Matthew Arnold

“ Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the substance of true poetry. ”

“ That gift is the man himself, but set in the atmosphere of home, with sonship and fatherhood, sisters and brothers, with the bereavements of years fully accomplished, and those of babyhood and boyhood—a sweet and wholesome English home, with all the cloud and sunshine of the English world drifting over its roof-trees, and the soil of England beneath its stones, and English duties for the breath of its being. To add such a home to the household rights of English Literature is perhaps something from which Arnold would have shrunk, but it endears his memory. ”

“ SOHRAB AND RUSTUM°
"I am occupied with a thing that gives me more pleasure than anything I have ever done yet, which is a good sign, but whether I shall not ultimately spoil it by being obliged to strike it off in fragments instead of at one heat, I cannot quite say." (Arnold, in a letter to Mrs. Foster, April, 1853.)
"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and I think it will be generally liked; though one can never be sure of this. ”

“ In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a high place among the foremost prose writers of the time. His style is in marked contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's pure and radiant coloring. It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, discriminating, incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. Notwithstanding its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is often a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an opponent by its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and its calm air of assured superiority. ”

“ And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her garments to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantment of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?... ”

“ The cause of this difference is not far to seek. His poetry, written in early manhood, reflects his inner self, the more lovable side of his nature; while his prose presents the critic and the reformer, pointing out the good and bad, and permitting at times a spirit of bitterness to creep in, as he endeavors to arouse men out of their easy contentment with themselves and their surroundings.
With the exception of occasional verses, Arnold's poetical career began and ended inside of twenty years. The reason for this can only be conjectured, and need not be dwelt upon here. ”

“ The title of this poem inevitably brings to mind Tennyson's two poems, The Merman and The Mermaid. A comparison will show that, in this instance at least, the Oxford poet has touched his subject not less melodiously and with finer and deeper feeling.—Margaret will not listen to her 'Children's voices, wild with pain';—dearer to her is the selfish desire to save her own soul than is the light in the eyes of her little Mermaiden, dearer than the love of the king of the sea, who yearns for her with sorrow-laden heart. Here is there an infinite tenderness and an infinite tragedy. ”

“ We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself. I verily believe that the majority of them do not 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 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 show of isolated thoughts and images ”

“ The dying Tristram, worn with fever and impatient with long waiting, unjustly charges Iseult with cruelty for not having come to him with greater haste. Her gentle, loving words, however, quickly dispel his doubts as to her loyalty to her former vows. A complete reconciliation takes place, and they die in each other's embrace. The picture of the Huntsman on the arras is one of the most notable in English poetry. ”

“ The months went by, and to the lonely bride was born a marvellous son, whom, because of his comely features, she named Sohrab. Fearing Rustum would send for the boy when he grew older, and thus rob her of her treasure, Tahmineh sent word to him that the child was a girl—"no son," and Rustum took no further interest in it.
While still of tender years, Sohrab showed signs of his noble lineage. He early displayed a love for horses, and at the age of ten years, according to the tradition, was large and handsome and highly accomplished in the use of arms. ”

“ Many of his poems, in full or in part, are mere nature pictures, and are artistic in the extreme. The pictures of the Oxus stream at the close of Sohrab and Rustum; the English garden in Thyrsis; and the hunter on the arras, in Tristram and Iseult, are all notable examples. This pictorial method Wordsworth seldom used. In spirit, too, the poets differed widely. To Wordsworth, Nature was, first of all, the abiding place of God; but Arnold "finds in the wood and field no streaming forth of beauty and wisdom from the fountainhead of beauty," no habitancy of Nature's God. ”

“ In this dire extremity Kai Kaoos sent for Rustum, who was somewhat apart from the main troop. Exclaiming that the king never sent for him except when he had got himself into trouble, the warrior armed, mounted Ruksh, and rushed to the combat. By mutual consent the two champions withdrew to a retired spot, where, unmolested, they might fight out their quarrel hand to hand. As they approached each other, Rustum, moved with compassion by the youth of his foe, tried to dissuade Sohrab from his purpose, and counselled him to retire. ”

“ Arnold as a Lyricist.—Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of the poet's individual sentiments and emotions, hence it is subjective. The action is usually vapid, the verse musical, the time quick. Unlike the Epic and Drama, it has no preferred verse or meter, but leaves the poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is soon discovered. ”

“ Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
70Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
75And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." ”

“ Susceptible as she was beautiful, she made her attachment so evident that the young hero, who was as ardent as he was brave, readily yielded to the power of her fascination. The consent of the king having been obtained, Rustum and Tahmineh were married with all the rites prescribed by the laws of the country. A peculiar feature of this alliance lay in the fact that the king of Semenjan was feudatory to Afrasiab, the deadly enemy of Persia, while Rustum was her greatest champion. ”

“ For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd;
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,
315Which in a queen's secluded garden throws
Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound—
°318So slender Sohrab seem'd,° so softly rear'd.
[p.11] And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul
320As he beheld him coming; and he stood,
And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said:—
"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft,
And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold!
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. ”

“ Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was celebrated for her beauty, by reason of which frequent references are made to her by both classic and modern writers. Goethe introduces her in the second part of Faust, and Faustus, in Marlowe's play of that name, addresses her thus:—
"Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."
Her abduction by Paris, son of Priam (see note, l. 3) , was the cause of the Trojan war, the most notable incident of Greek mythology, which forms the theme of Homer's greatest poem, the Iliad. ”

“ Arnold gave to the world one of its greatest elegies. One finds in this poem and its companion piece, The Scholar-Gipsy, the same unity of classic form with romantic feeling present in Sohrab and Rustum. Both are crystal-clear without coldness, and restrained without loss of a full volume of power. Mr. Saintsbury, writing of The Scholar-Gipsy, says: "It has everything—a sufficient scheme, a definite meaning and purpose, a sustained and adequate command of poetical presentation, and passages and phrases of the most exquisite beauty;" and no less praise is due Thyrsis. ”

“ A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy appreciation and leave the charm of memory. ”

“ For instance, one can scarcely conceive of such characters as Ulysses and Circe playing the subordinate roles assigned to them in The Strayed Reveller. A true dramatist would hardly have committed so flagrant a blunder. Merope is written in imitation of the Greek tragedians. It has dignity of subject, nobility of sentiment, and a classic brevity of style; but it is frigid and artificial, and fails in the most essential function of drama—to stir the reader's emotions. Empedocles on Etna, a half-autobiographical drama, is in some respects a striking poem. ”