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
high quick soon thou wilt
Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? / Soon will the high midsummer pomps come on.
life-is obscure
I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.
english-poet enjoyed light lived small
It is so small a think to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done.
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
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
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.
forth lost
Friends who set forth at our side, / Falter, are lost in the storm. / We, we only, are left!
gives light notion perverse philistine resistance suits
Philistine gives the notion of something particularly stiff-necked and perverse in the resistance to light and its children; and therein it specially suits our middle-class.
expressive eyes lovely
Eyes too expressive to be blue, / Too lovely to be grey.
breaks cliff haunts meet
Not here, O Apollo! / Are haunts meet for thee. / But, where Helicon breaks down / In cliff to the sea.
happy outside rage sound storms took troubled
He went; his piping took a troubled sound / Of storms that rage outside our happy ground.
nursing
Still nursing the unconquerable hope, / Still clutching the inviolable shade.
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?