of a British poet you may think of a boring life with nothing interesting going on in it, but Matthew Arnold had a life that was not like the ordinary British Poet. Even as a child, his life was very fascinating. His family had a great inspirational part in his education. Pushing him was the cause of his astounding achievements. Along with his many achievements, his works were also great. Matthew Arnold was a young man with tons of literature inspiration all around him; because of it, he was a great
Comparison of Karl Marx and Matthew Arnold Through their writing, Karl Marx and Matthew Arnold show their opposing views on the importance of internal and external functions of culture. In the first chapter of Culture and Anarchy, "Sweetness and Light", Arnold describes culture as being responsible for the progress of politics and society and as "the best knowledge and thought of the time" (19). Matthew Arnold's culture is based on two main aspects, religion and education. Karl Marx, however, strongly
Matthew Arnold Analysis Matthew Arnold, a British writer born in 1822, has written many famous poems. He was an intelligent man who used words to construct literary works about situations in his life. His poems deal with human issues, such as one’s psychological separation from the world and other people. Arnold’s poems all have an underlying theme of this idea, and he may have used it to show that he possibly felt isolated from his peers and the world in which he lived. He was one of the first poets
William Wordsworth, a very notable Romantic poet during this time period. In stark contrast, the Victorian Period was a time during which poets wrote about the environment that surrounded them, and tended to have a pessimistic view of life. Matthew Arnold, a Victorian poet, encompassed many of these qualities in his writing. The two poets, distinguished in two completely different time periods with different characteristics, had some literary commonalities, such as similar references to nature
Written by Matthew Arnold around 1851 while one his honeymoon, Dover Beach is a dramatic monologue addressed to his wife, Frances Wightman, and “any woman listening to the observations of any man” (Cummings); during this time, the world had just come out of the Romantic era and was entering the era of the industrial revolution. New inventions in technology were changing the world and science such as biology and astronomy were challenging long held beliefs of the church and by the church. The church
Amal Mohaya AlRekabi Course : Poetry Matthew Arnold as a Poet and Critic The word "criticism" is derived from a Greek word that means "judgment". So, criticism is basically the exercise of judgment, and literary criticism is, therefore, the exercise of judgment on works of literature. From this, it is clear that the nature of literary criticism is to examine a work of literature, and its function is to identify its points of excellence and its inadequacies, and finally to evaluate its artistic
As the narrator of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" looks out his window, he sees a beautiful world of nature: the sea and the cliffs under the glow of the moon. Describing this scene to his lover, he invites her to "[c]ome to the window" so that she might see it too (6). However, it is not just a beautiful beach that the speaker wishes his lover to see. Rather, he wants her to see Dover Beach as an ironic image that is a representation of his whole world. Likewise Matthew Arnold wants his reader to
In the poem "Dover Beach",witten in 1867 Matthew Arnold creates the mood of the poem through the usage of different types of imagery. He uses a dramatic plot in the form of a soliloquy. Arnold also uses descriptive adjectives, similes and metaphors to create the mood. Through the use of these literary elements, Arnold portrays the man standing before the window pondering the sound of the pebbles tossing in the waves as representation of human suffering. The man arrives at the vision of humanity being
Comments on Matthew Arnold’s "Philistinism in England and America" 	In his essay, "Philistinism in England and America," Matthew Arnold examines the ancient ideas of Plato in the context of a twentieth century, capitalist society. As he agrees with almost all of what Plato had to say, he also admits that he is outdated, and that some of his teachings cannot be applied to us, living in an industrial superpower such as the United States. Still, though, Arnold defends the ancient
A prominent humanist, critic, and poet of the 18th century, Matthew Arnold was a despiser of philistinism; he was a lover and sustainer of art, intellect, spirituality, and certainly the combination thereof in poetry. Matthew Arnold began his essay, “The Study of Poetry,” writing that “The future of poetry is immense,” and that “more and more of mankind” would discover poetry as a consoler, a sustainer of humanity, and an interpreter of life. He called his audience to “conceive of it as capable of
Fahrenheit 451 is a well-written book that tells a story of a dream world and one man who wakes up from that dream. Montag, the protagonist of the story, brings home a book of poetry one day and begins to read the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold to his wife and her guests. Many critics think that Bradbury picked this poem because it paralleled life in his book. The poem Dover Beach can be compared to Fahrenheit 451 because both pieces of writing talk about themes of true love, fantasy and allover
Huxley was born into a prominent family. His grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a biologist who “helped develop the theory of evolution.” Huxley’s aunt, Humphrey Ward, was a novelist. His mother was the niece of Matthew Arnold, a poet, and the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, a famous educator and headmaster of Rugby school (Aldous Huxley-Biography). When Huxley was fourteen years old, his mother died of cancer. He said his mother’s death “gave him a sense of the transience of human happiness”
The value of imitation: a vision of Aristotle's Poetics Aristotle wrote his Poetics thousands of years before Matthew Arnold's birth. His reasons for composing it were different from Arnold's reasons for using it as an element of his own poetic criticism. We can safely say that Arnold was inclined to use the Poetics as an inspiration for his own poetry, and as a cultural weapon in the fight for artistic and social renewal. Aristotle, by contrast, was more concerned with discovering general truths
fit both the meter and the classic Shakespearean language provides an example of Hecht's use of wit to create a parody (Hecht, Vol. 8 269). Hecht uses wit and parody in a similar manner in "The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life" which is a parody of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." The tragic vision presented in the "The Dover Bitch" is of stark contrast to the romantic and idealistic vision ... ... middle of paper ... ... "Hecht, Anthony." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale
Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and William Thackeray are among the Victorian thinkers to earn the title of “sage.” To some degree, the Victorian sages were respected and enjoyed by people from all social classes. They were certainly considered intellectuals and trailblazers of alternative viewpoints. They passed their message through public speaking, periodic columns in newspapers, poetry, and in novel-form. It is a difficult task to describe them as a group because they were each so
Humane letters, that is, knowledge put into words augment the human consciousness and complement the pursuit of science. “Literature and Science” is an essay produced by Matthew Arnold from the late 1800s that attempts to show the greater importance of Of course there 's a place for literaturethe study of language over in the study of natural science in education and society. However today 's societal issue is not whether we have relied too much upon the natural sciences, but rather that society
alone, but on values, which also evolve. The so-called "traditional canon" theoretically represented what the oft-quoted Matthew Arnold called the "best that is known and thought in the world" (38). Only relatively recently was Arnold's view questioned as controversial (Searle, 82). With the breakdown of the fo... ... middle of paper ... ...ED * Arnold, Matthew. "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time." Essays in Criticism: First Series. London: MacMillan, 1910. 1-41. *
Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete "Why is Villette so disagreeable? Because the writer's mind contains nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage." Matthew Arnold, 1853. Matthew Arnold was certainly forthcoming about the defects of both Charlotte Bronte's mind and of her novel. Indeed he was not alone in his reaction to her; Anne Mozley in The Christian Remembrancer ;in April 1853 wrote in reaction to Bronte's other great work of "rebellion", Jane Eyre, that she had to make
the nature of it" (103). The above excerpt is provided for the benefit of the student only. The complete essay begins below. To venture into the morass of Joycean scholarship reminds one of the closing lines of the poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. It reads: ...The world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on
from different points of view. In “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold and “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten we see that both poems present different styles and techniques to provide the same theme of being alone by using the power of imagery, repetition, and other literary devices. Throughout their poem both authors use the same theme but the way in which they express the theme is completely different between their poems. To begin with, Matthew Arnold presents “Dover Beach” in which he presents the audience