FAMILIAR VERSES
", HOMAS GRAY’S Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is probably the best known and most quoted poem in the language. Remember? As if you didn’t! The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The eee herd winds slowly o’er the ea. « s And so on to the Epitaph at the end. There are those who despise it because it is so well rubbed, just as there are some who think Beethoven’s Fifth has been soiled by being played too often. But even if you belong to the fed-up-with-Gray’s Elegy school and don’t agree that it’s one of the best loved poems in
the language you couldn't deny it a place in a programme of "poems we all remember." In fact, the Elegy, which was first published anonymously as- a pamphlet 203 years ago, is properly the very first piece in By Heart, a BBC series of readings of wellknown poems which will start next week the rounds of National stations. The second poem in this opening programme is Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, also by Thomas Gray, who was at school
there... The poems are ------- read by William Devlin. Station 1YC will broadcast this programme first, at 9.30 p.m., on Monday, November 1. The second programme of By Heart is a selection of Scottish border ballads tread by James McKechnie. Sir Walter Scott naturally has a prominent place in this programme-it includes extracts from Marmion and The Lay of the Last Minstrel, But Mr. McKechnie also reads Lord Ullin’s Daughter, by Thomas Campbell, and the traditional ballads Sir Patrick Spens and Helen of Kirconnell, This programme will be broadcast
first from 3YC at 8,17 p.m. on Sunday, November 7. Bringing this short series to an end are readings by the distinguished British actor, Sir Ralph Richardson, of quatrains from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the translation of Edward Fitzgerald. These will be heard first on Sunday, November 7, at 8.0 p.m. from 4YC. All the poems in By Heart were selected and arranged by Patric Dickinson, who also introduces some of the programmes.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541029.2.60
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 797, 29 October 1954, Page 30
Word count
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349FAMILIAR VERSES New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 797, 29 October 1954, Page 30
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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