Talk:Matthew Arnold

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Organization of Article[edit]

Possible Future Sections:

  • Arnoldian Phrases -- Arnold coined (or borrowed) so many unique phrases that a listing of them with their context in A's writings, his sources for them, and some comments from the scholars could be quite valuable (need link to sweetness and light) Mddietz (talk)
  • Critical Response -- this may come out sufficiently in the Writings sections not to need a separate section
  • Legacy -- considering the exteremes of response to A's writings and the degree to which he has become a whipping boy for post-modernists, and been rather curiously misread by today's "culture critics" this seems a very necessary section
  • A table of the major prose writings and the volume of CPW in which they occur.
  • I have removed all but one of the trivia items, that item probably can be absorbed into Legacy once it is added. I note that other pages have attempted to eliminate such sections. Perhaps best we ultimately do away with it. I should point out I did not remove the other trivia items, I absorbed them into the Career and Life section.

Mddietz 19:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For Arnoldian phrases: Super, Complete Prose Works, vol. XI, pg. 333.

Arnold frequently uses the definition of the State which he ascribes to Burke: "the community [the people] in its [their] collective and corporate character." The conception is Burkean, but the precise definition apparently is not.

Mddietz 23:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)Mddietz 23:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Life and career[edit]

I have just completed a significant rewrite of the life and career section. I have generally tried to stay very NPOV. I included nothing on his children and would like to add in a few comments on them at some point. Most of his major writings are noted, although a handful of his major poems, such as "Dover Beach," may need to be worked back in. At least we now bring him up to his deathbed which the earlier version oddly left unmentioned -- perhaps with the idea that, like the scholar gypsy, he might yet be out there somewhere haunting wayside inns. Mddietz 18:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)23:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Do List for Life and Career:

  • Add meetings with Sainte-Beuve, Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Martineau, and George Sand
  • Also Henry James and Emerson
  • Add friendships: Browning, T. H. Huxley

Mddietz 21:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Need a citation for the following & the Warren quotation:
A familiar figure at the Athenaeum Club, a frequent diner-out and guest at great country houses, fond of fishing and shooting, a lively conversationalist, affecting a combination of foppishness and Olympian grandeur, he read constantly, widely, and deeply, and in the intervals of supporting himself and his family by the quiet drudgery of school inspecting, filled notebook after notebook with meditations of an almost monastic tone. In his writings, he often baffled and sometimes annoyed his contemporaries by the apparent contradiction between his urbane, even frivolous manner in controversy, and the "high seriousness" of his critical views and the melancholy, almost plaintive note of much of his poetry.

Mddietz 21:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC) ohno, here are a few comments on your proposed changes. Hope you will consider these.[reply]

  • I will reinstate the dating for the children, but wish we did not have to lose the pointed notes on the early deaths of three of them
  • As for the "tedious" paragraph, what can I say? I wonder if it is not that the passage is about how tedious his life was, rather than that the passage is itself tedious. But it is important.
  • I have gone ahead and changed "The turn to prose" which is a bit too eccentirc I would agree to "Literary career"
  • Lets not just paste over the section on Matthew Arnold's character. It is not well handled at this point and really needs a sound editing. I still do not know the source of most of the comments in this paragraph and have let them stand only because they are reasonably sound comments, but they need a citation.
  • I could see dropping the Oxford Elegy,-- it is only in there to satisfy someone's need to include trivia. Mddietz (talk) 20:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about heading the marriage and career section: "Her majesty's inspector of schools"? Mddietz (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Writings: General[edit]

I am thinking that we need to sub-divide Arnold's Writings under at least three heads in order to make sense out of this section. The three heads should probably be: poetry, literary criticism, and social and religious criticism. (The latter could include his writing on education, although that might stand under a separate head--it is significant but seldom attended to.) Stefan Collini uses a similar organization for his book on Arnold.

