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Projects

Current projects

Gray's "Elegy" in translation (phase II)

  • Duration: 24 months (Autumn 2023 - Autumn 2025)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to trace the reception and impact of Gray's most famous poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard" (1751), in a number of languages and national literatures. Drawing on the extensive collection of "Elegy" translations compiled by Tom Turk, the purpose of this work is firstly to enable the study of the evolution of translations of the poem in a single language, and secondly to allow for a comparative study of the translations across languages and literatures. In this second phase of the project, we will cover the period up to 1850, comprising more than 50 verse and prose translations of the "Elegy", including ones in five new languages: Armenian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovene.
  • Update (14/10/2024): Phase II of the project (1806-1850) will include the following 55 translations in 12 languages:
    • Armenian
      • Anon. (verse, before 1850) [Northup #736]
    • French
      • Hennet, Albert Joseph Ulpien (verse, 1806) [Northup #758]
      • L.D. [Louis Dutens] (verse, 1806) [Northup #566]
      • Grénus, Jacques Louis (verse, 1807) [Northup #759]
      • Charrin, P. J. (verse, 1808) [Northup #760]
      • Cottreau, [Jean-Baptiste-] Hugues Nelson (verse, 1811) [Northup #760a]
      • Fayolle, François Joseph Marie (verse, 1812) [Northup #761]
      • Villebois-Mareul, Felix Comte de (verse, 1813) [Northup #764]
      • Guillory, M. P. (verse, 1813) [Northup #762]
      • Soulié, J. B. Augustin (verse, 1813) [Northup #763]
      • Le Comte de Wassili Santi, Alexandrovic (verse, 1818) [Turk (2013), 56]
      • Sapinaud, M. de (verse, 1822) [Northup #344]
      • Marvint, Hippolyte (verse, 1828) [Northup #766]
      • Henrion, Eugene (prose, 1830) [Turk (2016), 4]
      • Anon. (verse, 1831) [Turk (2013), 56]
      • Hoyau, L.-C. (verse, 1837) [Northup #767]
    • German
      • Rupprecht, Johann Baptist (verse, 1812) [Northup #780]
      • Anon. (verse, 1823) [Northup #781]
      • Krais, Julius (verse, 1839) [Turk (2016), 5]
      • Ploennies, Louise von (verse, 1843) [Turk (2013), 58]
    • Hebrew
      • Venturi, Abbot Giuseppe (verse, 1817) [Northup #581]
    • Hungarian
      • Deáky, Zsigmund (verse, 1827) [Northup #795]
    • Italian
      • Baraldi, Paolo-Giuseppe (prose, 1810) [Northup #803]
      • Bonò, Elisabetta Sesler (prose, 1815) [Northup #804]
      • Leoni, Michele (verse, 1815) [Northup #805]
      • Castellazzi, Michel Angelo (verse, 1817) [Northup #806]
      • Trant, Domenico (prose, 1817) [Northup #807]
      • Gregori, Domenico (verse, 1821) [Northup #808]
      • Mancini, Lorenzo (verse, 1825) [Northup #809]
      • Cavazzocca, Francesco (verse, 1835) [Northup #810]
      • Vitali, Giovanni (prose, 1841) [Starr #183c; Turk (2013), 62]
    • Latin
      • Shelley, P. B. (verse [partial], 1808) [Northup #830]
      • Wheelwright, C. A. (verse, 1811) [Northup #831; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 15]
      • Barbieri, Giovanni Francesco (verse, 1817) [Northup #832; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 16]
      • Del Bene, Benedetto (verse, 1817) [Northup #833; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 17]
      • Venturi, Abbate Giuseppe (verse, 1817) [Northup #834]
      • Colton, Charles Caleb (verse, 1822) [Northup #835; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 18]
      • Hickie, Daniel Bamfield (verse, 1823) [Northup #836; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 19]
      • S.N.E. (verse, 1824) [Northup #837; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 19A]
      • Hildyard, William (verse, 1838) [Northup #838; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 20]
      • Macaulay, John Heyrick (verse, 1841) [Northup #839; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 21]
      • Smith, Goodwin (verse [partial], 1846) [Northup #841]
      • Dickinson, Henry Strahan (verse, 1849) [Northup #842; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 22]
    • Portuguese
      • Almeida Coutinho, Henrique Ernesto de (verse, 1837) [Northup #859]
      • Alorna, Marquesa de (verse, 1844) [Turk (2013), 67]
    • Romanian
      • Asachi, Gheorghe (verse, 1812) [Turk (2013), 67]
    • Slovene
      • Žemlja, Jožef (verse, 1843) [Turk (2013), 69]
    • Spanish
      • Anzu y Garro, Faustino (verse, 1809) [Turk (2013), 70]
      • Perez del Camino, Manuel Norberto (verse, 1822) [Starr #195]
      • Miralla, José Antonio (verse, 1823) [Northup #862]
      • Mitre, Bartolomé (verse, 1839) [Turk (2013), 70; Northup #863(?)]
      • Guerra, José Fernández (verse, 1840) [Starr #197]
      • Urcullu, José de (verse, 1843) [Starr #199]
    • Welsh
      • Jones, Thomas Lloyd (verse, 1831) [Northup #866]
      • Jones, John Morris (verse, 1832) [Turk (2013), 73]
    We are aware of the following lacunae from the period covered by this instalment of the project. If you are able to help with any of these, e.g. by tracing a translation or aiding with transcription, or if you are aware of any other gaps, we would be happy to acknowledge any contributions you make. Thank you!
    • French
      • 1813: Fée, Antoine Laurent Apollinaire [Turk (2013), 56], not traced
    • Italian
      • 1833: Vincenza [Starr #183a; Turk (2013), 62], not traced
      • 1837: Uberti, Filippo [Starr #183b; Turk (2016), 5], not traced
  • Results: All translations will be available from the project home page, which also provides a complete bibliography, further information on the project, a help page, and a current list of lacunae.
  • First published: [forthcoming]

