Matthew Arnold
Scientific Progress: The Victorian Era
By Sam Ngwu Jr and Anderson Kim
Bio
Born in Laleham, Middlesex, on December 24, 1822. Began his career as a poet, winning early recognition as a student at the Rugby School. His Dad, Thomas Arnold, had earned national acclaim as a strict and innovative headmaster at that school as well. Arnold also studied at Balliol College, Oxford University. In 1844, after completing his undergraduate degree at Oxford, he returned to Rugby as a teacher of classics.
Some of his work
A Matthew Arnold Birthday Book (1883)
Alaric at Rome: A Prize Poem (1840)
Cromwell: A Prize Poem (1843)
Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (1852)
Empedocles on Etna: A Dramatic Poem (1900)
Merope: A Tragedy (1858)
Alaric at Rome: A Prize Poem (1840)
Cromwell: A Prize Poem (1843)
Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (1852)
Empedocles on Etna: A Dramatic Poem (1900)
Merope: A Tragedy (1858)
Marriage and a career
Wishing to marry, but unable to support a family on the wages of a private secretary. Two months later, he married Frances Lucy, daughter of Sir William Wightman. The Arnolds had six children.
"Initially, Arnold was responsible for inspecting Nonconformist schools across a broad swath of central England. He spent many dreary hours during the 1850s in railway waiting-rooms and small-town hotels. Although his duties were later confined to a smaller area, Arnold knew the society of provincial England better than most of the metropolitan authors and politicians of the day.
Literary career
Arnold was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1857, and he was the first in this position to deliver his lectures in English rather than in Latin. He was re-elected in 1862. In 1859, he conducted the first of three trips to the continent at the behest of parliament to study European educational practices. He self-published The Popular Education of France (1861), the introduction to which was later published under the title Democracy (1879).
Reputation
The writer John Cowper Powys, an admirer, wrote that, "with the possible exception of Merope, Matthew Arnold's poetry is arresting from cover to cover – [he] is the great amateur of English poetry [he] always has the air of an ironic and urbane scholar chatting freely, perhaps a little indiscreetly, with his not very respectful pupils."
Works Cited
https://victorianpoetrypoeticsandcontext.wikispaces.com/Matthew+Arnold
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199799558/obo-9780199799558-0004.xml
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/matthew-arnold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/matthew-arnold