I also think at some point this article needs a section on critical response. Mddietz 22:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mddietz - thank you for your excellent work. I think a section on Arnold's educational work might be an idea. If it didn't work well the content could be subsumed into 'social criticism', but his work on schools on the continent is more than just that. For my sins I read 'A French Eton' and 'Higher Schools and Universities in Germany' some 20 years ago but have no notes except an essay I wrote on why he urged his countrymen to study continental education. He was a "proto-Comparative Educationist" and his work, which was incorporated into various government reports, was at least partly, if not indeed largely, instrumental in pushing the British government into its major educational reforms of the late 19th century. This is a part of Arnold's 'legacy' that is little known. I could write something on it but lack resources here, if anyone can get hold of 'Culture and the State - Matthew Arnold and Continental Education' (by P Nash, pub. Teachers College, Columbia University), they would have all they need to do a paragraph! --Retraité 16:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Retraité, thank you for your comments. I have been a little inactive the last few weeks because I have another project (i.e. my doctoral dissertation on Arnold) that needs my urgent attention and from which I stole some time to work on this article. Nonetheless, I hope to come back to this site eventually. I fully agree with you on Arnold's importance to education. Having educational writing as a fourth prose category may really be the right thing to do. Collini in his wonderful little book on Arnold has chapters on the other three (literature, social and religious), but not on education which has been very largely ignored by the critics, or simply subsumed into his social/political writings. In addition to the continental studies (which I agree are of the utmost importance); Arnold's reports as a school inspector were published in the 1890s (I believe) and are quite interesting; he gave testimony before several commissions of parliament including testimony in opposition to the examination processes which were used to determine school funding (very much like NCLB in the US today); he wrote several significant periodical articles in addition to "French Eton" & "Higher Schools and Universities in Germany," notably "The Twice-Revised Code," and "Schools in the Reign of Queen Victoria," and, of course, "Culture and Ananrchy," amongst others, has a significant educational turn to it. His relationship to education issues extended well beyond what he himself thought it would when early in life he wrote to his mother that he doubted he would follow in his father's footsteps. The Nash article is a new one on me,-- I shall have to look it up. Please do not dispare if nothing happens on your recommendation right away; I shall be a month or two finishing up my other project. Mddietz 23:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Writings: Poetry[edit]

I should like to rework this section as a series of comments on Arnold's major poems, although my list is clearly too long at this point and will need to be pared down. Some of these poems are sufficiently significant that they could be treated to their own listing, as is Dover Beach already. If they have their own page, they should need only a brief statement and a link.

Dramatic

  • Empedocles on Etna (really deserves its own page)
  • Merope (even A. knew it was not that good)

Narrative

  • Forsaken Merman (highly appreciated when it first appeared, gets much less attention now)
  • Mycerinus
  • Sohrab and Rustum (high priority, could perhaps qualify for its own page; it is generally regarded as A's most successful venture in an epic mode, as A. intended it to be; the battle between father and son has led to much pseudo-Freudian readings)
  • Sick King in Bokhara (a lot of commentary on it)
  • Balder Dead (another attempt at an epic poem, it fails but has its moments)
  • Tristram and Iseult (another that is generally held to be failure, but it, too, has its moments)

Sonnet

  • Shakespeare (often anthologized, but not so highly thought of by the critics)
  • To a Republican Friend & Continued (to Clough; interesting poems, worth including if only for their links to Clough and Arnold's politics)

Lyric

  • In Utrumque Paratus
  • The New Sirens (got a positive review from Michael Rossetti in the Germ)
  • Fausta: Resignation (contains some of A's most important thoughts on poetry)
  • Switzerland (the Marguerite poems; absolutely essential, the absence of any mention of them in the current article considerably lessens the authority of the article)
  • Strayed Reveller (high priority, an important poem that needs to be discussed)
  • Calais Sands
  • Faded Leaves (another series)
  • Dover Beach (has a page of its own already, but that page needs more discussion of the allusions, the dating problems etc. and the nonsense statement in it that the Greek connection is largely irrelevant must be removed)
  • The Buried Life (one of A's most admired poems)
  • Lines Written In Kensington Garden

Elegy

  • The Scholar Gypsy (highly anthologized and still a much admired poem, should have its own page)
  • Thyrsis (highly anthologized memorial for Clough, perhaps should have its own page)
  • Memorial Verses (already mentioned in Life and Career)
  • A Southern Night and Stanzas from Carnac (both written for his brother William, could be added to the Life and Career)
  • Haworth Churchyard (a not entirely failed experiement in meter; built off of his brief meeting with C. Bronte)
  • Rugby Chapel (high priority; written in response to a crticism of his father)
  • Heine's Grave
  • Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (quite important, "between two worlds", etc.)
  • Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann" and Obermann Once More (the Senacour connection)

Bolded titles = candidates for their own page -- I should say that I have tried to select poems that I think have a sufficient "back story." Several of these poems are significant as "meeting grounds" for nineteenth century and even twentieth century dialogs on poetry. Dover Beach is an example of this, although one would not know this by the current article. See, however, Collini's comment I have appended to the beginning of the poetry section here.