Completed projects

Gray's "Elegy" in translation

  • Duration: 12 months (April 2017 - March 2018)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to trace the reception and impact of Gray's most famous poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard" (1751), in a number of languages and national literatures. Drawing on the extensive collection of "Elegy" translations compiled by Tom Turk, the purpose of this work is firstly to enable the study of the evolution of translations of the poem in a single language, and secondly to allow for a comparative study of the translations across languages and literatures. In this first phase of this project, we will cover the period up to 1805, comprising more than 50 verse and prose translations of the "Elegy" in eleven languages (Danish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Welsh). We plan to extend this range to the 1830s and beyond (adding many more translations and languages) in future phases of the project.
  • Update (12/12/2017): Phase I of the project (1751-1805) will include the following 57 translations in eleven languages:
    • Danish
      • C. A. Lund (verse, 1785) [Starr #170]
    • French
      • Susanne Curchod de Nasse Necker (prose, 1765) [Northup #739]
      • Louis Pierre Couret de Villeneuve (verse, 1770) [Northup #741]
      • Pierre Guédon de Berchère‏ (verse, 1788) [Northup #742; Starr #172]
      • Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai (verse, 1788) [Northup #743]
      • F. N. (verse, 1788) [Northup #744]
      • Jean-Hyacinthe de Grave (prose, 1789) [Turk (2016), 4]
      • J. F. N. Dusaulchoy (verse, 1796) [Northup #745]
      • François-René de Chateaubriand (verse, 1797) [Northup #747; Starr #176]
      • P. J. G. Cabanis (prose, 1797) [Northup #746; Starr #173]
      • M. DuBois (prose, 1797) [Northup #748]
      • Mathieu de Montmorency (verse, 1797) [Northup #749b]
      • Nicholas le Deist de Kérivalant (verse, 1797) [Northup #749; Starr #174; Starr #175]
      • Auguste-Jacques Lemierre d'Argy (prose, 1798) [Northup #750]
      • Antoine de Cournand (verse, 1802) [Northup #751]
      • Haiiy (prose, 1802) [Northup #752]
      • Charles-Marie Salaberry d'Irumberry (verse, 1802) [Turk (2013), 56]
      • Nicholas le Deist de Kérivalant (verse, 1804) [Northup #749a; Starr #175]
      • Hyacinthe de Gaston (verse, 1804) [Northup #754]
      • Marie-Joseph de Chénier (verse, 1805) [Northup #755]
    • German
      • Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (verse, 1771) [Northup #772]
      • Anon. (prose, 1772) [Northup #771a]
      • Carl Wilhelm Müller (prose, 1776) [Northup #773]
      • Anon. (prose, 1789) [Turk (2016), 5]
      • Luise Fürstin von Wied-Neuwied (verse, 1795) [Northup #775]
      • Johann Gottfried Seume (verse, 1796) [Northup #776]
      • Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten (verse, 1798) [Northup #778]
      • Johann Baptista von Tscharner (verse, 1805) [Northup #779]
    • Italian
      • Melchiorre Cesarotti (verse, 1772) [Northup #796; Starr #182a]
      • Giuseppe Gennari (verse, 1772) [Northup #797]
      • Abbate Crocchi (verse, 1775) [Northup #798; Northup #62]
      • Giuseppe Torelli (verse, 1776) [Northup #799]
      • Giuseppe Giannini (verse, 1782) [Northup #800]
      • Marco Lastri (verse, 1784) [Northup #801]
      • Antonio Buttura (verse, 1801) [Northup #802]
    • Latin
      • Christoper Anstey and William Hayward Roberts (verse, 1762) [Northup #820; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 1]
      • Robert Lloyd (verse, 1762) [Northup #821; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 2]
      • Giovanni Costa (verse, 1772) [Northup #822; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 3]
