Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnoldwas an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 December 1822
beauty conditions criticism critics-and-criticism fixed laws life poetic truth
(Poetry) a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty
enjoyed light lived small
Is it so small a thing / To have enjoyed the sun, / To have lived light in the spring, / To have loved, to have thought, to have done?
itself society
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace.
culture love origin properly study
Culture is. . . properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
cool crossing fingers slow stream swings thames thy trailing
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe, / Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, / As the slow punt swings round.
armies clash confused ignorant night plain struggle swept
And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night
bring cannot cease cure doctor fame full ill nor phrase shake
Nor bring to see me cease to live,/ Some doctor full of phrase and fame,/ To shake his sapient head, and give/ The ill he cannot cure a name.
quiet spray
Strew on her roses, roses, / And never a spray of yew. / In quiet she reposes: / Ah! would that I did too!
born man river ship wanderer
A wanderer is man from his birth. / He was born in a ship / On the breast of the river of Time.
goes hills knows life sea thinks
And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes
names medicine doctors
Nor bring, to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name.
life-is obscure
I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
children yesterday
Children dear, was it yesterday / (Call yet once) that she went away?
beating beautiful indeed life luminous poetry vain void wings
In his poetry as well as in his life Shelley was indeed 'a beautiful and ineffectual angel', beating in the void his luminous wings in vain