I'm sure I've left some out that may need to be considered, but as is I don't think all of these can be done justice here, I'm not sure we need any more. However, if someone reads this and has a strong feeling for an unmentioned poem... Mddietz 18:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering if the best approach may not be to divide this section into poetry types:

  • Dramatic (Empedocles and Merope)
  • Epic (or rather quasi-epic); Narrative is a better term
  • Elegiac
  • Lyric

I have gone back into the list above and resequence it according to these categories, but I'm not sure on my placement of some of them. In a few of the lyrics there is a satiric strain that may be worth noting. Tinker and Lowry's book is formatted by type and I have used their classification, however, I have added the earlier poems which were not categorized in this fashion to their respective categories. Mddietz 23:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree that Sohrab and Rustum should have its own page and that the Dover Beach article needs a little reworking. I don't have time to look at it until I get back home in mid-August, but would be happy to collaborate after that. Dover Beach is one of my all-time favourite poems.--Guinevere50 07:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Writings: Prose[edit]

For Arnold's use of "disinterest" as a critical term see George Watson, "The Literary Critics," Baltimore: Penguin, 1962. pg. 153. Watson also provides a characterization of Arnold's critical method which he characterizes as "essentially polemical." Mddietz

Mddietz - I'm not familiar with Watson's book or indeed with Arnold's criticism. Could I ask you whether Arnold was using the word 'disinterest' in the British sense of 'free of bias and self-interest; impartial' or in the frequently-used more American sense of 'lack of interest, indifferent'?--Guinevere50 12:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arnold's use of "disinterest" is quite peculiar and seems to have little to do with any of the more conventional usages you have cited. As best I can figure, he means that we are "disinterested" when we show curiosity about something which has otherwise no implications for us. This does not mean we are without bias, it means simply that we can extend our intellectual interest past the limits of our personal interests. Ulitmately, it seems to provide an interesting response to those who would suggest that our acts are singularly motivated by our self-interest. Arnold responds to the idea of self-interest with some amusement, but seems to have really intended disinterest as an attack upon Philistine parochialism which regarded curiosity as a sort of impoliteness and was quite content to ignore the world beyond the shores of England. See Culture and Anarchy, the response to self-interest appears in the first chapter of Literature and Dogma. Mddietz

Actually Watson was a poor choice on my part for Arnold's use of "disinterest." He rather sees disinterest as what you call the English usage -- which I had never thought of as English, but rather more part of the empirical traddition, which I suppose means it derives from English philosophic tradition, still it has its use amongst American writers. In any event, Trilling is better on Arnold's use of "disinterest" than is Watson. Mddietz

I am having a lot of problems with the following paragraph.

Although Arnold's poetry received only mixed reviews and attention during his lifetime, his forays into literary criticism were more successful. Arnold is famous for introducing a methodology of literary criticism through his Essays in Criticism (1865, 1888), which influence critics to this day. Arnold believed that rules for an objective approach in literary criticism existed, and argued that these rules should be followed by all critics. He believed in the necessity of objective rules of criticism as he thought that with the decline of religion, society would have no common cultural values, beliefs, and images and felt that the literature preferred by the lower and middle classes would corrupt what he considered the highest of art forms. In one of his most famous essays on the topic, “The Study of Poetry”, Arnold wrote that, “Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry”. He considered the most important criteria used to judge the value of a poem were “high truth” and “high seriousness”. By this standard, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales did not merit Arnold’s approval, due to its crass nature. Further, Arnold thought the works that had been proven to possess both “high truth” and “high seriousness”, such as those of Shakespeare and Milton, could be used as a basis of comparison to determine the merit of other works of poetry. He also sought for poetry to remain disinterested from politics and other calls to action, and said that the appreciation should be of “the object as in itself it really is.” He also advocated close reading of the text as the ultimate means of comprehension.

