The Poets' Corner
Chapter One
Matthew Arnold
The Serious Poet
(1822-1888)
Among the Victorian poets of England, Matthew Arnold was not as
famous as Tennyson and Robert Browning. Unlike them, he did not have
the luxury of being able to devote himself full-time to writing.
Arnold, the son of a clergyman and private-school head- master,
worked for a living his entire life. A ten-year appointment at
Oxford University as a poetry professor, combined with his job as a
government school inspector, meant he had to squeeze in his poetry
on his own time. He wrote most of his poems before he was forty
years old, when family life and work were less demanding. After
that, he concentrated on writing essays about culture, religion, and
literature, and his prose was better received than his poetry, at
least during his lifetime. Some say it was his literary criticism
that elevated criticism to an art form in its own right. Here is
Arnold on poetry: "I think it will be found that grand style arises
in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats ... read full excerpt from: The Poets' Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family ebook
