Matthew+Arnold's+Poems;+Lyric+and+Elegiac,+1885

UVic Call Number: PR4020 A2


 * __About The Poet __**

The Oxford DNB states Matthew Arnold as a poet, literary critic, and school inspector. Born on December 24, 1822, in Laleham-on-the-Thames in Middlesex, Arnold was the oldest surviving son, and second oldest child, to Mary Penrose Arnold and Thomas Arnold, a headmaster, historian, and rugby coach. The family spent much of their time at the holiday house in the Lake District, where William Wordsworth was a neighbour. Wordsworth would later be a large influence on Arnold’s poetry career. After attending Winchester College for a short amount of time, Arnold joined Rugby School, head mastered by his father, in 1837. In 1840 he gained recognition for his poem "Alaric at Rome," and won a scholarship to Balliol College. Arnold graduated with only a second-class degree. After a move to Paris, and a visit to George Sand in 1847, he became a secretary for Lord Lansdowne, a right-wing politician, and created his first collection of poems, '//The Strayed Reveller' and other poems// in 1849//.// In 1850, he met and fell in love with Frances Wightman, and were married on the tenth of June in 1851. Because Wightman's father, a judge, objected the marriage because of Arnold's job, Matthew became a school inspector in order to please the judge and have a steady source of income.The couple had six children together, and moved to Pains Hill Cottage in Surrey in n1873, and lived there until Arnold's death in 1888.

//Matthew Arnold’s Poems: Lyric and Elegiac // has a dark blue cover, with deckled page edges. On the inside of the cover, however, there is a small inscription of a date, "January 8, 88," as well as a faded inscription page of the giver of the book in the top right corner of the same, which appears to say “from James.” As the titles suggests, this book is separated into two main sections: Arnold’s lyric poems and his Elegiac poems. This book, according to Thomas Burnett Smart’s book //The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold// was the second of three volumes that collected all of the poet’s work. The first of these volumes was titled “Early Poems, Narrative Poems, and Sonnets,” and the third titled “Dramatic and Later Poems.”  

A lyric poem, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, is “any fairly short poem expressing the personal mood, feeling, or meditation of a single speaker.” The speaker may be made up by the poet, and express the created feelings from the fictional character and not necessarily expressing the views of the poet. Examples of a lyric poem from this volume of poems are “The Buried Life” and “Dover Beach.” An elegiac poem, however, is one that typically laments the death of a friend or public figure, and often included love poems to be of this genre.    In the first couple of pages, the trademark for the Macmillan Publishing Company appears:



The Macmillan Publishing Company was one of the largest publishing companies in Victorian England, and is currently still a major company all over the world. In the nineteenth century, however, it was given great recognition for their work with female writers, such as Christina Rossetti. The Macmillan Company first worked with Matthew Arnold in 1864, titled //A French Eton,// before his //Essays in Criticism// in 1865 and worked alongside him for his selections of William Wordsworth in 1879. The collection of volumes that //Lyric and Elegiac// belongs to was published in 1885.

This book contains what is, perhaps, Matthew Arnold's most famous poem: "The Buried Life." This poem discusses the inability to be the person that the narrator wishes to be, and instead keeps it buried within him. The poem was originally written in 1852, 32 years before //Lyric and Elegiac// was published. It is a seven stanza, ninety-eight line lyric poem.

Another interpretation of the poem grew into a world-wide phenomenon when MTV picked it up as a television show: The Buried Life is a show about four young men from Victoria, BC who were inspired by this poem and made a list of things they wished to do before they die. The items on their list covered a large range of things; such as streak and get away with it, ask out the girl of their dreams (Taylor Swift), play basketball with Barack Obama, send their book into outer space, and many, many others. This show was a huge success, and brought a lot of attention to both the poem and Matthew Arnold. The four men are still continuing to complete the list.

Works Cited <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Arnold, Matthew. //Matthew Arnold's Poems: Lyric and Elegiac.// London//:// Macmillian and Co., 1885. Print. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Collini, Stefan. “Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888).” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.// Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2004.Web. 16 April, 2016. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Elegy.” //Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.// 4th edition. 2001. Web. 17 April, 2016. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Lyric.” //Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.// 4th edition. 2001. Web. 17 April, 2016. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Reeve, A. J. H. “Arnold, Thomas (1795-1842).” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.// Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Web. 16 April, 2016. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Smart, Thomas Burnett. //The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold.// J. Davy and Sons, 1892. 12. Web. 16 April, 2016. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Van Arsdal, Rosemary. “Macmillan family (per c. 1840-1886).” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.// Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Web. 16 April, 2016.