ARNOLD, MATTHEW

born Dec. 24, 1822, Laleham, Middlesex, Eng. died April 15, 1888, Liverpool English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted especially for his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the Barbarians (the aristocracy), the Philistines (the commercial middle class), and the Populace. He became the apostle of culture in such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869). Additional reading A new and complete edition of Arnold's poems was published in Oxford Standard Authors Series (1950), ed. by C.B. Tinker and H.F. Lowry. Arnold's Letters (18481888), collected and arranged by G.W.E. Russell (1895; 2nd ed., 1901); Arnold Whitridge (ed.), Unpublished Letters (1923); Letters to Arthur Hugh Clough, with an introductory study by H.F. Lowry (ed.) (1932, reprinted 1968). There is a complete edition (literary contents) of The Note-Books of Matthew Arnold, ed. by H.F. Lowry, K. Young, and W.H. Dunn (1952). An edition deluxe of Arnold's complete Works, 15 vol. (190304), includes a bibliography by T.B. Smart. For a more recent bibliography, see T.G. Ehrsam and R.H. Deily (comps.), Bibliographies of Twelve Victorian Authors (1936; suppl. by J.G. Fucilla in Modern Philology, 37:8996, 1939).It was Arnold's expressed desire that his biography should not be written; there are, however, a number of monographs and biographico-critical works, among them Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold (1939), the best full-length study; J. Dover Wilson, Leslie Stephen and Matthew Arnold As Critics of Wordsworth (1939); Sir E.K. Chambers, Matthew Arnold: A Study (1947); J.D. Jump, Matthew Arnold, Men and Books Series (1955); G. Robert Stange, Matthew Arnold: The Poet As Humanist (1967). Major Works: Poetical works. Alaric at Rome (1840; Rugby School prize poem); Cromwell (1843; Newdigate Prize poem); The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems. By A. (1849); Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. By A. (1852); Poems (1853; including Sohrab and Rustum, The Forsaken Merman, and The Scholar Gipsy); Poems, Second Series (1855); Merope (1858; classical tragedy); New Poems (1867; including Thyrsis and Dover Beach). Prose works. The Popular Education of France with Notices of That of Holland and Switzerland (1861; revised text of the 1860 report prepared by Arnold for the Education Commission); On Translating Homer (1861); On Translating Homer: Last Words (1862); A French Eton: or, Middle Class Education and the State (1864); Essays in Criticism (1865; including The Function of Criticism at the Present Time, The Literary Influence of Academies, Maurice de Gurin, Eugnie de Gurin, Heinrich Heine, Joubert, Spinoza, and Marcus Aurelius); On the Study of Celtic Literature (1867); Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868; reprinted from Arnold's report On Secondary Education in Foreign Countries of 1866); 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); Discourses in America (1885); Essays in Criticism. Second Series (1888; including The Study of Poetry and essays on Milton, Thomas Gray, Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Tolstoy, and Amiel); Reports on Elementary Schools 18521882, edited by Sir Francis Sandford (1889; new edition with added material and introduction by F.S. Marvin, 1908).