Paths of Glory
While not an illustration in itself, Christopher Nevinson’s statement against the slaughter of World War I in his painting "Paths of Glory" (1917) takes its title from another line in the Elegy, “The paths of glory lead but to the grave”. The title had already been used two years before by Irvin S. Cobb in an account of his journalistic experiences at the start of that war. It was then taken up in the unrelated Humphrey Cobb's 1935 anti-war novel, although in this case the name was suggested for the untitled manuscript in a competition held by the publisher. His book also served in its turn as the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s film Paths of Glory, released in 1957. This example is just one more among many illustrating the imaginative currency that certain lines of the poem continue to have, over and above their original significance.