- Paperback: 252 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (29 Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747542872
- ISBN-13: 978-0747542872
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
42,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights > Poets
- See Complete Table of Contents
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Why doesn't Matthew Arnold enjoy a higher reputation today? He wrote some of the most beautiful poetry of the Victorian period; lyrics that are peculiarly appropriate to the alienated longeurs of modern existence. And yet he distrusted his own poetic genius and effectively stifled it after its early blossoming, devoting his maturity instead to writing worthy but unexciting prose criticism. The reasons why he did this and the extraordinary tension in the poetry he did write between outbursting passion and fierce repression, are excellently handled in Ian Hamilton's critical biography. The title of the study comes from W H Auden's assessment of Arnold's career: "He thrust his gift in prison till it died". Hamilton outlines that prison--the Victorian upbringing, the unhappy love affair that was beyond the pale of 19th- century convention and had to be hidden away and forgotten, the painful abandonment of poetry, the one thing Arnold did best--deftly and wittily. Read Arnold's "To Marguerite-- Continued" (surely the bleakest and most beautiful statement of hopeless love in the language); and then read this book for its expertly sketched account of the life behind the poetry. --Adam Roberts
Product Description
As a youth, Matthew Arnold was an impassioned lyric poet, deeply at odds with his times. In his later years, he turned himself to more 'purposeful' prose composition and became a social prophet and literary critic. This biography addresses some of the mysteries surrounding Arnold's life.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
First-Rate Biography
12 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
I first read Matthew Arnold in college, having never heard of him before. I was attracted to the inherent contradictions of his prose notions and his poetic reality. At the same time he was a yearning, deeply personal poet, he would criticize the tendency of contemporary poets to be personal and not grander in their notions. What this book does is give you some background into this contradiction, stemming from growing up with a very stiff, passionate for order father who instilled a sense of duty in Matthew that he was never able to overcome. The examples are plenty in the book and they do a good job of showing Matthew struggle with himself, his poetry, the age and the past to eventually discontinue his poetic works and focus solely on criticism and social reform. A fascinating portrait of one of the giants of Victorian Literature.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A third try for the right book
31 Aug 2005
Format:Hardcover
The real book is overlooked, not a single review. Matthew over came his childhood and stern upbringing to break out of the mold of his father's tutulege and become a political thinker.
Allen Tate, a member of the Vanderbilt 'Fugitives' group of poets, preferred Matthew Arnold to Browning or Tennyson. Now, in English Lit., I liked Browning; my favorite poem was ABOU BEN ADHEM. In Birmingham, England, in the farmland and English Midlands, young Arnold was born in 1822. He was the eldest son of "the greatest Headmast who ever lived" who had his own Rugby School. Rugby, Tennessee, here in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee was built on the principle of this stern headmaster, a communal farming project, which failed in the United States. It is steeped in history and still has the crudely built houses with their own small library. They were English intellectuals, not farmers. They were the first organic farmers in this area, near Oneida -- so high it's the closet place to Heaven I've ever been.
Matthew became a brilliant 'elegiac' poet of poets who helped to form the 'modern consciousness' with his comparative attitude to problems in Western society and culture. His carrer was a study in "sensitivity, courage and endurance." Strange for a rebel of the family to excel at literary endeavors, as he opposed his unpoetic father.
Matthew had been lucky in his marriage and lucky with is teachers and friends, an Archbishop of Canterbury, Wordsworth and Browning. His son, Dick shared a passion for family, which had been one secret of Matthew Arnold's success,
He became a poetry professor in 1857, wrote "Essays in Criticism" in 1862 and "Culture and Anarchy" in 1866. His "The Forsaken Merman" inspired Sylvia Plath.
Mrs. Arthur Claugh, wife of one of his good friends, in London kept every item in Matthew's room "just as he had left it" and "waiting" as a memorial to a great and beloved poet of the ages across the pond.
Allen Tate, a member of the Vanderbilt 'Fugitives' group of poets, preferred Matthew Arnold to Browning or Tennyson. Now, in English Lit., I liked Browning; my favorite poem was ABOU BEN ADHEM. In Birmingham, England, in the farmland and English Midlands, young Arnold was born in 1822. He was the eldest son of "the greatest Headmast who ever lived" who had his own Rugby School. Rugby, Tennessee, here in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee was built on the principle of this stern headmaster, a communal farming project, which failed in the United States. It is steeped in history and still has the crudely built houses with their own small library. They were English intellectuals, not farmers. They were the first organic farmers in this area, near Oneida -- so high it's the closet place to Heaven I've ever been.