      • Antonio Evangeli (verse, 1772) [Northup #823; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 4]
      • Giovanni Costa (verse, 1775) [Northup #822; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 5]
      • Robert Langrishe (verse, 1775) [Northup #824; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 6]
      • Gilbert Wakefield (verse, 1776) [Northup #825; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 7]
      • Christoper Anstey and William Hayward Roberts (verse, 1778) [Northup #820; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 1]
      • Arthur Murphy (verse, 1786) [Northup #840; Starr #184; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 9]
      • John Wright (verse, 1786) [Northup #826; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 8]
      • William Woty (verse, 1789) [Northup #826a; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 10]
      • John Dupré (verse, 1793) [Northup #828; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 11]
      • G. (verse, 1793) [Northup #827; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 12]
      • Nelson Kerr (verse, 1802) [Northup #829; Gibson et al. (2008), no. 13]
      • Blackburn Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth (verse, 1805) [Gibson et al. (2008), no. 14]
    • Polish
      • Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (verse, 1803) [Turk (2013), 66]
    • Portuguese
      • António de Araújo de Azevedo (verse, 1792) [Northup #858; Starr #187a]
      • José Freire da Ponte (prose, 1794) [Turk (2013), 67]
    • Russian
      • Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (verse, 1802) [Northup #860; Starr #193]
    • Spanish
      • Juan de Escoiquiz (prose, 1805) [Starr #194]
    • Swedish
      • Axel Gabriel Silverstolpe (verse, 1798) [Turk (2013), 71]
    • Welsh
      • David Davis (verse, 1798) [Northup #865; Northup #867]
    We are aware of the following lacunae from the period covered by this first instalment of the project. If you are able to help with any of these, e.g. by tracing a translation or aiding with transcription, or if you are aware of any other gaps, we would be pleased to acknowledge any contributions you make. Thank you!
    • French
      • 1770: Villevielle, Marquis de, not traced [Northup #740; Starr #171]
      • 1802: Sarrasin, Adrien de, not traced [Northup #753]
    • German
      • 1773: Anon., not yet obtained [Northup #772a]
      • 1794: Niemeyer, Georg Friedrich, not yet obtained [Northup #774]
      • 1797: Schmidt-Phiseldeck, Konrad Friedrich von, not yet obtained [Northup #777]
    • Greek
      • 1785: Cooke, William, transcription needed [Northup #784]
      • 1793: Norbury, John, transcription needed [Northup #785]
      • 1794: Weston, Stephen, transcription needed [Northup #788]
      • 1794: Coote, Charles, transcription needed [Northup #786]
      • 1794: Sparke, Bowyer Edward, transcription needed [Northup #787]
      • 1795: Plumptre, John, Epitaph only, transcription needed [Northup #789]
      • 1795: Tew, Edward, transcription needed [Northup #790]
    • Italian
      • 1781: Povoleri, Giovanni, a translation into Tuscan?, not traced [Starr #183]
    • Russian
      • 1784: ?, incomplete prose translation, not traced [Turk (2013), 68]
      • 1785: Gnedich, not traced [Starr #188]
      • 1789: ?, not traced [Starr #189]
      • 1798: Kozlovskii, not traced [Starr #190]
      • 1800: Gre., not traced [Starr #191]
      • 1801: ?, prose paraphrase, incomplete, not traced [Starr #192]
  • Results: The project, as outlined above, was successfully completed on time. All translations can be accessed from the project home page, which also provides a complete bibliography, further information on the project, a help page, and a current list of lacunae.
  • First published: 16 April 2018

