Matthew Arnold biography

 Matthew Arnold  1822-1888

LIFE

Born at Laleham, near Staines, the eldest son of Dr Thomas Arnold 

(soon to be headmaster of Rugby), and educated at Winchester, then

Rugby and, from 1841, Balliol College, Oxford, being elected to an

Oriel Fellowship in 1845. The following year he toured the Continent,

visiting George Sand and spending time in Paris fascinated by an

actress.

In 1847 he left Oxford to become private secretary to Lord Landsdowne,

Lord President of the Council. In 1850 he fell in love with Frances

Wightman, whose father (Judge Wightman) opposed marriage until Arnold

had a secure and steady income. Lord Landsdowne obliged by making the

marriage possible when, in 1851, he appointed Arnold to an Inspectorship

of Schools in the Department of Education - a post which he held until

retirement in 1886.

His election to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford (1857-1867) entered him

onto the lecture circuit and provided him with a platform for literary

criticism; but he was also passionately concerned in other writings

with educational, social, political, cultural and religious issues.

At Liverpool in 1888 to meet his daughter, Arnold jumped over a low

fence while running for a tram and died of a heart attack.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Poetry:

The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems  1849

Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems  1852

Poems, A New Edition  1853

Poems, Second Series  1855

Merope  1858  -  play

New Poems  1867

Collected Poems  1869

Prose:

On Translating Homer  1861

A French Eton  1864

Essays in Criticism (1st Series)  1865

On the Study of Celtic Literature  1867

Culture and Anarchy  1869

St Paul and Protestantism  1870

Friendship's Garland  1871

Literature and Dogma  1873

God and the Bible  1875

Last Essays on Church and Religion  1877

Mixed Essays  1879

Irish Essays  1882

Essays in Criticism, 2nd Series  1888

THE POEM

DOVER BEACH

First appeared in New Poems (1867) - although written much earlier.