An Introduction to Matthew Arnold

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lifetime." Have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less intellectual vigor and abundance than Browning; yet have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development" , as he self-identified, his verse is characterized by restraint, directness, and symmetry. Though he believed that poetry should be objective, his verse exemplifies the romantic pessimism of the 19th century, an age torn between science and religion. His feelings of spiritual isolation are reflected in such poems as "Dover Beach" and "Isolation: To Marguerite."
It is said that when the poet in Arnold died, the critic was born. Criticism began to take first place in Arnold's writing with his appointment to the professorship of poetry at Oxford, which he held for two successive terms. During this time he wrote his first books of criticism, including On Translating Homer, Essays in Criticism, and On the Study of Celtic ...

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