[Lines on Dr Robert Smith]
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[Lines on Dr Robert Smith]
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Metrical foot type: anapaestic (--+)
Metrical foot number: tetrameter (4 feet), trimeter (3 feet) (catalectic) (hypercatalectic)
Rhyme scheme: abab
Rhyme (stanza position): cross (abab)
Syllable pattern: 12.9.12.9
Stanza: quatrain (4 lines)
Notation symbols: | (foot boundary), || (caesura), / (metrical line boundary), + (metrically prominent), - (metrically non-prominent)
Metre: --+|--+|--+|--+/ | Syllables: 12
Metre: -+|--+|--+/ | Syllables: 9
Metre: -+|--+|--+|--+/ | Syllables: 12
Metre: --+|--+|--+|- | Syllables: 9
Expanding the poem lines () shows notes and queries taken from various critical editions of Gray's works, as well as those contributed by users of the Archive. There are 0 textual and 1 explanatory notes/queries.
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Title/Paratext] "The stanza was first printed [...]" H.W. Starr/J.R. Hendrickson, 1966.
"The stanza was first printed by Gosse in his revised edition of Gray's poems, where he introduced it as
written on the occasion of the threatened destruction of the Chestnuts at Trinity by Dr. Robert Smith (1689-1768), Master of that college, and author of a treatise on Optics, in consequence of which he got the nickname of Old Focus. They were preserved by Prof. Adam Sedgwick.Gosse appends to the poem the note 'There was a second stanza' but gives no further information of any sort."The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966, 236.
Works cited
- The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966.
Spelling has been modernized throughout, except in case of conscious archaisms. Contractions, italics and initial capitalization have been largely eliminated, except where of real import. Obvious errors have been silently corrected, punctuation has been supplied. The editor would like to express his gratitude to the library staff of the Göttingen State and University Library (SUB Göttingen) for their invaluable assistance.