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MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 638 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MATTHEW See also:ARNOLD (1822-1888)  , See also:English poet, See also:literary critic and inspector of See also:schools, was See also:born at Laleham, near See also:Staines, on the 24th of See also:December 1822 . When it is said that he was the son of the famous Dr See also:Arnold of See also:Rugby, and that Win See also:chester, Rugby and Balliol See also:College, See also:Oxford, contributed their best towards his See also:education, it seems superfluous to add that, in estimating See also:Matthew Arnold and his See also:work, training no less than See also:original endowment has to be considered . A full See also:academic training has its disadvantages as well as its gains . In the individual no less than in the See also:species the See also:history of See also:man's development is the history of the struggle between the impulse to See also:express original See also:personal force and the impulse to make that force See also:bow to the authority of See also:custom . Where in any individual the first of these impulses is stronger than usual, a See also:complete academic training is a gain; but where the second of these impulses is the dominant one, the effect of the academic See also:habit upon the mind at its most sensitive and most plastic See also:period is See also:apt to be crippling . In regard to Matthew Arnold, it would be a bold critic of his See also:life and his writings who should See also:attempt to say what his work would have been if his training had been different . In his judgments on See also:Goethe, See also:Wordsworth, See also:Byron, See also:Shelley and See also:Hugo, it may be seen how strong was his impulse to bow to authority . On the other See also:hand, in Arnold's ingenious reasoning away the conception of See also:Providence to "a stream of tendency not ourselves which makes for righteousness," we see how strong was his natural impulse for taking original views . The fact that the very See also:air Arnold breathed during the whole of the impressionable period of his life was academic is therefore a very important fact to See also:bear in mind . In one of his own most charming See also:critical essays he contrasts the See also:poetry of See also:Homer, which consists of " natural thoughts in natural words," with the poetry of See also:Tennyson, which consists of " distilled thoughts in distilled words." " Distilled " is one of the happiest words to be found in poetical See also:criticism, and may be used with equal aptitude in the criticism of life . To most See also:people the See also:waters of life come with all their natural qualities—sweet or bitterundistilled . Only the See also:ordinary conditions of See also:civilization, See also:common to all, flavoured the waters of life to See also:Shakespeare, to Cervantes, to See also:Burns, to See also:Scott, to See also:Dumas, and those other See also:great creators whose minds were mirrors—broad and clear—for reflecting the See also:rich See also:drama of life around them .

To Arnold the waters of life came distilled so carefully that the wonder is that he had any originality See also:

left . A member of the upper stratum of that " See also:middle class " which he despised, or pretended to despise—the eldest son of one of the most accomplished as well as one of the most See also:noble-tempered men of his See also:time—Arnold from the moment of his See also:birth drank the finest distilled waters that can be drunk even in these days . Perhaps, on the whole, the surprising thing is how little he suffered thereby . Indeed those who had formed an See also:idea of Arnold's See also:personality from their knowledge of his " culture," and especially those who had been delighted by the fastidious and feminine delicacy of his See also:prose See also:style, used to be quite bewildered when for the first time they met him at a See also:dinner-table or in a friend's smoking-See also:room . His prose was so self-conscious that what people expected to find in the writer was the Arnold as he was conceived by certain " See also:young lions " of journalism whom he satirized—a somewhat over-cultured See also:petit-maitre—almost, indeed, a coxcomb of letters . On the other hand, those who had been captured by his poetry expected to find a man whose sensitive organism responded nervously to every uttered word as an aeolian See also:harp answers to the faintest See also:breeze . What they found was a broad-shouldered, manly—almost burly—Englishman with a See also:fine countenance, bronzed by the open air of See also:England, wrinkled apparently by the See also:sun, See also:wind-worn as an English skipper's, open and See also:frank as a See also:fox-See also:hunting See also:squire's—and yet a countenance whose finelychiselled features were as high-bred and as commanding as See also:Wellington's or See also:Sir See also:Charles See also:Napier's . The See also:voice they heard was deep-toned, fearless, rich and frank, and yet modulated to express every nuance of thought, every See also:movement of emotion and See also:humour . In his prose essays the humour he showed was of a somewhat thin-lipped See also:kind; in his more important poems he showed none at all . It was here, in this See also:matter of humour, that Arnold's writings were specially misleading as to the personality of the man . Judged from his poems, it was not with a poet like the writer of " The See also:Northern See also:Farmer," or a poet like the writer of" Ned Bratts," that any student of poetry would have dreamed of classing him . Such a student would actually have been more likely to class him with two of his contemporaries between whom and himself there were but few points in common, the " humour-less " See also:William See also:Morris. and the " humourless " See also:Rossetti .