Matthew became a brilliant 'elegiac' poet of poets who helped to form the 'modern consciousness' with his comparative attitude to problems in Western society and culture. His carrer was a study in "sensitivity, courage and endurance." Strange for a rebel of the family to excel at literary endeavors, as he opposed his unpoetic father.
Matthew had been lucky in his marriage and lucky with is teachers and friends, an Archbishop of Canterbury, Wordsworth and Browning. His son, Dick shared a passion for family, which had been one secret of Matthew Arnold's success,
He became a poetry professor in 1857, wrote "Essays in Criticism" in 1862 and "Culture and Anarchy" in 1866. His "The Forsaken Merman" inspired Sylvia Plath.
Mrs. Arthur Claugh, wife of one of his good friends, in London kept every item in Matthew's room "just as he had left it" and "waiting" as a memorial to a great and beloved poet of the ages across the pond.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Lines of Influence
16 Feb 2005
Format:Paperback
This is a book for the generalist about Matthew Arnold's career in poetry. Things started out promisingly until he undertook to pursue his real vocation as an educational examiner too energetically to permit the gestation of poetic ideas and forms. Family and property concerns seemingly overtook him too.
His father, Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, was a scholar of history, an expert on Thucydides. He was a contemporary of John Keble, the founder of the Oxford Movement. Thomas Arnold's vigorous activist brand of Christianity rather ran counter to the Oxford Movement. Matt had the disadvantage of never escaping the schoolmaster. The family had a vacation house in the Lake District. Friendships with Wordsworth and other poets were important to family members.
Matthew Arnold troubled his parents by seeming to never be serious. Sent to Winchester he was unpopular and set fire to his own gun. He returned to Rugby for the fifth and sixth forms. The boys considered him to be cool, detached. He gained entry to Baliol and, notwithstanding a second-class degree, won a Fellowship to Oriel.
At this stage Matthew Arnold became a close friend of Arthur Clough. Thomas Arnold died around 1842. Five weeks prior to his death he had been visited by Carlyle. Carlyle's quality of wild fire excited young readers. In 1845 Matthew Arnold was poised between dandyism and melancholia. He was thinking seriously he might be a poet. The novels of George Sand appealed to him. Matthew acquired a patron, Lord Lansdowne. Lord Landsdowne had more than one factotum. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Marquis was the last of a generation of remarkable statesment.
Matt journeyed to Thun, Switzerland to meet a mysterious woman, Marguerite, among other things. In the following year he courted Frances Wightman in London. He became an Inspector of Schools. His wedding ceremony took place at Teddington. His new life was hectic and obscure. In 1851 England had no system of state education. Arnold was one of twenty inspectors. He had a practice not to speak out against contemporaries although he thought Tennyson decorative, not penetrative. James Froude was a sympathetic reviewer of Arnold's poetry. He gained a five year Oxford Poetry Professorship. He wrote Rugby Chapel as a tribute to the memory of his father. In the 1860's Arnold built his reputation as a metropolitan savant.
His father, Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, was a scholar of history, an expert on Thucydides. He was a contemporary of John Keble, the founder of the Oxford Movement. Thomas Arnold's vigorous activist brand of Christianity rather ran counter to the Oxford Movement. Matt had the disadvantage of never escaping the schoolmaster. The family had a vacation house in the Lake District. Friendships with Wordsworth and other poets were important to family members.
Matthew Arnold troubled his parents by seeming to never be serious. Sent to Winchester he was unpopular and set fire to his own gun. He returned to Rugby for the fifth and sixth forms. The boys considered him to be cool, detached. He gained entry to Baliol and, notwithstanding a second-class degree, won a Fellowship to Oriel.
At this stage Matthew Arnold became a close friend of Arthur Clough. Thomas Arnold died around 1842. Five weeks prior to his death he had been visited by Carlyle. Carlyle's quality of wild fire excited young readers. In 1845 Matthew Arnold was poised between dandyism and melancholia. He was thinking seriously he might be a poet. The novels of George Sand appealed to him. Matthew acquired a patron, Lord Lansdowne. Lord Landsdowne had more than one factotum. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Marquis was the last of a generation of remarkable statesment.
Matt journeyed to Thun, Switzerland to meet a mysterious woman, Marguerite, among other things. In the following year he courted Frances Wightman in London. He became an Inspector of Schools. His wedding ceremony took place at Teddington. His new life was hectic and obscure. In 1851 England had no system of state education. Arnold was one of twenty inspectors. He had a practice not to speak out against contemporaries although he thought Tennyson decorative, not penetrative. James Froude was a sympathetic reviewer of Arnold's poetry. He gained a five year Oxford Poetry Professorship. He wrote Rugby Chapel as a tribute to the memory of his father. In the 1860's Arnold built his reputation as a metropolitan savant.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
