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
attic glory life mellow saw
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole: / The mellow glory of the Attic stage.
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.
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
children yesterday
Children dear, was it yesterday / (Call yet once) that she went away?
goes hills knows life sea thinks
And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes
nursing
Still nursing the unconquerable hope, / Still clutching the inviolable shade.
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.
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
breaks cliff haunts meet
Not here, O Apollo! / Are haunts meet for thee. / But, where Helicon breaks down / In cliff to the sea.
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.
itself society
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace.