Matthew Arnold (1822–88) was an English Victorian poet and literary and social critic. He made it his mission to censure the boorishness of the English, finding in ‘culture’ the cure for contemporary ills and a potent help towards the formation of human character. His theories were mostly responsible for the establishment of English literature as a “core” subject in schools and universities.
Arnold is renowned particularly for his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the “Barbarians” (the aristocracy,) the “Philistines” (the commercial middle class,) and the “Populace.” He became the apostle of “culture” in such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869.)
Born in Laleham, Middlesex, the eldest son of English educationalist and scholar Thomas Arnold of Rugby, Matthew Arnold was educated at Winchester, Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford. He won the Newdigate prize with a poem on Oliver Cromwell (1843,) and in 1845 was elected a Fellow of Oriel College. He was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne 1847–51 and then was appointed one of the lay inspectors of schools 1851–86, and professor of poetry at Oxford 1857–67.
Arnold was regularly sent by the government to probe into the state of education on the Continent, especially in France, Germany, and Holland, and his reports of English deficiencies attracted much attention in England, as did his application to the scripture of the methods of literary criticism. He made his mark with Poems: A New Edition (1853–54) and New Poems (1867.)
Arnold’s prose writings include On Translating Homer (1861,) Essays in Criticism (1865; 2nd ser., 1888,) and Culture and Anarchy (1869.) For his religious views, St Paul and Protestantism (1870,) Literature and Dogma (1873,) God and the Bible (1875,) and Last Essays on Church and Religion (1877) are of particular interest.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Matthew Arnold
Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life.
—Matthew Arnold
Topics: Ideas
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.
—Matthew Arnold
But each day brings its petty dust our soon-choked souls to fill, and we forget because we must, and not because we will.
—Matthew Arnold
Topics: Memory
For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.
—Matthew Arnold
Topics: Writing
With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbor to Despair.
—Matthew Arnold
Topics: Patience
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
—Matthew Arnold
Topics: Religion, Morality
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Edward Lear English Humorist, Illustrator
Leigh Hunt British Author
Dante Gabriel Rossetti British Poet, Artist
Thomas Hood British Poet, Humorist
A. E. Housman English Scholar, Poet
John Keats English Poet
Hilaire Belloc British Writer, Poet
Christopher Hitchens Anglo-American Social Critic
Ford Madox Ford English Novelist, Poet, Critic
George Meredith British Novelist, Poet