Digital edition of Thomas Gray's letters

  • Duration: 12 months (January - December 2016)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to make Gray's correspondence accessible online in a new standards-based full-text editon. The purpose of this work is two-fold, firstly, it will enable us to streamline development and simplify any updates internally as well as to the external partners we are already collaborating with, and secondly, it will allow us to expand our outreach and facilitate new collaborations with initiatives such as correspSearch. The new edition will include improvements to the letter records, such as consistent recording of postmarks, locations of letter-writers and addressees, and updated information on people, locations, and events mentioned. The full-text of the edition will be based on TEI/XML and will make use of the new guidelines for encoding correspondences. Once completed, the current DALF/XML-based records will be retired.
  • Results: The project, as outlined above, was successfully completed on time. The TEI/XML-encoded full-text versions of the letters have replaced the DALF/XML-based versions. The correspondence calendar has been shared with the correspSearch project and Gray's letters are now discoverable in the correspSearch catalogue of scholarly editions of letters.
  • First published: 19 December 2016

Integration of the Archive's correspondence calendar into the Cultures of Knowledge Project's EMLO union catalogue

  • Duration: 5 months (October 2013/February - June 2015)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to make the Archive's calendar of Gray's correspondence discoverable and usable in the Cultures of Knowledge project's Early Modern Letters Online (EMLO) union catalogue of correspondence from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The Archive is thus contributing to a global union catalogue of early modern correspondence and will be benefiting from the discovery platform and the visualization tools offered and developed by the Cultures of Knowledge research project.
  • Results: The Archive's correspondence calendar was shared with the Cultures of Knowledge project and was integrated in EMLO in June 2015. Collaboration between the Archive and the Cultures of Knowledge research project is ongoing.
  • First published: 2 July 2015

Close reading Gray, digitally

  • Duration: 18 months (July 2013 - December 2014)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to augment the process and enhance the experience of close reading Gray's English poems by applying a mix of traditional literary and computational methods. Poems are complex rhythmic, sonic, and visual entities, and we will be paying particular attention to the tensions between metre and rhythm, verse line and syntactic/semantic organization, and sonic clusters and breaking points, always keeping in mind their particular functions in the text. Our methodology employs a set of digital techniques mainly from natural language processing (tokenization, normalization, lemmatization, morphosyntactic annotation, sentiment analysis etc.), phonetics (phonemic transcriptions according to the IPA), and data visualization.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. The project results are accessible via the new "Analysis"-tab on the English poems' pages. All tasks originally outlined in the project description have been addressed:
    • prosody and poetic form (manually): we have completed the prosodic analysis and classification of poetic form of Gray's English poems (metre, rhyme scheme, syllable pattern, and line, stanza, and poem forms).
    • rhythm and poetic foregrounding (computationally): we have applied a number of NLP tasks as a pre-requesite for a more thorough, computationally facilitated analysis of the poems. We have identified and analysed a number of metrical irregularities and deviations computationally drawing on the identified syllabic and metrical stress patterns.
    • tropes and figures (computationally): we have successfully detected a number of rhetorical figures in several linguistic domains. These include: alliteration, paroemion, assonance, consonance (phonological); polyptoton, epizeuxis, diacope, anaphora, epistrophe (morphological); simile, homophonic paronomasia (semantic); ecphonesis, apostrophe (pragmatic).
    • sonic patterns, clusters, and breaking points (computationally): we have identified and investigated sonic phenomena only in the context of the detection of phonological figures, and not, as initially suggested, in relation to imagery and changes in sentiment.
    • data visualization (computationally): we have collaborated with the Oxford e-Research Centre to include Gray's English poems in their Poem Viewer visualization service. Links to the visualization can be found on each of the Archive's poems pages.
  • First published: 18 December 2014

Integration of the Archive's correspondence calendar into the Electronic Enlightenment Project

