Arnold, Matthew

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Arnold, Matthew (1822–88). Poet and critic. Son of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby school, Matthew was educated also at Winchester and Oxford, before election to an Oriel fellowship (1845). From 1851 to 1883 he was an inspector of schools, sent to study systems in Europe, and became a leading propagandist for improved secondary education in England. Emerging as a mature poet by 1853, with a recognizably Celtic temperament (from his mother), he was professor of poetry at Oxford 1857–67, but subsequently turned to literary then social criticism. He broadened the accepted form of the critical essay, and in Culture and Anarchy (1869) famously classified English society into ‘Barbarians, Philistines and Populace’ as it lagged behind continental ideas; refusal to comply with Victorian complacency about England's perceived world-wide supremacy was unforgivable to many. Arnold's religious liberalism found voice in subsequent works which sought to free Christianity from doctrinal lumber, despite his own admiration for Newman.

A. S. Hargreaves

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