It seems in many ways to miss the central thought of Arnold's criticism. It is missing the very important concept of "free play of mind." He did not quite so much introduce a methodology of criticism as take an existing methodology, that of Sainte-Beuve and shift it to his own ends. The phrase "objective rules of criticism" is not to my knowledge Arnold's. Nor, as I have said elsewhere is "close reading." Arnold did attack middle class philistinism, but he really does not say much of anything about literature that is "preferred by the lower classes;" for Arnold the distinction is significant. "High truth" and "high seriousness" are Arnold's, but seem slightly overstated here; they make Arnold sound like an extremist and miss the delicious irony that undergirds almost all his major thought. The sentence "Without poetry...replaced by poetry," has several contradictory and controversial readings. Again as I have said elsewhere, he did not use "disinterested" to mean what is implied here. Short of rewriting the paragraph entirely I am not sure what to do with this. Mddietz 18:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)23:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has bothered me for so long that I have finally gone in and made some edits to it to remove the statements that were most clearly wrong. At this point I have largely just dropped incorrect statements, however I did add a reference to his use of historicism and the personal essay and his linkage from literary cirticism to political and social issues. These are what make him modern, not any turn toward close reading, which simply is not the case. Mddietz 17:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm moving the following items from the Dover Beach page. They have potential for use in the literary criticism section, but I do not have time just now to work them in:

...perfectly to seize another man's meaning, as it stood in his own mind, is not easy; especially when the man is separated from us by such differences of race, training, time, and circumstances as St. Paul. But there are degrees of nearness in getting at a man's meaning; and though we cannot arrive quite at what St. Paul had in his mind, yet we may come near it. Arnold: Culture and Anarchy, 1916, CPW, 5:182 (for CPW see the Bibliography on the Matthew Arnold page)
...the method of historical criticism, that great and famous power in the present day … The advice to study the character of an author and the circumstances in which he has lived, in order to account to oneself for his work, is excellent. But it is a perilous doctrine that from such a study the right understanding of this work will “spontaneously issue.” Arnold: “A French Critic on Milton,” 1877, CPW, 8:175. (The French Critic in question is Edmond Schérer.)
We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Arnold: “The Study of Poetry,” 1880, CPW, 9:161-2. (This is a highly controversial passage from Arnold and taken out of context much has been made of it which may not truly reflect Arnold's beliefs. It is not clear, for example, that he means by this that poetry should replace religion, rather it seems to mean that poetry may need to take up some of the functions that religion had once performed. Moreover, it is, no doubt, important to understand that Arnold, as he says later, in his intro to "Byron" if I remember correctly, that here he meant poetry to stand for literature in general.)
It is noticeable that the word curiosity, which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake,— it is noticeable, I say, that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever. Arnold: “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” 1864, CPW, 3:268.

Mddietz 22:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arnold's thoughts on the analysis of poetry[edit]

This is the infamous final version of the caveat from the Dover Beach page. I nominate it for inclusion on this page. I myself feel it needs much editing before it will fit comfortably on the page, so I vote nay on its inclusion. But so as not to be unilateral in my actions I will place it here and await the verdict of the masses who attend to this page daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, millenially...Mddietz 23:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew Arnold himself gives authority with respect to analysis; and so, as he sought to obtain as inspiration for his poetic renderings the muse of which he offers admiration, it is here appropriate to quote it, to provide the stimulus for viewing this poem as a whole piece:

“The date of an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, its selection and construction, this is what is all-important. This the Greeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical difference between their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, in this: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the value of the separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of an action. They regarded the whole; we regard the parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it; with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that they failed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, they are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the ‘grand style’: but their expression is so excellent because it is so admirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it is so simple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directly from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. For what reason was the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be constructed…

“…We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any total-impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his neglecting to gratify these, there is little danger; he needs rather to be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his personal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in nature.

“But the modern critic not only permits a false practice: he absolutely prescribes false aims. ‘A true allegory of the state of one's own mind in a representative history,’ the poet is told, ‘is perhaps the highest thing that one can attempt in the way of poetry.’ And accordingly he attempts it. An allegory of the state of one's own mind, the highest problem of an art which imitates actions! No assuredly, it is not, it never can be so: no great poetical work has ever been produced with such an aim.” [1]

Above text was put together by the caveat writer, so called because he refused to sign his postings, but delighted in pressing forward caveats that poetry is not an analyzable quantity; he obviously never "counted his numbers." Mddietz 23:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, New York, 1913, ed. by William S. Johnson, Chap. I, “Theories of Literature and Criticism: Poetry and Classics”, pp. 9-10, 13

Sagacity[edit]

I recently was searching through ABE books for books on or by Arnold when I was a little shocked to see the first paragraph of wikipedia used to describe Arnold. Well, not so much shocked at this particular usage which I know is fairly common practice,-- what really shocked me was that the final sentence of that opening paragraph was that which I had written to try to explain sage writer:

Matthew Arnold has also been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who speaks from a presumed position of moral authority, chastising and instructing the reader on contemporary social issues.

