John Gray (poet)
Encyclopedia
John Gray was an English
poet
whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde
's fictional Dorian Gray
.
, London
, he was the first of nine children. He left school at the age of thirteen and began work as an apprentice metal-worker at the Arsenal. He continued his education through attending a series of evening classes, studying French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service
exams and five years later passed the University of London
matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian.
poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson
, Aubrey Beardsley
and Oscar Wilde
. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French
Symbolists Mallarmé
, Verlaine
, Laforgue
and Rimbaud into English
, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
, but distanced himself from this rumor. It should also be noted that Wilde's story was serialised in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
a year before their relationship began. His relationship with Wilde was initially intense, but had cooled for over two years by the time of Wilde's imprisonment. The relationship appears to have been at its height in the period 1891-1893.
distinguished it from the output of many of the 'decadent' poets in its inability to accomplish "that gloating abstraction from the larger life of humanity that marks the decadent". Gray's second volume, Spiritual Poems, chiefly done out of several languages (1896), defined his developing identity as a Catholic aesthete. It contained eleven original poems and twenty-nine translations from Jacopone da Todi
, Prudentius
, Verlaine, Angelus Silesius
, Notker Balbulus, St John of the Cross, and other poets both Catholic and Protestant. Gray's later works were mainly devotional and often dealt with various Christian saints. The Long Road (1926) contained his best-known poem, "The Flying Fish", an allegory which had first appeared in The Dial
in 1896. Gray produced one novel, Park: A Fantastic Story (1932), a surreal futuristic allegory about Fr Mungo Park, a priest who, in a dream, wakes up in a Britain which has become a post-industrial paradise inhabited by black people who are all Catholics, with the degenerate descendants of the white population living below ground like rats. The novel is characterised by a vein of dry humour, as when a Dominican
prior
wonders if Park could have met Aquinas. Gray's collected poems, with extensive notes, were printed in a 1988 volume edited by English
professor and 1890s expert Ian Fletcher.
, Rome, to study for the priesthood. He was ordained by Cardinal Pietro Respighi
at St John Lateran on 21 December 1901. He served as a priest in Edinburgh
, first at Saint Patrick's and then as rector at Saint Peter's.
His most important supporter, and life partner, was Marc-André Raffalovich
, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality
. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896 and joined the tertiary order of Dominicans. When Gray went to Edinburgh he settled nearby. He helped finance St Peter's Church in Morningside where Gray would serve as priest for the rest of his life. The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich's sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael's nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness.
The critic, Valentine Cunningham
, has described Gray as the "stereotypical poet of the nineties".
His great nephew is the alternative rock
musician, Crispin Gray
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's fictional Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray is the main character of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.It may also refer to:* Dorian Gray , an Italian film starring Helmut Berger...
.
Background
Born in the working-class district of Bethnal GreenBethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, he was the first of nine children. He left school at the age of thirteen and began work as an apprentice metal-worker at the Arsenal. He continued his education through attending a series of evening classes, studying French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
exams and five years later passed the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian.
The Aesthetic Movement
Gray is best known today as an aestheticAestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson
Ernest Dowson
Ernest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...
, Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
and Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Symbolists Mallarmé
Mallarmé
Mallarmé can refer to:* Stéphane Mallarmé , French poet and critic.* François-René-Auguste Mallarmé , politician during the French Revolution....
, Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
, Laforgue
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
and Rimbaud into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
, but distanced himself from this rumor. It should also be noted that Wilde's story was serialised in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a 19th century literary magazine published in Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915, when it relocated to New York to become McBride's Magazine. It merged with Scribner's Magazine in 1916....
a year before their relationship began. His relationship with Wilde was initially intense, but had cooled for over two years by the time of Wilde's imprisonment. The relationship appears to have been at its height in the period 1891-1893.
Literary Output
Gray's first notable publication was a collection of verse called Silverpoints (1893), consisting of sixteen original poems and thirteen translations from Verlaine (7), Mallarmé (1), Rimbaud (2), and Baudelaire (3). In his review of it Richard Le GallienneRichard Le Gallienne
Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet. The American actress Eva Le Gallienne was his daughter, by his second marriage.-Life and career:...
distinguished it from the output of many of the 'decadent' poets in its inability to accomplish "that gloating abstraction from the larger life of humanity that marks the decadent". Gray's second volume, Spiritual Poems, chiefly done out of several languages (1896), defined his developing identity as a Catholic aesthete. It contained eleven original poems and twenty-nine translations from Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi was a Franciscan friar from Umbria, Italy in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi in Italian. He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatised gospel subjects.-Life:Jacopone studied law in Bologna and became a successful lawyer...
