Matthew Arnold important facts

             Matthew Arnold 

Matthew Arnold (1822-88) is best-remembered as a poet.

Matthew Arnold was born in Surrey, England on Christmas Eve 1822.

He was the son of Thomas Arnold.

Arnold’s father was a pioneering schoolmaster.

In 1851, Matthew Arnold became an inspector of schools.

his most famous poem, ‘Dover Beach’, which depicts the decline of religious faith in England using the metaphor of a retreating tide. He would not publish this poem until 1867.

He was, however, elected Professor of Poetry at his alma mater, the University of Oxford, in 1857. 

He died in 1888.

Matthew Arnold important facts 

• Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, the same year that Percy Shelley was drowned
• He died in 1888, the same year that T. S. Eliot was born
• Although Matthew Arnold began his literary career as a poet, nowadays he is chiefly remembered for his critical essays
• Arnold invested only a quarter of his productive life to writing poetry
• Even though Arnold is considered one of the major poets of the Victorian Era, behind Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, he was not recognized in his own time
• Matthew Arnold was 26 years old when his first book of poetry appeared
• He published his first book of poetry The Strayed Reveller (1849) anonymously. Then he published his second book Empedocles on Etna (1852). But he was so dissatisfied with these books that ultimately withdrew them from circulation
• As a lecturer Arnold was disappointing, both because of his awkward manner and the feebleness of his voice, which was inaudible to the greater part of his audience.
• During travels in 1848, he met and fell in love with a French woman, but they did not marry.
• Arnold went to 2 different Colleges: Winchester College and Balliol College.
• After graduating from Balliol College at Oxford in 1844, Arnold accepted a teaching post at the university.
• In 1857 Arnold was elected to the professorship of poetry at Oxford, and he held this post for the next decade. He was the first professor of poetry to give his lectures in English rather than in Latin
• He was the Head chairman of Poetry at Oxford University.
• He was a Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne.
• In 1851 he was appointed inspector of schools, a position he held until shortly before his death within two years
• He died on a sudden heart attack in 1888 in Liverpool while walking with his wife to catch a tram to meet his beloved daughter, who was arriving on a boat from the USA
• Several of Arnold's early poems express his hopeless love for a girl he calls Marguerite. Scholars have been unable to identify an original for this girl, and whether she existed at all is a question
• Some of Arnold's most attractive poems are addressed to his children
• Arnold himself could apprehend that his talent was not as great as the other major poets of his time, and therefore, he completely abandoned poetry during the airy heights of his career and tend to write literary criticism instead
• He is often considered to be the founding father of academic criticism in English, and the principles for literary criticism
• His longest poem is "Empedocles on Etna,"
• Matthew Arnold had six children by his wife, three of whom died in childhood.
• When Wordsworth died in 1850 Arnold published his "Memorial Verses" in Fraser's Magazine to pay a homage to the deceased poet

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