For, singularly enough, between him and them there was this one point of resemblance: while all three were richly endowed with humour., while all three were the very See also:

lights of the sets in which they moved, the moment. they took See also:pen in hand to write poetry they became sad . It would almost seem as if, like Rossetti, Arnold actually held that poetry was not the proper See also:medium for humour . No wonder, then, if the See also:absence of humour in his poetry did much to mislead the student of his work as to the real See also:character of the man . After a See also:year at See also:Winchester, Matthew Arnold entered Rugby school in 1837 . He See also:early began to write and See also:print verses . His first publication was a Rugby See also:prize poem, See also:Alaric at See also:Rome, in 1840 . This was followed in 1843, after he had gone up to Oxford in 184o as a See also:scholar of Balliol, by his poem See also:Cromwell, which won the See also:Newdigate prize . In 1844 he graduated with second-class honours, and in 1.845 was elected a See also:fellow of See also:Oriel College, where among his colleagues was A H . See also:Clough, his friendship with whom is commemorated in that exquisite See also:elegy . Thyrsis . From 1847 to 1851 he acted as private secretary to See also:Lord See also:Lansdowne; and inthe latter year, after acting for a See also:short time as assistant-See also:master at Rugby, he was appointed to an inspectorship of schools, a See also:post which he retained until two years before his See also:death . He married, in See also:June 1851, the daughter of Mr See also:Justice Wightman .

Meanwhile,. in 1849, appeared The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A, _a See also:

volume which gained a considerable See also:esoteric reputation . In 1852 he published another volume under the same initial, See also:Empedocles on See also:Etna, and other Poems . Empedocles is as undramatic a poem perhaps as was ever written in dramatic See also:form, but studded with lyrical beauties of a. very high See also:order . In 1853 Arnold published a volume of Poems under his own name . This consisted. partially of poems selected from the two previous volumes . A second See also:series of poems, which contained, however, only two new ones, was published in 1855 . So great was the impression made by these in academic circles, that in 1857 Arnold was elected See also:professor of poetry at Oxford, and he held the See also:chair for ten years . In 1858 he published his classical tragedy, See also:Merope . 'Nine years afterwards his New Poems (1867) were published . While he held the Oxford professorship he published several series of lectures, which gave him a high See also:place as a scholar and critic . The essays' On Translating Homer: Three Lectures given at Oxford, published in 1861, supplemented in 1862 by On Translating Homer: Last Words, a See also:fourth lecture given hi reply to F . W ..

See also:

Newman's Homeric See also:Translation in Theory and Practice (1861), and On the Study of See also:Celtic Literature, published in 1867, were full of subtle and brilliant if not of profound criticism . So were the two series of Essays in Criticism, the first of which, consisting. of articles reprinted from various reviews, appeared in 1865 . The See also:essay on " A See also:Persian See also:Passion See also:Play " was added in the See also:editions of 1875; and a. second series, edited by Lord See also:Coleridge, appeared in 1888 . Arnold's poetic activity almost ceased after he left the chair of poetry at Oxford . He was several times sent by See also:government to make inquiries into the See also:state of education in See also:France, See also:Germany, See also:Holland and other countries; and his reports, with their thorough-going and searching criticism of See also:continental methods, t These essays were edited: in 1905 with an introduction by W . H . D . Rouse . as contrasted with English methods, showed how conscientiously he had devoted some of his best energies to the work . His fame as a poet and a literary critic has somewhat overshadowed the fact that he was during See also:thirty-five years of his life—from '851 to 1886—employed in the Education See also:Department as one of H.M. inspectors of schools, while his literary work was achieved in such intervals of leisure as could be spared from the public service . At the time of his See also:appointment the government, by arrangement with the religious bodies, entrusted the inspection of schools connected with the See also:Church of England to clergymen, and agreed also to send See also:Roman See also:Catholic inspectors to schools managed by members of that communion . Other schools—those of the See also:British and See also:Foreign Society, the Wesleyans, and undenominational schools generally—were inspected by laymen, of whom Arnold was one .

