Arnold, Matthew
Arnold, Matthew (1822-88), British poet and critic, son of the educationalist Dr Thomas Arnold. For most of his life he worked as an inspector of schools while publishing collections of poetry and essays. Poems (1853) contains most of his important early poetry, while New Poems (1867) includes Thyrsis’, an elegy for the poet Arthur Hugh Clough. Arnold was professor of poetry at Oxford from 1857 to 1867. In later life he was better known for his literary and cultural criticism and for Culture and Anarchy (1869).
