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
expressive eyes lovely
Eyes too expressive to be blue, / Too lovely to be grey.
acting adequately chance class diligence educated either experience express fully great interest itself matter men nearer provide society supposed sure therefore understand wants
If experience has established any one thing in this world, it has established this: that it is well for any great class and description of men in society to be able to say for itself what it wants, and not to have other classes, the so-called educated and intelligent classes, acting for it as its proctors, and supposed to understand its wants and to provide for them. A class of men may often itself not either fully understand its wants, or adequately express them; but it has a nearer interest and a more sure diligence in the matter than any of its proctors, and therefore a better chance of success.
class expression mind
Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.
expression
Philistinism! - We have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing.
english-poet finds loses resolve
Resolve to find thyself; and to know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
english-poet finds loses resolve
Resolve to be thyself; and know that who finds himself, loses his misery.
genius seems sphere
It always seems to me that the right sphere for Shelley's genius was the sphere of music, not of poetry.
attic glory life mellow saw
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: / The mellow glory of the Attic stage.
near neighbor patience sad
With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbor to Despair.
apollo leader leading tis
Tis Apollo comes leading / His choir, the Nine. / The leader is fairest, / But all are divine.
high quick soon thou wilt
Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? / Soon will the high midsummer pomps come on.
forth lost
Friends who set forth at our side, / Falter, are lost in the storm. / We, we only, are left!
floor shine stars whose
From whose floor the new-bathed stars / Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
morality religion simply touched
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.