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
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
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.
english-poet perfection
Not a having and a resting, but a growing and becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
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.
found best-poetry sustaining
The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
character poetry inspire
Good poetry does undoubtedly tend to form the soul and character; it tends to beget a love of beauty and of truth in alliance together, it suggests, however indirectly, high and noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotion so helpful in making principles operative.
poetry simplicity noble
The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.
philosopher poet mist
Coleridge: poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium.
beautiful impressive poetry-is
Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things.
law criticism poetic
Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.
poet wide
Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
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