, Prudentius
Prudentius
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis in 348. He probably died in Spain, as well, some time after 405, possibly around 413...
, Verlaine, Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius was a German Catholic mystic and poet.-Life:Silesius was born in Breslau , Silesia as son of Polish noble and German mother...
, Notker Balbulus, St John of the Cross, and other poets both Catholic and Protestant. Gray's later works were mainly devotional and often dealt with various Christian saints. The Long Road (1926) contained his best-known poem, "The Flying Fish", an allegory which had first appeared in The Dial
The Dial
The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...
in 1896. Gray produced one novel, Park: A Fantastic Story (1932), a surreal futuristic allegory about Fr Mungo Park, a priest who, in a dream, wakes up in a Britain which has become a post-industrial paradise inhabited by black people who are all Catholics, with the degenerate descendants of the white population living below ground like rats. The novel is characterised by a vein of dry humour, as when a Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
prior
Prior
Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for 'earlier, first', with several notable uses.-Monastic superiors:A Prior is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot. In the Rule of St...
wonders if Park could have met Aquinas. Gray's collected poems, with extensive notes, were printed in a 1988 volume edited by English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
professor and 1890s expert Ian Fletcher.
Catholicism
Like many of the artists of that period, Gray was a convert to Roman Catholicism. He was baptised on 14th February 1890, but soon lapsed. Wilde's trial appears to have prompted some intense soul-searching in Gray and he re-embraced Catholicism in 1895. In 1896 he gave this reversion poetic form in his volume Spiritual Poems: chiefly done out of several languages. He left his position at the Foreign Office and on 28 November 1898, at the age of 32, he entered the Scots CollegeThe Scots College (Rome)
The Scots College in Rome was established by Clement VIII in 1600, when it was assigned the revenue of the old Scots' hospice...
, Rome, to study for the priesthood. He was ordained by Cardinal Pietro Respighi
Pietro Respighi
Pietro Respighi S.T.D. JUD was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and Archpriest of the Basilica of St. John Lateran.He was born in Bologna and received the sacrament of confirmation in November 1850...
at St John Lateran on 21 December 1901. He served as a priest in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, first at Saint Patrick's and then as rector at Saint Peter's.
His most important supporter, and life partner, was Marc-André Raffalovich
Marc-André Raffalovich
Marc-André Raffalovich was a French poet and writer on homosexuality, best known today for his patronage of the arts and for his lifelong relationship with the poet, John Gray.-Early life:...
, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896 and joined the tertiary order of Dominicans. When Gray went to Edinburgh he settled nearby. He helped finance St Peter's Church in Morningside where Gray would serve as priest for the rest of his life. The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich's sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael's nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness.
The critic, Valentine Cunningham
Valentine Cunningham
Valentine Cunningham is a professor of English language and literature at the University of Oxford. He tutors English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he is a Senior Fellow and Vice President. His specialism is modern English literature and literary theory. He has written a number of books,...
, has described Gray as the "stereotypical poet of the nineties".
His great nephew is the alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
musician, Crispin Gray
Crispin Gray
Previously guitarist and songwriter in Daisy Chainsaw, currently with Queen Adreena and The Dogbones.-Daisy Chainsaw:*LoveSickPleasure EP , Deva Records*Pink Flower EP *Eleventeen , One Little Indian Records...
.
Selected publications
- Silverpoints (1893). Poems
- The Blue Calendar (1895–1897). Poems
- Spiritual Poems, chiefly done out of several languages (1896)
- Ad Matrem: Fourteen Scenes in the Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1903). Poems
- Vivis (1922). Poems
- The Long Road (1926). Poems
- Poems (1931)
- Park: A Fantastic Story (1932). Manchester: Carcanet, 1985. ISBN 0-856355-38-0
- The Poems of John Gray (edited by Ian Fletcher). Greensboro, North Carolina: ELT Press, 1988. ISBN 0-944318-00-2
- The Selected Prose of John Gray (edited by Jerusha Hull McCormack). Greenboro, North Carolina: ELT Press, 1992. ISBN 0-944318-06-1