Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold. Arnold Matthew
Culture includes religion as its most valuable component, but goes beyond it.
The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laid the chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements of culture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to the condition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of the English people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrasts with the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind and flexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, of perfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore, to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed because of the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to which she owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could be added the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love of beauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a truly great civilization would result. That this ideal will in the end prevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, and depression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from his prose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer in culture. "We go the way the human race is going," he says at the close of Culture and Anarchy.
Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon by many as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closer interest and is less discussable than literary criticism. Literature and Dogma, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannot be denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field to prevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of his religious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied. Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in his religious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separating it from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as a friend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religious writings, of which St. Paul and Protestantism, 1870, and Literature and Dogma, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show the natural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing it from dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to make clear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, true spirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for him the bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughly spiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned, and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to become convinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds and holds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power, preëminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is "the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality is a union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold did not without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when once entered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. His attitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:—
"And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you! Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare them!"1
In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimed at disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal," he says in the Introduction to Culture and Anarchy, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and self-renouncement." In the last condition he believed that his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of culture entrusted with power." In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is to be found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. This saved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the social movements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end a sympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles of liberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism. Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is always likely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses it, in Culture and Anarchy, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,—its fierceness and its addiction to an abstract system."
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of the young Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this description, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence, the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the end. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. His prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality.
~BIBLIOGRAPHY~
1849. The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems. 1852. ~Empedocles on Etna, and other Poems~. 1853. Poems. 1855. Poems (Second Series). 1858. Merope. 1867. New Poems. 1869. Poems (First Collected Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, 1881, 1885, and 1890.)
1859. England and the Italian Question. 1861. Popular Education in France. 1861. On Translating Homer. 1862. Last Words on Translating Homer. 1864. A French Eton. 1865. Essays in Criticism. 1867. On the Study of Celtic Literature. 1868. Schools and Universities on the Continent. 1869. Culture and Anarchy. 1870. St. Paul and Protestantism. 1871. Friendship's Garland. 1873. Literature and Dogma. 1875. God and the Bible. 1877. Last Essays on Church and Religion. 1879. Mixed Essays. 1882. Irish Essays. 1885. Discourses in America. 1888. Essays in Criticism (Second Series). 1888. Civilization in the United States. 1891. On Home Rule for Ireland. 1910. Essays in Criticism (Third Series).
For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnold criticism, see Bibliography of Matthew Arnold, by T.B. Smart, London, 1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E. Russell in 1896.
BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: Res Judicatæ, London, 1892.
BROWNELL, W.C.: Victorian Prose Masters, New York, 1902.
BURROUGHS, JOHN: Indoor Studies, Boston, 1889.
DAWSON, W.H.: Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our Time, New York, 1904.
FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence on English Education, New York, 1897.
GATES, L.E.: Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold, New York, 1898.
HARRISON, FREDERIC: Culture; A Dialogue. In The Choice of Books, London, 1886.
HUTTON, R.H.: Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith, London, 1887.
JACOBS, JOSEPH: Literary Studies, London, 1895.
PAUL, HERBERT W.: Matthew Arnold. In English Men of Letters Series, London and New York, 1902.
ROBERTSON, JOHN M.: Modern Humanists, London, 1891.
RUSSELL, G.W.E.: Matthew Arnold, New York, 1904.
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: Corrected Impressions, London, 1895. Matthew Arnold. In Modern English Writers Series, London, 1899.
SHAIRP, J.C.: Culture and Religion, Edinburgh, 1870.
SPEDDING, JAMES: Reviews and Discussions, London, 1879.
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