  • Duration: 5 months (June - October 2012)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to integrate the Archive's correspondence calendar into the Electronic Enlightenment Project. This initiative is part of a plan to foster closer collaboration between the Archive and the Electronic Enlightenment Project through the sharing and of relevant resources and the exchange of technical and editorial expertise.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. The Archive's correspondence calendar was shared with the Electronic Enlightenment Project to supplement the 650 Gray letters with holdings information and print and online bibliographies. The calendar was integrated in Electronic Enlightenment in the project's October 2012 update. Collaboration between the Archive and the Project is ongoing.
  • First published: 22 October 2012

Archive Website Re-design

  • Duration: 6 months (March - August 2012)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to re-design the Archive Website functionally and visually. The purpose of the re-design is two-fold: firstly, to future-proof the Website by moving it to current and emerging Web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript/jQuery, and secondly, to speed up the development and integration of new tools and functionalities. The visual re-design aims to provide a new more modern layout, user-friendly design, and improved navigation and access to content. We will also conduct a basic type of usability testing in the form of an expert review.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. The newly designed Website replaced a design last updated substantially in 2006. The main areas of improvements include: prominent placement of navigation aids; redesigned layout for increased readability; intuitive and responsive digital library interface; simplified access to notes and queries; full-text of letters prominently displayed; cross-referencing between primary and secondary content. There is also a revised About section that comprises aims and objectives, history, funding, methodology, output and dissemination, copyright and citation guide, use and privacy policy, acknowledgements, and contact information.
  • First published: 28 September 2012

Digitization of Oxford University's Gray MSS holdings

  • Duration: 3 months (September - November 2011)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to digitize and make freely accessible Oxford University's Gray MSS holdings. The project was made possible by an agreement with the Bodleian Libraries to this effect obtained in June 2011. The digitization of the MSS will be done by the Bodleian's Imaging Services unit on one of their Grazer cradle scanning stations. The material will be digitized in two batches (literary MSS and correspondence materials) over a three months period. The project will also allow us to catalogue the MSS in the process.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. High quality digital images of the eight literary Gray MSS held by the Bodleian Libraries were added in the December update. The four Gray MS letters will be added to the Archive's digital library in March. The MSS records in the finding aid and letters collection have been updated.
  • First published: 8 December 2011 and 1 March 2012

An integrated finding aid to Thomas Gray manuscripts

  • Duration: 12 months (December 2005 - November 2006)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to create an integrated finding aid to Thomas Gray manuscripts, initially focusing on poetry MSS. The finding aid will contain information about all identified autograph poetry manuscripts as well as transcripts in the hands of Gray's contemporaries and early editors of his works. We will adopt the XML-based EAD 2002 standard for recording collection-level descriptions and archival information, including a physical description of the items wherever possible. Where available, the records will contain links to digital surrogates of both the original manuscripts and the first printed edition of the work. Following the example in contemporary indices and location registers of MSS, the finding aid will be arranged alphabetically by uniform titles of works, as found in the Primary Texts section of the Thomas Gray Archive. The individual manuscript witnesses will be listed chronologically.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. The finding aid lists 213 MSS items for 66 poetical works. We have been able to record and verify location information for the vast majority of MSS. All identified MSS held at Oxford and at the British Library have been catalogued at the holding institutions. The workflows and procedures are now in place to extend the work to all known Thomas Gray manuscripts, including his prose works, personal papers, and marginalia.
  • First published: 7 December 2006

A browsable calendar to the correspondence of Thomas Gray

  • Duration: 9 months (April - December 2003)
  • Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to create an up-to-date digital calendar of Gray's complete correspondence. To this purpose, we are adopting a new XML-based standard for correspondence materials, developed by Edward Vanhoutte and Ron Van den Branden, named DALF. One of the key objectives of the project is to verify and record the current location of all surviving pieces of correspondence. A secondary objective is to obtain, wherever possible, digital surrogates of the original letters and permission to make them freely accessible online. To this end we will be collaborating with reference and special collections librarians at every identified holding institution. It is expected that the initial project period of 9 months will allow us to produce a complete set of basic bibliographic records, which will be enhanced over time.
  • Results: The project was successfully completed on time. The correspondence calendar lists details for 646 letters written by or to Gray. In the process, we have been able to verify the location of more than 80% of the surviving letters. We have also obtained permission to put online a number of digital surrogates that have been made available to us.
  • First published: 15 December 2003