There were only three or four of these See also:

officers at first, and their districts were necessarily large . It is to the experience gained in intercourse with See also:Nonconformist school managers that we may attribute the curiously intimate knowledge of religious sects which furnished the material for some of his keen though See also:good-humoured sarcasms . The Education See also:Act of 1870, which simplified the administrative See also:system, abolished denominational inspection, and thus greatly reduced the See also:area assigned to a single inspector . Arnold took See also:charge of the See also:district of See also:Westminster, and remained in that See also:office until his resignation, taking also an occasional See also:share in the inspection of training colleges for teachers, and in conferences at the central office . His letters, passim, show that some of the routine which devolved upon him was distasteful, and that he was glad to entrust to a skilled assistant much of the See also:duty of individual examination and the making up of schedules and returns . But the See also:influence he exerted on schools, on the department, and on the See also:primary education of the whole See also:country, was indirectly far greater than is generally supposed . His See also:annual reports, of which more than twenty were collected into a volume by his friend and See also:official See also:chief, Sir See also:Francis (afterwards Lord) See also:Sandford, attracted, by See also:reason of their freshness of style and thought, much more of public See also:attention than is usually accorded to See also:blue-See also:book literature; and his high aims, and his sympathetic appreciation of the efforts and difficulties of the teachers, had a remarkable effect in raising the See also:tone of elementary education, and in indicating the way to improvement . In particular, he insisted on the formative elements of school education, on literature and the " humanities," as distinguished from the collection of scraps of See also:information and " useful knowledge "; and he sought to impress all the young teachers with the. See also:necessity of broader See also:mental cultivation than was absolutely required to obtain the government certificate . In his reports also he dwelt often and forcibly on the place which the study of the See also:Bible, not the distinctive formularies of the churches, ought to hold in English schools . He urged that besides the religious and moral purposes of Scriptural teaching, it had a literary value of its own, and was the best See also:instrument in the hands even of the elementary teacher for uplifting the soul and refining and enlarging the thoughts of young See also:children . On three occasions Arnold was asked to assist the government by making See also:special inquiries into the state of education in foreign countries . These duties were especially welcome to him, serving as they did as a See also:relief from the monotony of school inspection at See also:home, and as opportunities for taking a wider survey of the whole subject of education, and for expressing his views on principles and See also:national aims as well as administrative details .

In 1859, as foreign assistant See also:

commissioner, he prepared for the See also:duke of See also:Newcastle's See also:commission to inquire into the subject of elementary education a See also:report (printed 186o) which was after-wards reprinted (1861) in a volume entitled The Popular Education of France, with Notices of that of Holland and See also:Switzerland . In 1865 he was again employed as assistant-commissioner by the Schools Inquiry Commission under Lord See also:Taunton; and his report on this subject, On Secondary Education in Foreign Countries (1866), was subsequently reprinted under the See also:title Schools and See also:Universities on the See also:Continent (1868) . Twenty years later he was sent by the Education Department to make specialinquiries on certain specified points, e.g. See also:free education, the status and training of teachers, and compulsory attendance at schools . The result of this investigation appeared as a See also:parliamentary See also:paper, Special Report on certain points connected with Elementary Education in Germany, Switzerland and France, in '886 . He also contributed the See also:chapter on " Schools " (1837-'887) to the second volume of Mr See also:Humphry See also:Ward's Reign of See also:Queen See also:Victoria . See also:Part of his official writings may be studied in Reports for Elementary Schools (1852-'882), edited by Sir F . Sandford in '889 . All these reports form substantial contributions to the history and literature of education in the Victorian See also:age . They have been quoted often, and have exercised marked influence on subsequent changes and controversies . One great purpose underlies them all . It is to bring home to the English people a conviction that education ought to be a national concern, that it should not be left entirely to See also:local, or private, or irresponsible initiative, that the watchful See also:jealousy so See also:long shown by Liberals, and especially by Nonconformists, in regard to state See also:action was a See also:grave See also:practical See also:mistake, and that in an enlightened See also:democracy, animated by a progressive spirit and noble and generous ideals, it was the part of See also:wisdom to invoke the collective See also:power of the state to give effect to those ideals . To this theme he constantly recurred in his essays, articles and official reports .