Out of context this sentence sounds very peculiar and oddly abusive. It reads more like a critique of Arnold than a neutral positioning. This has been my problem all along with this term (sage writer). I felt it might be best for now to move this sentence to a new section entitled critical response. As a genre, sage writing, really feels rather all too heavy-handed. I am currently reading Landow's book, perhaps that will help me understand this genre better and provide a less judgmental definition of it.

Two words here which I took from the sage writing article in Wikipedia are, to my mind, very loaded: "presumed" and "chastising"; another term, "moral authority" can be neutral, but has grown increasingly to suggest a suspect position. Moreover, as I have pointed out elsewhere, the definition here seems to suggest that sage writing is NOT sagacious, but, rather, desirous of being perceived as sagacious; the term itself seems to demand an ironic reading; it almost seems to be closer to "writing that is presumed by its author to be sagely, but that is of questionable sagacity." It is almost as if we were to suggest two types of satirical genres: satire and satyr, the latter being that which wishes to be perceived as satirical, but fails to achieve its satirical end. Such a judgment is best left ot the critic, not to the genre. Mddietz (talk) 19:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Superstition[edit]

Andycjp, thank you for your editing of the religious criticism section. However, the result is not, I believe, consistent with Arnold's writings on the subject. Arnold did not reject religion, he rejected that in religion which he regarded as superstitious (maybe that is the way the article should be phrased). He uses the word "superstition" in much of his writing on religion, see particularly "Culture and Anarchy" and "Literature and Dogma." Can you explain the change you have made in light of Arnold's writings or an accepted commentator on Arnold? Did you think this with an insertion of the wiki editor's own feelings about religion? (I can assure you it was not.) Did you think it could be written better? (I would agree with that whole-heartedly; I don't think this paragraph is well written at all, and I had a hand in writing it.) I have reverted your change, but I would agree some change in the article may be needed. Regards, Mark Dietz Mddietz (talk) 18:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am no expert on Arnold, but superstition is clearly a loaded term. If it were to be within quote marks as a direct phrase of Arnold`s own, fair enough. Otherwise, wouldn`t 'supernatural elements of ' religion be better as it seems that is what Arnold couldn`t accept...?Andycjp (talk) 01:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

andycj, I've changed it the way you suggest. I think that is better. Mddietz (talk) 23:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, just as an aside, I am not quite sure how superstition is such a loaded term. I think you may simply have misread the original which did not draw the link between religion and superstition as strongly as you seem to have thought it did. Are you familiar with Spinoza? Mddietz (talk) 23:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recent additions[edit]

Dear, 24.177.123.144, thank you for the new additions. However, They do not read quite right to me. Arnold delivered three lectures during his first visit to America. One on Emerson, one on education (particularly on what C. P. Snow would call the Two Cultures: Science and Literature; it was a response to an essay by Arnold's friend, T H Huxley), and one entitled "The Remnant" on how the few must be responsible for helping the many (a paper which has gained him a healthy portion of his reputation as an elitist). Your summary does not quite fit these papers.

On his death, he was running to catch a street tram that would take him to the Liverpool landing stage where he would meet his daughter who had just come from Liverpool. (See Honan's excellent narrative of this event in his now standard biography.) Mddietz (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Theologian[edit]

Johnbod has just removed two categories form this page: Theologian and Radical Theologian. I almost did the same myself. Arnold did not regard himself as a theologian, but rather as a literary critic, when he wrote Literature and Dogma and his many other essays focused on religious issues. Of course, this raises the question of what does it mean to be a theologian, but I fully support Johnbod's decision. Mddietz (talk) 20:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This Buried Life[edit]

While the film, The Buried Life, is interesting (at least as a concept, I have not seen it), I am not sure that it is that relevant to Arnold. He has had far more significant impact on culture than this. Perhaps as part of a listing for the poem The Buried Life (which is not on Wikipedia yet), a mention of the film would be more appropriate. Mddietz (talk) 14:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arnold's thoughts on religion[edit]

I am pretty sure it was Matthew Arnold who described religion as " morality plus"; this definition could go in the section headed "Religious criticism". ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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