23 pages • 46 minutes read
The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode
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Themes
Poetry’s Universality
Gray’s “The Progress of Poesy” employs a rather broad definition of poetry. The speaker’s description of poetry in the first stanza as a “rich stream of music” (Line 7), and the art’s connection with the “Aeolian Lyre” (Line 1) work together to establish a definition of poetry that also contains music, dance, and breath. Part of the reason for this broad definition of poetry is related to the poem’s larger theme about poetry’s universality across human cultures.
The poem’s sixth stanza places a strong emphasis on the Muses’ finite quantity and their connection to place (See: Poem Analysis), but the preceding stanza places an even stronger emphasis on how poetry appears in unlikely places. Whether it be in “Chili’s boundless forests” (Line 59), or the northern perimeter of Europe where “shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam” (Line 55), the speaker presents poetry as a part of human life. Unlike many later Romantic conceptions of poetry, which would place value in the poet’s self-expression, Gray’s speaker views poetry as a functional tool. The speaker describes how, when a Muse visits these remote locales, they “cheer the shivering native’s dull abode” (Line 57) or provide light “beneath the od’rous shade” (Line 58). In both of these instances, poetry provides the basic comforts and conditions for human life.
Though these places are “beyond the solar road” (Line 54) and unable to experience sunlight in the conventional way, poetry and music provide a sort of artificial light that can sustain civilizations. This is why the speaker claims their “song” (Line 46) will “justify the laws of Jove” (Line 47) and human suffering. Poetry's effect is not dependent on the kind of refined forms that Gray writes in either. The “loose numbers wildly sweet” (Line 61), or poems with inconsistent, unrefined meters, are also inspired by the muses and have the same benefits as structured works.
Contemporary Debts to Classical Literature
Gray’s speaker deals in broad, all-encompassing definitions of poetry and poetic traditions. The “tuneful echoes” (Line 71) that the speaker highlights most, however, reverberate from ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Above anything else, “The Progress of Poesy” relies on the idea that the history of western poetry is linear and traces a direct line from the ancient Greek and Latin works to Gray and his English contemporaries. This theme is so important that the poem’s title,”The Progress of Poesy”, establishes it as the work’s main subject.
There are a few ways that the speaker bridges contemporary and classical literature. One obvious element that connects the two is the poet’s choice of form, the Pindaric ode, which dates back to ancient Greece (See: Literary Devices). The use of this ancient form acts to demonstrate that ancient and contemporary poetry are similar enough that they can be expressed in the same way. The speaker’s use of Greek mythology does similar work. The clearest connection the speaker makes between contemporary and ancient poetry, however, comes through the Muses’ movement. Since there are only a “sad Nine” (Line 77) Greek Muses, and they appear to travel in groups from “Parnassus for the Latain plains” (Line 78), their progress maps directly to poetry’s progress.
The debts that Gray’s contemporaries owe to classical literature are not only poetic, but political. The speaker explicitly details the conditions that provide the ideal habitat for the Muses. Above all, the Muses “scorn the pomp of tyrant Power, / And coward Vice” (Lines 79-80). The speaker’s narrative of the Muses’ progress from ancient Greece to England, then, also suggests that English political freedom traces its roots back to that same classical tradition.
The Gentle, Healing Powers of Beauty
Beyond poetry’s providing light and levity within “Night and all her sickly dews” (Line 49), “The Progress of Poesy” suggests that poetry also has a number of other positive qualities. Chief among these is poetry's ability to mitigate, or “shell” (Line 15) “the sullen Cares / And frantic Passions” (Lines 14-15) experienced by gods and humans alike.
The speaker depicts poetry as the force that “curb’d the fury” (Line 18) or Mars, one of two gods of war. Greek mythology, where Mars is called Ares, makes a distinction between two different gods of war: Ares and Athena. Ares revels in the chaos of war. Athena, alternatively, is the god of wisdom and just wars. Where Ares moves through passion and chaos, Athena strives for justice and peace. Poetry’s ability to quell “the fury of [Mars’s] car” (Line 18), implies that it also has the ability to make people less violent through its “soft control” (Line 16).
Poetry also has positive emotional and religious benefits. The speaker describes John Milton, the “second He” (Line 95), riding “Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy” (Line 96). Ecstasy, in the context of “seraph-wings,” suggests the religious ecstasy of devout Christians. This religious ecstasy is often accompanied by divine revelation and feelings of euphoria, such as those of the poet who unlocks the “gates of joy” (Line 92).
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