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ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819-1861)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 561 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ARTHUR See also:HUGH See also:CLOUGH (1819-1861)  , See also:English poet, was See also:born at See also:Liverpool on the 1st of See also:January 1819 . He came of a See also:good Welsh stock by his See also:father, See also:James See also:Butler See also:Clough, and of a See also:Yorkshire one by his See also:mother, See also:Anne Perfect . In 1822 his father, a See also:cotton See also:merchant, moved to the See also:United States, and Clough's childhood was spent mainly at See also:Charleston, See also:South Carolina, much under the See also:influence of his mother, a cultivated woman, full of moral and imaginative See also:enthusiasm . In 1828 the See also:family paid a visit to See also:England, and Clough was See also:left at school at See also:Chester, whence he passed in 1829 to See also:Rugby, thee under the sway of Dr See also:Thomas See also:Arnold, whose strenuous views on See also:life and See also:education he accepted to the full . Cut off to a large degree from See also:home relations, he passed a somewhat reserved and solitary boyhood, devoted to the well-being of the school and to See also:early See also:literary efforts in the Rugby See also:Magazine . In 1836 his parents returned to Liverpool, and in 1837 he went with a scholarship to Balliol See also:College, See also:Oxford . Here his contemporaries included See also:Benjamin See also:Jowett, A . P . See also:Stanley, J . C . See also:Shairp, W . G .

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Ward, See also:Frederick See also:Temple and See also:Matthew Arnold . Oxford, in 1837, was in the full swirl of the High See also:Church See also:movement led by J . H . See also:Newman . Clough was for a See also:time carried away by the See also:flood, and, although he recovered his See also:equilibrium, it was not without an amount of See also:mental disturbance and an See also:expenditure of See also:academic time, which perhaps accounted for his failure to obtain more than a second class in his final examination . He missed a Balliol fellowship, but obtained one at See also:Oriel, with a tutorship, and lived the Oxford life of study, See also:speculation, lectures and See also:reading-parties for some years longer . Gradually, however, certain sceptical tendencies with regard to the current religious and social See also:order See also:grew upon him to such an extent as to render his position as an orthodox teacher of youth irksome, and in 1848 he resigned it . The immediate feeling of See also:relief showed itself in buoyant, if thoughtful, literature, and he published poems both new and old . Then he travelled, seeing See also:Paris in revolution and See also:Rome in See also:siege, and in the autumn of 1849 took up new duties as See also:principal of University See also:Hall, a See also:hostel for students at University College, See also:London . He soon found that he disliked London, in spite of the friendship of the Carlyles, nor did the See also:atmosphere of See also:Unitarianism prove any more See also:con-genial than that of Anglicanism to his See also:critical and at bottom conservative See also:temper . A prospect of a See also:post in See also:Sydney led him to engage himself to See also:Miss See also:Blanche See also:Mary See also:Shore See also:Smith, and when it disappeared he left England in 1852, and went, encouraged by See also:Emerson, to See also:Cambridge, See also:Massachusetts . Here he remained some months, lecturing and translating See also:Plutarch for the See also:book-sellers, until in 1853 the offer of an examinership in the Education See also:Office brought him to London once more .

He married, and pursued a steady See also:

official career, diversified only by an See also:appointment in 1856 as secretary to a See also:commission sent to study certain aspects of See also:foreign military education . At this, as at every See also:period of his life, he enjoyed the warm respect and admiration of a small circle of See also:friends, who learnt to look to him alike for unselfish sympathy and for spiritual and See also:practical See also:wisdom . In 186o his See also:health began to fail . He visited first See also:Malvern and See also:Freshwater, and then the See also:East, See also:France and See also:Switzerland, in See also:search of recovery, and finally came to See also:Florence, where he was struck down by See also:malaria and See also:paralysis, and died on the 13th of See also:November 1861 . Matthew Arnold wrote upon him the exquisite lament of Thyrsis . Shortly before he left Oxford, in the stress of the Irish See also:potato-H~ . See also:CLOVER 561 See also:famine, Clough wrote an ethical pamphlet addressed to the undergraduates, with the See also:title, A See also:Consideration of Objections against the See also:Retrenchment Association at Oxford (1847) . His Homeric See also:pastoral The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich, afterwards rechristened Tober-na-Vuolich (1848), was inspired by a See also:long vacation after he had given up his tutorship, and is full of See also:socialism, reading-party humours and Scottish scenery . See also:Ambarvalia (1849), published jointly with his friend Thomas Burbidge, contains shorter poems of various See also:dates from 184o, or earlier, onwards . Amours de Voyage, a novel in See also:verse, was written at Rome in 1849; Dipsychus, a rather amorphous See also:satire, at See also:Venice in 185o; and the idylls which make up Mari Magno, or Tales on See also:Board, in 1861 . A few lyric and elegiac pieces, later in date than the Ambarvalia, See also:complete the See also:tale of Clough's See also:poetry . His only considerable enterprise in See also:prose was a revision of the 17th See also:century See also:translation of Plutarch by See also:Dryden and others, which occupied him from 1852, and was published as Plutarch's Lives (1859) .

No See also:

part of Clough's life was wholly given up to poetry, and he probably had not the See also:gift of detachment necessary to produce See also:great literature in the intervals of other occupations . He wrote but little, and even of that little there is a good See also:deal which does not aim at the highest seriousness . He never became a great craftsman . A few of his best lyrics have a strength of See also:melody to match their See also:depth of thought, but much of what he left consists of See also:rich ore too imperfectly fused to make a splendid or permanent See also:possession . Nevertheless, he is rightly regarded, like his friend Matthew Arnold, as one of the most typical English poets of the See also:middle of the 19th century . His critical instincts and strong ethical temper brought him athwart the popular ideals of his See also:day both in conduct and See also:religion . His verse has upon it the See also:melancholy and the perplexity of an See also:age of transition . He is a sceptic who by nature should have been with the believers . He stands between two worlds, watching one crumble behind him, and only able to look forward by the sternest exercise of faith to the reconstruction that lies ahead in the other . On the technical See also:side, Clough's See also:work is interesting to students of See also:metre, owing to the experiments which he made, in the Bothie and elsewhere, with English hexameters and other types of verse formed upon classical See also:models . Clough's Poems were collected, with a See also:short memoir by F . T .

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Palgrave, in 1862; and his Letters and Remains, with a longer memoir, were privately printed in 1865 . Both volumes were published together in 1869 and have been more than once reprinted . Another memoir is See also:Arthur See also:Hugh Clough: A Monograph (1883), by S . See also:Waddington . Selections from the poems were made by Mrs Clough for the See also:Golden See also:Treasury See also:series in 1894, and by E . Rhys in 1896 . (E . K .

End of Article: ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819-1861)
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