Named source · 1747

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College Quotes by Thomas Gray: Context & Meanings

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Where Ignorance is Bliss, ’Tis Folly to be wise.

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“Where Ignorance is Bliss, ’Tis Folly to be wise.”

Thomas Gray

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Gray ends by suggesting that foreknowledge of adult suffering would destroy the apparent happiness of youth, making ignorance temporarily protective within the poem’s tragic perspective.

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Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, first edition 1747, represented by the Thomas Gray Archive. The famous line concludes a poem cataloguing the future troubles awaiting schoolboys; it is ironic poetic reflection, not a general recommendation against knowledge.

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