viscount Palmerston . Mrs Temple died at Lyons in 1736 on her way to Nice . Her husband and Lady Elizabeth Young died in 1740. These successive deaths are supposed to be the events referred to in the Night-Thoughts as taking place "ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn." In

1575-443: The Romantic poets is vexed. In the prefaces to the 1800 and 1802 editions of Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's Lyrical Ballads , Wordsworth singled out Gray's "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" to exemplify what he found most objectionable in poetry, declaring it was "Gray, who was at the head of those who, by their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical composition, and

1638-480: The South Sea Bubble . In 1726 he received, through Walpole, a pension of £200 a year. To the end of his life he continued to seek preferment, but the king regarded his pension as an adequate settlement. Young, living in a time when patronage was slowly fading out, was notable for urgently seeking patronage for his poetry, his theatrical works, and his career in the church: he failed in each area. He never received

1701-402: The harpsichord for relaxation. According to college tradition, he left Peterhouse for Pembroke College after being the victim of a practical joke played by undergraduates. Gray is supposed to have been afraid of fire, and had attached a bar outside his window to which a rope could be tied. After being woken by undergraduates with a fire made of shavings, Gray climbed down the rope but landed in

1764-464: The " Graveyard poets " of the late 18th century, along with Oliver Goldsmith , William Cowper , and Christopher Smart . Gray perhaps knew these men, sharing ideas about death, mortality, and the finality and sublimity of death. In 1762, the Regius chair of Modern History at Cambridge, a sinecure which carried a salary of £400, fell vacant after the death of Shallet Turner , and Gray's friends lobbied

1827-483: The "ancients" of Greece and Rome. The Conjectures was a declaration of independence against the tyranny of classicism and was at once acclaimed as such becoming a milestone in the history of English, and European, literary criticism. It was immediately translated into German at Leipzig and at Hamburg and was widely and favourably reviewed. The cult of genius exactly suited the ideas of the Sturm und Drang movement and gave

1890-656: The English language. In 1759, during the Seven Years War , before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham , British General James Wolfe is said to have recited it to one of his officers, adding, "I would prefer being the author of that Poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow." The Elegy was recognised immediately for its beauty and skill. It contains many phrases which have entered

1953-457: The Gothic..." The earliest poem attributed to the Graveyard School was Thomas Parnell's A Night-Piece on Death ( 1721 ), in which King Death himself gives an address from his kingdom of bones: Characteristic later poems include Edward Young's Night-Thoughts ( 1742 ), in which a lonely traveller in a graveyard reflects lugubriously on: Blair's The Grave ( 1743 ) proves to be no more cheerful as it relates with grim relish how: However,

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2016-468: The Lake District (see his Journal of a Visit to the Lake District in 1769) in search of picturesque landscapes and ancient monuments. These elements were not generally valued in the early 18th century, when the popular taste ran to classical styles in architecture and literature, and most people liked their scenery tame and well-tended. The Gothic details that appear in his Elegy and The Bard are

2079-616: The Prime Minister Robert Walpole ; Thomas Ashton; and Richard West, son of another Richard West (who was briefly Lord Chancellor of Ireland ). The four prided themselves on their sense of style, sense of humour, and appreciation of beauty. They were called the "quadruple alliance". Gray’s nickname in the “Quadruple Alliance” was Orozmades, “the Zoroastrian divinity, who is mentioned in Lee’s The Rival Queens as

2142-467: The Romantic movement; and although Paradise Lost was always reverentially considered his greatest work, it was not at this time nearly so effective as his minor poetry; and in the latter it was Il Penseroso — the love of meditative comfortable melancholy — that penetrated most deeply into the Romantic soul". However, other critics like Raymond D. Havens, Harko de Maar and Eric Partridge have challenged

2205-612: The annuity but not the £600. Between 1725 and 1728 Young published a series of seven satires on The Universal Passion . They were dedicated to the Duke of Dorset, George Bubb Dodington , Sir Spencer Compton , Lady Elizabeth Germain and Sir Robert Walpole , and were collected in 1728 as Love of Fame, the Universal Passion . This is qualified by Samuel Johnson as a "very great performance," and abounds in striking and pithy couplets. Herbert Croft asserted that Young made £3000 by his satires, which compensated losses he had suffered in

2268-601: The calmer and more reflective Horatian odes such as Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College . The Bard tells of a wild Welsh poet cursing the Norman king Edward I after his conquest of Wales and prophesying in detail the downfall of the House of Plantagenet . It is melodramatic, and ends with the bard hurling himself to his death from the top of a mountain. When his duties allowed, Gray travelled widely throughout Britain to places such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Scotland and most notably

2331-480: The common English lexicon, either on their own or as quoted in other works. These include: "Elegy" contemplates such themes as death and afterlife. These themes foreshadowed the upcoming Gothic movement. It is suggested that perhaps Gray found inspiration for his poem by visiting the grave-site of his aunt, Mary Antrobus. The aunt was buried at the graveyard by the St. Giles' churchyard, which he and his mother would visit. This

