Matthew Arnold Selected Writings

This volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers students an authoritative, comprehensive selection of the poetry and prose of Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)--the first of its kind for half a century. The anthology is a fresh presentation of one of the most important and influential writers and thinkers of the Victorian period. Arnold's many facets--as poet, educationalist, literary critic, cultural commentator, and religious controversialist--are represented; and the text is fully annotated, identifying the many authors with whom Arnold engaged, and the contemporary public events to which his work often responds. Many of the themes of Arnold's writing life are still pressing matters today. What is the true nature of education? What are the duties of the State towards its citizens? What are the proper limits to individual freedom within a liberal society? What is the future of religion in an age of increasing secularisation? And, besides these questions, his poetry is one of the greatest and most influential of all bodies of Victorian verse, giving voice to the anxieties of an epoch.

Seamus Perry, Professor of English Literature, Balliol College. University of Oxford

Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature and Massey Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford. His publications include Coleridge and the Uses of Division and Coleridge's Notebooks: A Selection, and, co-edited with Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Tennyson Among the Poets (all OUP).

PrefaceIntroductionChronologyLetters to Clough (1847-49)Fragment of Chorus of a 'Dejaneira' (? 1847-8)From The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1849)Sonnet [Quiet Work]MycerinusTo a FriendThe Strayed RevellerShakspeareWritten in Butler's SermonsWritten in Emerson's EssaysTo an Independent PreacherTo a Republican FriendContinuedReligious IsolationTo my FriendsTo FaustaThe Hayswater BoatThe Forsaken MermanResignationLetters to Clough and others (1849-52)From Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems (1852)Empedocles on EtnaThe Lake [Meeting]PartingAbsenceDestinyTo Marguerite, in Returning a Volume of the Letters of Ortis [To Marguerite - Continued]Human LifeDespondencySelf-DeceptionMemorial VersesA Summer NightThe Buried LifeA FarewellStanzas in Memory of the Author of 'Obermann'Lines Written in Kensington GardensThe Second BestThe Youth of NatureLetters to Clough and Frances Arnold (1853)From Poems. A New Edition (1853)Preface[Quiet Work]Sohrab and Rustum. An EpisodeA DreamThe Scholar GipsyLetters to Clough (November 1853)General Report for the Year 1853 (1854)From Poems. Second Edition (1854)PrefaceFrom Fraser's Magazine (April 1855)Stanzas from the Grand ChartreuseFrom Fraser's Magazine (May 1855)Haworth ChuchyardFragment from 'Lucretius' (? 1856-7)From Poems. Third Edition (1857)To Marguerite. [Isolation-To Marguerite]Isolation [To Marguerite-Continued]Letter to Mary Arnold (1857)On the Modern Element in Literature (1857)From Merope (1858)Letter K (1858)From On Translating Homer (1861)From The Popular Education of France (1861)Introduction [Democracy]From Last Words on Translating Homer (1862)General Report for the Year 1863 (1864)From A French Eton (1864)From Essays in Criticism (1865)PrefaceThe Function of Criticism at the Present TimeThe Literary Influence of AcademiesFrom Maurice de GuérinFrom Heinrich HeineFrom JoubertFrom Cornhill Magazine (1966)My CountrymenFrom On the Study of Celtic Literature (1867)From New Poems (1867)ThyrsisEast LondonWest LondonAusterity of PoetryCalais SandsDover BeachGrowing OldA Caution to PoetsRugby ChapelGeneral Report for the Year 1867 (1868)From Culture and Anarchy (1869)Letter to Mary Arnold (1869)From The Pall Mall Gazette (1869)From St Paul and Protestantism (1870)From Literature and Dogma (1873)Our aspiration quits us, not our need (1875)From The Nineteenth Century (1879)S.S. LusitaniaFrom The Poems of Wordsworth (1879)PrefaceFrom The Hundred Greatest Men (1879)Poetry: IntroductionFrom The English Poets, ed. T.H. Ward (1880)General Introduction: On the Study of PoetryThomas GrayJohn KeatsFrom The Poetry of Byron (1881)From PrefaceFrom Poems. New and Complete Edition (1881)Geist's GraveFrom Irish Essays (1882)From The IncompatiblesFrom The French Play in LondonFrom Macmillan's Magazine (1883)An Address to the Wordsworth SocietyFrom Literature and Dogma. Popular Edition (1883)Preface to this EditionFrom Discourses in America (1885)Literature and ScienceFrom Poems (1885)Poor MatthiasFrom The Times, 13 November 1886Mr Matthew Arnold and the Westminster TeachersFrom Fortnightly Review (1887)Kaiser Dead