Henry Weinfield offers a new reading not only of the "Elegy "itself but also of its place in English literary history. His central argument is that in Gray s "Elegy "the thematic constellation of poverty, anonymity, alienation, and unfulfilled potentialor what Weinfield calls the "problem of history"is fully articulated for the first time, and that, as a result, the "Elegy "represents an important turning-point in the history of English poetry."