2394-463: The degree of patronage that he felt his work had earned, largely because he picked patrons whose fortunes were about to turn downward. Though his praise was often unearned, often fulsome, he could write, "False praises are the whoredoms of the pen / And prostitute fair fame to worthless men." In 1728 Young became a royal chaplain , and in 1730 he obtained the college living of Welwyn , Hertfordshire. In 1731 he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of

2457-618: The development of the Gothic novel , contributing to the dark, mysterious mood and story lines that characterize the genre — Graveyard School writers focused their writings on the lives of ordinary and unidentified characters. They are also considered pre-Romanticists, ushering in the Romantic literary movement by their reflection on emotional states. This emotional reflection is seen in Coleridge's " Dejection: An Ode " and Keats' " Ode on Melancholy ". The early works of Southey, Byron and Shelley also show

2520-472: The direct influence of Milton's poem, claiming rather that graveyard poetry came from a culmination of literary precedents. As a result of the religious revival, the early eighteenth century was a time of both spiritual unrest and regeneration; therefore, meditation and melancholy, death and life, ghosts and graveyards, were attractive subjects to poets at that time. These subjects were, however, interesting to earlier poets as well. The Graveyard School's melancholy

2583-553: The fashionable taste for them. Madame Klopstock thought the king ought to make him Archbishop of Canterbury , and some German critics preferred him to John Milton . Young's essay, Conjectures on Original Composition , was popular and influential on the continent, especially among Germans, as a testament advocating originality over neoclassical imitation. Young wrote good blank verse, and Samuel Johnson pronounced Night-Thoughts to be one of "the few poems" in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The poem

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2646-527: The government unsuccessfully to secure the position for him. In the event, Gray lost out to Lawrence Brockett , but he secured the position in 1768 after Brockett's death. It is believed by a number of writers that Gray began writing arguably his most celebrated piece, the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard , in the graveyard of St Giles' parish church in Stoke Poges , Buckinghamshire (though this claim

2709-538: The influence of the Graveyard School. Many critics of Graveyard poetry had very little positive feedback for the poets and their work. Critic Amy Louise Reed called Graveyard poetry a disease, while other critics called many poems unoriginal, and said that the poets were better than their poetry. Although the majority of criticism about Graveyard poetry is negative, other critics thought differently, especially about poet Edward Young . Critic Isabell St. John Bliss also celebrates Edward Young ’s ability to write his poetry in

2772-505: The new king. The fulsome style of the dedications jars with the pious tone of the poems, and they are omitted from his own edition of his works. About this time he came into contact with Philip, Duke of Wharton , whom he accompanied to Dublin in 1717. In 1719 his play, Busiris was produced at Drury Lane , and in 1721 his The Revenge . The latter play was dedicated to Wharton, to whom it owed, said Young, its "most beautiful incident". Wharton promised him two annuities of £100 each and

2835-433: The poem as a manuscript and it appeared in different magazines. Gray then published the poem himself and received the credit he was due. Gray began seriously writing poems in 1742, mainly after the death of his close friend Richard West, which inspired "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West". He moved to Cambridge and began a self-directed programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men of his time. He became

2898-601: The poems were thus quite popular, especially with the middle class. For instance Elizabeth Singer Rowe's Friendship in Death: In Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living , published in 1728, had 27 editions printed by 1760. This popularity, as Parisot says, "confirms the fashionable mid-century taste for mournful piety." Thomas Gray, who found inspiration in a churchyard, claimed to have a naturally melancholy spirit, writing in

2961-401: The preface to Night-Thoughts Young states that the occasion of the poem was real, and Philander and Narcissa have been rather rashly identified with Mr and Mrs Temple. It has also been suggested that Philander represents Thomas Tickell , an old friend of Young's, who died three months after Lady Elizabeth Young. The infidel Lorenzo was thought by some to be a sketch of Young's own son, but he

3024-534: The scene with the couplet "What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?", the poem moves to its multiple proverbial conclusion: "a fav'rite has no friend", "[k]now one false step is ne'er retrieved" and "nor all that glisters, gold". (Walpole later displayed the fatal china vase (the tub) on a pedestal at his house in Strawberry Hill , where it can still be seen). Gray's surviving letters also show his sharp observation and playful sense of humour. He

3087-504: The style of the Graveyard School and at the same time include Christian themes, and Cecil V. Wicker called Young a forerunner in the Romantic movement and described his work as original. Eric Parisot claimed that fear is created as a spur to faith and that in Graveyard poetry, "...it is only when we restore religion — to examine the various ways graveyard poetry exploited fear and melancholy — that we can fully grasp its enduring contribution to

3150-477: The style of the mid-century literary endeavour to write of "universal feelings." Samuel Johnson also said of Gray that he spoke in " two languages ". He spoke in the language of "public" and "private" and according to Johnson, he should have spoken more in his private language as he did in his "Elegy" poem. Gray considered his two Pindaric odes , The Progress of Poesy and The Bard , as his best works. Pindaric odes are to be written with fire and passion, unlike