"Porro unum est necessarium: One thing is needful; organize your secondary education." In '883 a See also:

pension of £250 was conferred on Arnold in recognition of his literary merits . In the same year he went to the See also:United States on a lecturing tour, and again in 1886, his subjects being " See also:Emerson " and the " Principles and Value of See also:Numbers." The success of these lectures, though they were admirable in matter and form, was marred by the lecturer's lack of experience in delivery . It is sufficient, further, to say that Culture and Anarchy: an Essay in See also:Political and Social Criticism, appeared in 1869; St See also:Paul and Protestantism, with an Introduction on See also:Puritanism and the Church of England (1870); Friendship's See also:Garland: being the Conversations, Letters and Opinions of the See also:late See also:Arminius See also:Baron von See also:Thunder-ten-Tronckh (1871) ; Literature and See also:Dogma: an Essay towards a Better See also:Apprehension of the ,Bible (1873); See also:God and the Bible: a See also:Review of Objections to Literature and Dogma (1875); Last Essays on Church and See also:Religion (1877); Mixed Essays (1879); Irish Essays and Others (1882); Discourses in See also:America (1885) . Such essays as the first of these, embodying as they did Arnold's views of theological and polemical subjects, attracted much attention at the time of their publication, owing to the state of the intellectual See also:atmosphere at the moment; but it is doubtful, perhaps, whether they will be greatly considered in the near future . Many severe things have been said, and will be said, concerning the inadequacy of poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth when confronting subjects of a theological or philosophical kind . Wordsworth's High Church See also:Pantheism and Coleridge's disquisitions on the See also:Logos seem farther removed from the speculations of to-See also:day than do the dreams of See also:Lucretius . But these two great writers lived before the days of See also:modern See also:science . Arnold, living only a few years later, came at a transition period when the winds of tyrannous knowledge had blown off the protecting roof that had covered the centuries before, but when time and much labour were needed to build another roof of new materials —a period when it was impossible for the poet to enjoy either the See also:quietism of High Church Pantheism in which Wordsworth had basked, or the sheltering See also:protection of See also:German See also:metaphysics under which Coleridge had preached—a period, nevertheless, when the wonderful revelations of science were still too raw, too See also:cold and hard, to satisfy the yearnings of the poetic soul . Objectionable as Arnold's rationalizing criticism was to See also:con-temporary orthodoxy, and questionable as was his equipment in point of theological learning, his spirituality of outlook and ethical purpose were not to be denied . Yet it is not Arnold's views that have become current See also:coin so much as his literary phrases —his craving for " culture " and " sweetness and See also:light, his con-tempt for " the dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the See also:Protestant religion," his " stream of tendency not our-selves making for righteousness," his See also:classification of " See also:Philistines and barbarians "—and so forth . His death at See also:Liverpool, of See also:heart failure on the i 5th of See also:April 1888, was sudden and quite unexpected . Arnold was a prominent figure in that great See also:galaxy of Victorian poets who were working simultaneously—Tennyson, See also:Browning, Rossetti, William Morris and See also:Swinburne—poets between whom there was at least this connecting See also:link, that the quest of all of them was the old-fashioned poetical quest of the beautiful .

