Thomas Gray's An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard enjoyed extraordinary popular success in Europe, where it was widely translated, imitated, adapted, and in various ways assimilated into the continental literatures.

This book is a study of that tradition: the origin of panegyric in the festival ceremonies of Greece, its adaptation for purposes of political propaganda and education in Imperial Rome, its revival in Renaissance England, and its impact on ...

This book traces the history of the Vergilian ideal from classical Latin to neoclassical English literature.