3213-466: The trenches. This latter work emerged from the darkness of the more recent past thanks to its mention and discussion in Paul Fussell 's The Great War and Modern Memory (1975), which discussed Blunden's reliance on Night-Thoughts . Blunden's mention of Young's poem reintroduced an interesting, sometimes bombastic precursor to the early Romantics to students of English literature. Samuel Richardson in

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3276-581: Was a poetic treatment of sublimity and had a profound influence on the young Edmund Burke , whose philosophic investigations and writings on the Sublime and the Beautiful were a pivotal turn in 18th-century aesthetic theory. Young's masterpiece Night-Thoughts emerged from obscurity by being mentioned in Edmund Blunden 's World War One memoir, Undertones of War (1928), as a source of comfort during time in

3339-465: Was a son of Edward Young , later Dean of Salisbury , and was born at his father's rectory at Upham , near Winchester , where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College , and matriculated at New College, Oxford , in 1702. He later migrated to Corpus Christi , and in 1708 was nominated by Archbishop Tenison to a law fellowship at All Souls . He took his degree of Doctor of Canon Law in 1719. Young's first publication

3402-560: Was also erected in Westminster Abbey soon after his death. Today, Gray remains a topic of academic discussion. Some scholars analyze his work for his use of language and inspiration from Greek classics and Norse poetry. Other scholars, such as George E. Haggerty, focus on Gray's various relationships with other men, examining his letters and poetry for instances of "male-male love" and "same-sex desire." Edward Young Edward Young ( c.  3 July 1683 – 5 April 1765)

3465-574: Was an Epistle to ... Lord Lansdoune (1713). This was followed by a Poem on the Last Day (1713), dedicated to Queen Anne ; The Force of Religion: or Vanquished Love (1714), a poem on the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband, dedicated to the Countess of Salisbury; and an epistle to Joseph Addison , On the late Queen's Death and His Majesty's Accession to the Throne (1714), in which he rushed to praise

3528-472: Was an English poet, best remembered for Night-Thoughts , a series of philosophical writings in blank verse , reflecting his state of mind following several bereavements. It was one of the most popular poems of the century, influencing Goethe and Edmund Burke , among many others, with its notable illustrations by William Blake . Young also took holy orders, and wrote many fawning letters in search of preferment, attracting accusations of insincerity. Young

3591-552: Was illustrated by William Blake in 1797, and by Thomas Stothard in 1799. The Poetical Works of the Rev. Edward Young ... were revised by himself for publication, and a completed edition appeared in 1778. The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose, of the Rev. Edward Young ..., with a life by John Doran , appeared in 1854. Sir Herbert Croft wrote the life included in Johnson's Lives of the Poets , but

3654-470: Was involved, and it would be advertised for sale in the General Advertiser on 30 January 1750. William Hutchinson included a gloss on Night-Thoughts in his series of lectures The Spirit of Masonry (1775), underlining the masonic symbolism of the text. I would compare genius to virtue, and learning to riches. As riches are most wanted where there is least virtue ; so learning where there

3717-658: Was made clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha , in 1761. He never recovered from his wife's death. He fell out with his son, who had apparently criticised the excessive influence exerted by his housekeeper Mrs Hallows. The old man refused to see his son until shortly before he died, but left him everything. A description of him is to be found in the letters of his curate and executor, John Jones, to Dr Thomas Birch (in Brit. Lib. Addit. M/s 4311). He died at Welwyn, reconciled with his spendthrift son: "he expired

3780-508: Was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of his own poetic diction." Gray wrote in a letter to West, that "the language of the age is never the language of poetry." Gray died on 30 July 1771 in Cambridge, and was buried beside his mother in the churchyard of the Church of St Giles, Stoke Poges , the reputed (though disputed) setting for his famous Elegy . His grave can still be seen there. A monument sculpted by John Bacon

3843-597: Was not new to English poetry, but rather a continuation of that of previous centuries; there is even an elegiac quality to the poems almost reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon literature. The characteristics and style of Graveyard poetry is not unique to them, and the same themes and tone are found in ballads and odes . Many of the Graveyard School poets were, like Thomas Parnell , Christian clergymen, and as such they often wrote didactic poetry, combining aesthetics with religious and moral instruction. They were also inclined toward contemplating subjects related to life after death, which

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3906-512: Was only eight years old at the time of publication. The Complaint , or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality , was published in 1742, and was followed by other "Nights," the eighth and ninth appearing in 1745. In 1753, his tragedy of The Brothers , written many years previous but suppressed because he was about to enter the Church, was produced at Drury Lane. Night-Thoughts had made him famous, but he lived in almost uninterrupted retirement. He

3969-632: Was the fifth of twelve children, and the only one to survive infancy. An 1803 newspaper article including a biography of Gray suggests that Gray almost died in infancy due to suffocation from a fullness of blood. However, his mother “ventured to open a vein with her own hand, which instantly removed the paroxysm,” saving his life. He lived with his mother after she left his abusive and mentally unwell father. Gray's mother paid for him to go to Eton College , where his uncles Robert and William Antrobus worked. Robert became Gray's first teacher and helped inspire in Gray

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