SOURCE: Reed, Amy Louise. “The Revolt Against Melancholy.” In The Background of Gray's Elegy, 80-139. New York: Columbia University Press, 1924.

In the following essay, Reed argues that the birth of Graveyard poetry, such as Thomas Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard,” stemmed from a reaction to what some in the seventeenth century claimed was a disease, melancholy, and discusses the influences of the Graveyard poets.

Seventeenth century writers on melancholy themes continued to be read during the first quarter of the eighteenth. Pomfret, the favorite of the moment, produced in 1700 not only the pleasantly pagan Choice, but also a quite orthodox Prospect of Death. Charles Gildon's New Miscellany, issued in 1701, contained Lady Winchilsea's The Spleen and Death. Roscommon's Prospect of Death, previously known in manuscript only, was first published in 1704. Norris's A Collection of Miscellanies were in their fourth edition in 1706. Oldham was reprinted in 1722. Raleigh's...