Public domain photograph of Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

A selective list of online literary criticism for the nineteenth-century Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold, with links to reliable biographical and introductory material and signed, peer-reviewed, and scholarly literary criticism.

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Introduction & Biography

"Matthew Arnold." Poetry Foundation. Good, encyclopedia-type introduction to Arnold, his biography, themes, and techniques, with selections from his poems.

"Matthew Arnold." Includes a biography, timelines for Arnold's social and political context, articles on his themes, imagery, and more. The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow.

"Matthew Arnold." Brief introduction from the Academy of American Poets.

Honan, Park. A review of Matthew Arnold: A Life (McGraw Hill 1981), the major biography of Matthew Arnold. Reviewed in Theology Today by Jeffrey Spear.

Lang, Cecil Y., ed. Publisher's site for The Letters of Matthew Arnold, Vol.1 - Vol. 6 (U of Virginia P). The web site includes a summary of the major events in Arnold's life.

Wallace, Jennifer. "Matthew Arnold." Literary Encyclopedia. 7 July 2001. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. An introduction to Arnold, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription [subscription service].

Literary Criticism

Alexander, Edward. "Dr. Arnold, Matthew Arnold, and the Jews." On the views of Matthew Arnold and his father, Dr. Thomas Arnold, about Victorian political efforts to grant voting rights to British Jews. Judaism Spring 2002.

Babbitt, Irving. "Matthew Arnold." A once-influential American cultural critic writes: "Arnold was misunderstood by his contemporaries, not because he was less modern, but because he was more modern than they, and that he is still misunderstood for the same reason." The Nation 1917.

Clausson, Nils. "Arnold's Coleridgean Conversation Poem: 'Dover Beach' and 'The Eolian Harp.'" Writes Clausson, "in 'Dover Beach' Arnold came the closest, in my view, of any Victorian poet to appropriating successfully not only the conversational voice but also the poetic structure of Coleridge's conversation poems" [and Samuel Taylor Coleridge]. Papers on Language and Literature Summer 2008.

Crick, Brian. "Matthew Arnold's Place in the University." New Compass: A Critical Review Dec. 2004.

Delaura, David J. Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England: Newman, Arnold, and Pater (U of Texas P 1969). The complete book is reprinted by permission of the author. Victorian Web.

Ebel, Henry. "Matthew Arnold and Marcus Aurelius." On the central importance of the Stoic emperor and his times to Matthew Arnold's thought. Studies in English Literature 3, 4 (Autumn 1963) [first page of article only].

Farrell, John P. "What I Want the Reader to See: Action and Performance in Arnold's Prose." Also "'What You Feel I Share': Breaking the Dialogue of the Mind with Itself." From Professor Farrell's courses at the U of Texas, Austin.

Gossman, Lionel. "Philhellenism and antisemitism: Matthew Arnold and his German models." Comparative Literature 46, 1 (Winter 1994) [first page of article only].

Johnson, E.D.H. "Arnold: The Dialogue Of The Mind With Itself." In The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry. An open access book at the Victorian Web.

O'Neill, Michael. "'The burden of ourselves': Arnold as a post-Romantic poet." O'Neill considers Arnold's poetry as a response to the major English Romantic Poets, especially Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, and contends that Arnold wavers in an unstable but poetically productive way between seeking to establish his distance from Romantic poetry and conceding its hold over his imagination. Poems examined include "The Buried Life," Empedocles on Etna, "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse," "The Scholar-Gipsy," "Memorial Verses," "A Summer Night," "Dover Beach," and "To Marguerite--Continued." The Year's Work in English Studies says this may be the best article on Arnold of the year. Yearbook of English Studies 2006.

Rapple, Brendan A. "Matthew Arnold and the role of the State." Rapple examines Arnold's ideas about government involvement in the lives of citizens. Contemporary Review March 2002.

Savory, Jerold J. "Matthew Arnold and 'The Author of Supernatural Religion': The Background to God and the Bible." On Arnold's defense of the Bible at a time when German "higher criticism" was gaining acceptance. Studies in English Literature 16, 4 (Autumn 1976) [first page of article only].

Shumaker, Wayne. "Matthew Arnold's Humanism: Literature as a Criticism of Life." Studies in English Literature 2, 4 (Autumn 1962) [first page of article only].

Sullivan, Dick. "Matthew Arnold, 'The Scholar Gipsy,' and the Cumnor Hills." Essay at the Victorian Web.

Victorianism

"Victorianism." The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. Essays topics include Victorianism as a Fusion of Neoclassical and Romantic Ideas; The Complex Realities of Victorianism; Main Currents in Victorian Intellectual History; The fundamental conflicts of Victorian poetry; Density and Elaborate Interconnectedness of High and Late Victorian culture; The Difficulties of Victorian Poetry; Victorian Doubt and Victorian Architecture; Victorian taste; Victorian Design; Race in Thought and Science; Victorian Earnestness; The Seaside in the Victorian Literary Imagination; Tennyson and Victorianism; The Victorian Gentleman; Crisis of Organized Religion; Queen Victoria.

"Monuments and Dust." Eds. Michael Levenson, David Trotter, Anthony Wohl. IATH, U of Va. A project by an international group of scholars who are creating a complex visual, textual, and statistical representation of Victorian London.

Jackson, L. "A Dictionary of Victorian London." Victorian social history through a "dictionary" of Victorian institutions.

"Darwin Correspondence Project." Eds. Jim Secord, Janet Browne. Online database of Charles Darwin's correspondence. The Darwin Correspondence Project was begun in 1974 by Frederick Burkhardt with the aid of zoologist Sydney Smith. It is now a searchable, online, open access database that includes complete transcripts of Darwin's letters and letters written to him, staffed by researchers and editors based in the UK at Cambridge University Library, home of the largest existing collection of Darwin's manuscripts, and in the US.

Hall, Lesley. "Bibliography on Victorian Sexuality." Background reading for topics relating to sex in Victorian England and Victorian literature, covering prostitution, male homosexuality, female sexuality, sexual repression, sexual freedom, etc.

"The Oxford Movement 1833-1845." Catholic Encyclopedia.

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