Matthew Arnold summary

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Matthew Arnold, (born Dec. 24, 1822, Laleham, Middlesex, Eng.—died April 15, 1888, Liverpool), English poet and literary and social critic. Son of the educator Thomas Arnold, he attended Oxford and then worked as an inspector of schools for the rest of his life. His verse includes “Dover Beach,” his most celebrated work; “Sohrab and Rustum,” a romantic epic; and “The Scholar Gipsy” and “Thyrsis.” Culture and Anarchy (1869), his central work of criticism, is a masterpiece of ridicule as well as a searching analysis of Victorian society. In a later essay, “The Study of Poetry,” he argued that, in an age of crumbling creeds, poetry would replace religion and that therefore readers would have to understand how to distinguish the best poetry from the inferior.

anarchism Summary

Anarchism, cluster of doctrines and attitudes centred on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary. Anarchist thought developed in the West and spread throughout the world, principally in the early 20th century. Derived from the Greek root anarchos meaning “without authority,”

essay Summary

Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view. Some early treatises—such as those of Cicero on the

literary criticism Summary

Literary criticism, the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation about literature, whether or not specific works are analyzed. Plato’s cautions against the risky consequences of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic are thus often

poetry Summary

Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. (Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Howard Nemerov.) Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and