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The Moral Landscape of Arnold's Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Alan H. Roper
Alan H. Roper*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge 38, Mass.
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Extract

Lionel trilling has remarked that “Arnold the poet first saw the problems Arnold the practical man tried to solve.” Arnold the poet, however, also saw the solutions to the problems that he posed, and the poet chiefly differs from the moralist in his greater sympathy for the perplexed man of his generation (a sympathy doubtless born of Arnold's own experience with “the damned times” in which he found himself). It is obvious enough that the essays are marked by an assurance in the face of mid-nineteenth-century anarchy which is generally lacking from the earlier poetry. Whether or not this assurance is adopted for the occasion, it seems probable that the reason for it was Arnold's growing conviction that the poetic record of a personal struggle (and even of a personal victory) was an inadequate contribution to his age.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , June 1962 , pp. 289 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1962

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References

Note 1 in page 289 Matthew Arnold, 2nd ed. (New York, 1949), Introductory Note.

Note 2 in page 289 Letters of Matthew Arnold to Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. H. F. Lowry (London, 1932), p. Ill; letter dated 23 Sept. 1849.

Note 3 in page 289 The text of the poems used throughout is that in the Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold, ed. C. B. Tinker and H. F. Lowry (London, 1950).

Note 4 in page 289 As has been pointed out by Louis Bonnerot, Matthew Arnold: Poète (Paris, 1947), p. 489.

Note 5 in page 289 St. Paul and Protestantism, in the Works of Matthew Arnold (London, 1903–04), ix, 9. All references to the prose (except letters) are to this Macmillan Standard edition, and are hereafter shown in the text with the following abbreviations: Culture and Anarchy (vi): CA; Essays in Criticism: First Series (iii): EC I; Essays in Criticism: Second Series (iv): EC II; Friendship's Garland (vi): FG; Literature and Dogma (vii): LD; St. Paul and Protestantism (ix): PP.

Note 6 in page 289 Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, 1. 69.

Note 7 in page 290 A Dream, 1. 37.

Note 8 in page 290 Clough Letters, p. 131; letter dated 12 Feb. 1853.

Note 9 in page 290 Ibid., p. 88; letter dated 12 Aug. 1848.

Note 10 in page 290 As has been pointed out by Bonnerot, p. 150.

Note 11 in page 290 Discussed by Trilling, p. 91, and E. K. Chambers, “Matthew Arnold,” Proc. Brit. Acad., xviii (1932), 37.

Note 12 in page 290 Clough Letters, p. 110; letter dated 23 Sept. 1849.

Note 13 in page 290 Letters in Works (London, 1903–04), xiii, 143; letter dated 29 Aug. 1859.

Note 14 in page 291 E. D. H. Johnson, Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry (Princeton, 1952), p. 169, has remarked on the significance in Arnold's poetry of high places, which are “used to dramatize the isolation of superior souls.”

Note 15 in page 291 Clough Letters, p. 129; letter dated 12 Feb. 1853.

Note 16 in page 291 Ibid., p. 128; letter dated 12 Feb. 1853.

Note 17 in page 292 Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, 11. 85–86.

Note 18 in page 292 Clough Letters, p. 95; letter written Nov. 1848.

Note 19 in page 292 Bonnerot, p. 239, has pointed out the occurrence of this idea in Merope, 11. 638–640.

Note 20 in page 292 Clough Letters, p. 92; letter dated 29 Sept. 1848.

Note 21 in page 292 From the Clough Letters, p. 130; letter dated 12 Feb. 1853, it is clear that Arnold intended this term to imply that philosophy of life which would afford a man a sure basis for the prosecution of his affairs in this world. This need for a sure basis is echoed in the prose by such phrases as a “solid ground” (PP, p. 33; see also CA, p. 214, FG, p. 316).

Note 22 in page 292 Bonnerot, p. 210, regards this unnamed sea—in Resignation, 1. 85, e.g.—as “le Grand Tout, la Vie Universelle,” and stresses that it should not be confused with the sea of life.

Note 23 in page 293 Stuart P. Sherman, Matthew Arnold: How to Know Him (Indianapolis, 1917), p. 60, notes the need of the Arnoldian man to escape from “the shifting waves of emotion” and seek out the “spiritual self.”

Note 24 in page 293 That he must pass through, however, is made explicit by the passage in “Wordsworth” (EC II, p. 106) which Arnold quoted from Epictetus (Discourses, II, xxiii). Here it is stressed that however pleasant an inn or a meadow may be a man should not linger there too long, but should continue with his real business, which is to get home.

Note 25 in page 293 The summit of truth or excellence is also referred to in CA, pp. 103, 128–129, and EC II, p. 43. Like the sea and river of life and the star of truth, the excellence of the mountain-top is, of course, a literary commonplace; individually, these features haye provided metaphors for countless writers. It was Arnold's distinction to combine the conventional parts into an original whole, and to superimpose, in some of his poems, the symbolic landscape upon existing geographical sites.

Note 26 in page 294 C. B. Tinker and H. F. Lowry, Poetry of Matthew Arnold: A Commentary (London, 1940), pp. 85–87. Hereafter shown in the text as Com.

Note 27 in page 295 A. E. Dyson, “The Last Enchantments,” RES, N.S., viii (Aug. 1957), 257–265, makes, in the course of an illuminating article, the point that Arnold the Hellenist could never fully sympathize with the Scholar-Gipsy, who is “a creature of superstition and credulity.”

Note 28 in page 295 Empedocles halts almost at the top of the tree line (i, ii, 1–3), in sight of the upper slope, instead of in the cool glades below.

Note 29 in page 295 This point is made by John M. Wallace, “Landscape and ‘The General Law’: The Poetry of Matthew Arnold,” Boston Univ. Studies in English, v (Summer 1961), 91–106. Wallace stresses the value of the detachment that is possible in the glade, and sees it as Arnold's “ideal landscape.” The symbol, however, seems to be used in a way that corresponds to the later discussions of thought and conduct: Arnold the Hellenist would stay in the glade, but Arnold the Hebraist would climb the mountain.