The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1757

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Venus, the Queen of Love

Venus, the classical goddess of beauty and the mother of the poem’s “rosy-crowned loves” (Line 28), is one of most important figures in “The Progress of Poesy”. Gray’s poem relies heavily on a shared body of knowledge surrounding Greek mythology. Gray would expect contemporary, educated readers to know that there are two aspects to Venus. One, named Venus Pandemos, represents earthly, material beauty, such as that which causes lust or other lower desires. The second, Venus Urania, represents a divine, spiritual beauty.

Typically, poets and artists invoke Venus Urania rather than Venus Pandemos. Gray, likewise, makes effort to clarify that poetic beauty is related to Venus Urania. The poem’s Venus “float[s] upon the air” (Line 38) and moves “In gliding state” (Line 39). This suggestion that Venus never touches the ground indicates that she is detached from worldly, material concerns. The speaker also suggests that Gray’s Venus plays the role of divine beauty through the fact that her face incites awe rather than desire in “the dauntless child” (Line 87). Still, Gray is constantly aware of Venus’s duality, stating that Venus moves both “The bloom of young desire” (Line 41) and the “purple [a color associated with nobility] light of love” (Line 41).

Night and Day

Night and day—and their associated darkness and light—make up some of the poem’s most powerful images. Night, in the poem, operates as a representation of human pains, sufferings, labor, and all the “ills [that] await” (Line 42) the “feeble race” (Line 42). By contrast, Day, and light more particularly, represent any mode or avenue that mitigates “Night, and all her sickly dews” (Line 49).

Gray’s use of night and day to represent human states of suffering and flourishing is especially relevant in the fifth stanza, when the speaker describes “Hyperion’s march” (Line 53) and poetry’s effect on a variety of cultures. In the established metaphor of light and darkness, poetry acts as an artificial light source, providing day-like benefits to “climes beyond the solar road” (Line 54) where the benefits would be otherwise unavailable in those areas.

The Lyre

The “Aoelian Lyre” (Line 1) that bookends Gray’s poem stands foremost as a symbol of poetic performance. “The Progress of Poesy” uses a broad definition of poetry that encompasses any oral art form that involves rhythm. This includes the music performed by those that “explore” (Line 107) the lyre, and the music that plays in “frolic measures” (Line 31) for the Loves to dance to.

The connection between the lyre and poetry relies on knowledge of Greek mythology and culture. Traditionally, ancient Greek poetry was performed orally, rather than presented as a text. Ancient poetic performances also had an accompanying musical performance. The Muses, in fact, were believed to inspire both poetry and music, and the origin of word “music” is derived from the word “Muse.” For instance, when Gray’s speaker states that the “music winds along” (Line 7) he means to suggest both music and poetry; “the dauntless child[‘s]” (Line 87) decision to explore the lyre, then, is a decision to create poetry.