A Brief Matthew Arnold Bio

Arnold (Matthew), LL.D. poet and critic, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, b. at Laleham 24 Dec. 1822. Educated at Winchester, Rugby, and Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize. In 1848 he published the Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, signed A. In 1851 he married and became an inspector of schools. In 1853 appeared Empedocles on Etna, a poem in which, under the guise of ancient teaching he gives much secular philosophy. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1871 he published an essay entitled St. Paul and Protestantism; in 1873 Literature and Dogma, which, from its rejection of supernaturalism, occasioned much stir and was followed by God and the Bible. In 1877 Mr. Arnold published Last Essays on Church and State. Mr. Arnold has a lucid style and is abreast of the thought of his age, but he curiously unites rejection of supernaturalism, [21]including a personal God, with a fond regard for the Church of England. He may be said in his own words to wander “between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born.” Died 15 April, 1888.