Phoenix-squares

Beauty was their watchword, as it had been the watchword of their immediate predecessors—Wordsworth, Coleridge, See also:

Keats, Shelley and Byron . That this See also:group of early rgth-See also:century poets might be divided into two—those whose primary quest was See also:physical beauty, and those whose primary quest was moral beauty—is no doubt true . Still, in so far as beauty was their quest they were all akin . And so with the Victorian group to which Arnold belonged . As to the position which he takes among them opinions must necessarily vary . On the whole, his place in the group will be below all the others . The question as to whether he was primarily a poet or a prosateur has been often asked . If we were to try to See also:answer that question here, we should have to examine his poetry in detail—we should have to inquire whether his primary impulse of expression was to seize upon the innate suggestive power of words, or whether his primary impulse was to rely upon the logical power of the See also:sentence . In See also:nobility of See also:temper, in clearness of statement, and especially in descriptive power, he is beyond praise . But See also:intellect, See also:judgment, culture and study of great poets may do much towards enabling a prose-writer to write what must needs be called good poetry . What they cannot enable him to do is to produce those magical effects which poets of the rarer kind can achieve by seizing that mysterious, suggestive power of words which is far beyond all See also:mere statement . Notwithstanding the exquisite work that Arnold has left behind him, some critics have come to the conclusion that his primary impulse in expression was that of the poetically-minded prosateur rather than that of the born poet .

And this has been said by some who nevertheless deeply admire poems like " The Scholar Gypsy," "Thyrsis," " The Forsaken Merman, "" See also:

Dover See also:Beach," " See also:Heine's Grave," " Rugby See also:Chapel," " The Grande See also:Chartreuse," " Sohrab and Rustum," " The Sick See also:King in See also:Bokhara," " Tristram and Iseult," &c . It would seem that a man may show all the endowments of a poet See also:save one, and that one the most essential—the instinctive mastery over metrical effects . In all literary expression there are two kinds of emphasis, the emphasis of See also:sound and the emphasis of sense . Indeed the difference between those who have and those who have'not the true rhythmic See also:instinct is that, while the former have the innate See also:faculty of making the emphasis of sound and the emphasis of sense meet and strengthen each other, the latter are without that faculty . But so imperfect is the human mind that it can rarely apprehend or grasp simultaneously these two kinds of emphasis . While to the born prosateur the emphasis of sense comes first, and refuses to be more than partially conditioned by the emphasis of sound, to the born poet the emphasis of sound comes first, and sometimes will, even as in the See also:case of Shelley, revolt against the tyranny of the emphasis of sense . Perhaps the very origin of the old quantitative metres was the See also:desire to make these two kinds of emphasis meet in the same syllable . In manipulating their quantitative metrical system the Greeks had facilities for bringing one kind of emphasis into See also:harmony with the other such as are unknown to writers in accentuated metres . This accounts for the measureless superiority of See also:Greek poetry in verbal See also:melody as well as in See also:general See also:harmonic See also:scheme to all the poetry of the modern See also:world . In writers so diverse in many ways as Homer, tEschylus, See also:Sophocles, See also:Pindar, See also:Sappho, the harmony between the emphasis of sound and the emphasis of sense is so complete that each of these kinds of emphasis seems always begetting, yet always born of the other . When in See also:Europe the quantitative See also:measures were superseded by the accentuated measures a See also:reminiscence was naturally and inevitably left behind of the old system; and the result has been, in the English See also:language atleast, that no really great See also:line can be written in which the emphasis of See also:accent, the emphasis of quantity and the emphasis of sense do not meet on the same syllable . Whenever this junction does not take place the weaker line, or lines, are always introduced, not for makeshift purposes, but for variety, as in the finest lines of See also:Milton and Wordsworth .

Wordsworth no doubt seems to have had a theory that the accent of certain words, such as " without," "within," &c., could be disturbed in an See also:

iambic line; but in his best work he does not act upon his theory, and endeavours most successfully to make the emphasis of accent, of quantity and of sense meet . It might not be well for a poem to contain an entire sequence of such perfect lines as " I thought of See also:Chatterton, the marvellous boy," or " Thy soul was like a See also:star and dwelt apart," for then the metricist's See also:art would declare itself too loudly and weaken the imaginative strength of the picture . But such lines should no doubt form the basis of the poem, and weaker lines—lines in which there is no such See also:combination of the three kinds of emphasis—should be sparingly used, and never used for make-shift purposes . Now, neither by instinct nor by critical study was Arnold ever able to apprehend this See also:law of See also:prosody . If he does write a line of the first order, metrically speaking, he seems to do so by See also:accident . Such weak lines as these are constantly occurring " The poet, to whose mighty heart See also: