Matthew Arnold

by George Saintsbury

Overview

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783847205524
Publisher:	tredition
Publication date:	02/07/2012
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	155
File size:	934 KB

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER III. A FRENCH ETON ESSAYS IN CRITICISM CELTIC LITERATURE NEW POEMS LIFE FROM 1862 TO 1867. The period of Mr Arnold's second tenure of the Poetry Chair, from 1862 to 1867, was much more fertile in remarkable books than that of his first. It was during this time that he established himself at once as the leader of English critics by his Essays in Criticism (some of which had first taken form as Oxford Lectures) and that he made his last appearance with a considerable collection of Nnv Poems. It was during this, or immediately after its expiration, that he issued his second collected book of lectures on The Study of Celtic Literature ; and it was then that he put in more popular, though still in not extremely popular, forms the results of his investigations into Continental education. It was during this time also that his thoughts took the somewhat unfortunate twist towards the mission of reforming his country, not merely in matters literary, where he was excellently qualified for the apostolate, but in the much moredubiously warranted function of political, " sociological," and above all, ecclesiastical or anti-ecclesiastical gospeller. With all these things we must now deal. No one of Mr Arnold's books is more important, or more useful in studying the evolution of his thought and style, than A French Eton (1864). Although he was advancing in middle-life when it was written, and had evidently, as the phrase goes, " made up his bundle of prejudices," he had not written, or at least published, very much prose; his mannerisms had not hardened. And above all, he was but just catching the public ear, and so was not tempted to assume the part of Chesterfield-Socrates, which heplayed later, to the diversion of some, to the real improvement of many, but a little to h...