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
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.
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!
itself society
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace.
beach dark shy
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come: / And on the beach undid his corded bales.
champ great horses salt tides toss white wild winds
Now the great winds shoreward blow, / Now the salt tides seaward flow; / Now the wild white horses play, / Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
borne casual clearly deeply fruit insight light nor vague whose
Light half-believers of our casual creeds, who never deeply felt, nor clearly will d, whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled.
body folly thy
Let the victors, when they come, / When the forts of folly fall, / Find thy body by the wall.
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.
bottom criticism poetry
Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life.
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
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.
apollo leader leading tis
Tis Apollo comes leading / His choir, the Nine. / The leader is fairest, / But all are divine.