I.

Introduction

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), English poet and cultural commentator, who had a profound influence on the practice of literary criticism.

Arnold was born in Laleham, Middlesex, the son of Dr Thomas Arnold, celebrated headmaster of Rugby School in Warwickshire. He was educated at Winchester and Rugby, and went on to read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford University, where in 1843, his poem “Cromwell” won the Newdigate Prize. Here he formed a lifelong friendship with the poet Arthur Hugh Clough.

After a period of travelling in Europe and teaching at Rugby, Arnold was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford University, but soon left to take the position of private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, the eminent Liberal statesman. He remained in the civil service until 1886, promoted to a school inspectorship in 1851. In 1850 he fell in love with Frances Lucy Wightman, and the financial security of this new post ensured her father's consent to their marriage. The couple had six children together, and were predeceased by three. Arnold was made Oxford Professor of Poetry in 1857, but by the 1860s he was focusing on the works of literary and cultural criticism that eventually eclipsed his poetic output. He made two lecture tours in the United States, the first in 1883, largely embarked upon to clear the debts of his son, Richard. In 1886 he retired from the civil service and returned to America to visit his daughter, Lucy. Arnold died in Liverpool in 1888, suffering a fatal heart attack while running to catch a tram.

II.

Poetry

Arnold's first collection, The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems, made little impact when it was published anonymously in 1849. Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852) fared little better, but established Arnold's characteristically meditative, elegiac style. The title poem voices themes that dominate Arnold's poetic output: alienation, despair at the decline of religious faith, and a nostalgia for the classical period. A revised edition (1853) included new poems such as “The Scholar Gipsy” and the Homeric “Sohrab and Rustrum”. A new preface addressed the position of the contemporary poet in an age “wanting in moral grandeur”. Poems, Second Series (1855) developed these themes, “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” expressing his isolation and religious doubt as a state of:

Merope, A Tragedy (1858) was a verse drama in the style of Homer. It was followed by his final collection, New Poems (1867), which included “Thyrsis”, an elegy for Clough, who had died in 1861, and “Dover Beach” (1867), a stark, pessimistic summary of human spiritual life.

III.

Prose

Arnold's essays engage with debates concerning education, literature, and critical practice, and are deeply concerned with literature's place in modern culture. Despite his religious doubts, Arnold wrote several pieces seeking to affirm the essential truth of Christianity against conventional dogmatism. He also argued for a wider and more effective education system, modelled on European examples, notably in Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868). In works such as Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869) he argued against the impulses of narrow-minded materialism and Philistinism that he saw as dominant in middle-class life. The latter study defines the concept of culture as one of “sweetness and light”, an ideal of educated sensitivity to which all should aspire. Much of this work attacks the parochialism of English culture, arguing for a more internationalist form of intellectualism.