Public domain photograph of Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

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Literary Criticism

Alexander, Edward. "Dr. Arnold, Matthew Arnold, and the Jews." Alexander examines the two Arnolds' views about Victorian political efforts to grant voting rights to British Jews. Judaism, Spring 2002

Babbitt, Irving. "Matthew Arnold." Influential American cultural critic writes: "Arnold was misunderstood by his contemporaries, not because he was less modern, but because he was more modern than they, and that he is still misunderstood for the same reason." The Nation, 1917

Caldwell, Lauren. "Truncating Coleridgean conversation and the re-visioning of 'Dover Beach.'" Victorian Poetry, Winter 2007.

Clausson, Nils. Arnold's Coleridgean Conversation Poem:" "Dover Beach" and "The Eolian Harp." Papers on Language and Literature, Summer 2008

Crick, Brian. "Matthew Arnold's Place in the University." New Compass: A Critical Review, Dec. 2004

Ebel, Henry. "Matthew Arnold and Marcus Aurelius." On the central importance of the Stoic emperor and his times to Matthew Arnold's thought. First page of article only. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 3, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1963), pp. 555-566

Farrell, John P. "What I Want the Reader to See: Action and Performance in Arnold's Prose." Also "'What You Feel I Share': Breaking the Dialogue of the Mind with Itself." From Professor Farrell's courses at the University of Texas, Austin

Farrell, John P. "Matthew Arnold: The Writer as Touchstone." From Victorian Poetry, 1988 Spring-Summer; 26 (1-2): 1-10

Farrell, John P. "'The Scholar-Gipsy' and the Continuous Life of Victorian Poetry." Victorian Poetry, Fall 2005

Frame, E. Frances. "Shaping the self: critical perspective and community in Sohrab and Rustum." Victorian Poetry, 22-MAR-07 (taken offline)

Gossman, Lionel. "Philhellenism and antisemitism: Matthew Arnold and his German models." Comparative Literature, Winter 1994

Harrison, Anthony. Victorian Poets and the Politics of Culture: Discourse and Ideology (Univ. of Virginia Press, 1998). Publisher's blurb

Honan, Park. A review of Honan's Matthew Arnold: A Life (McGraw Hill, 1981), the major biography of Matthew Arnold. Reviewed in Theology Today by Jeffrey Spear

Jones, Tod E. "Matthew Arnold and the Jesus Seminar." Jones contends that Matthew Arnold's writing about the bible best reveals his strength as a critic. Paper presented at the Annual Central NY Conference on Language and Literature, SUNY-Cortland, October 1997

Lang, Cecil Y., ed. Publisher's site for The Letters of Matthew Arnold, Vol. 1-Vol. 6 (Univ. of Va. Press).

Mazzeno, Laurence W. Matthew Arnold: The Critical Legacy (Boydell & Brewer, 1999). From Google Books

Rampton, David. "Back to the future: Lionel Trilling, 'The Scholar-Gipsy,' and the state of Victorian poetry." Victorian Poetry, 22-MAR-07 (taken offline).

Rapple, Brendan A. "Matthew Arnold and the role of the State." Contemporary Review, March, 2002

Savory, Jerold J. "Matthew Arnold and 'The Author of Supernatural Religion': The Background to God and the Bible." First page of article only. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 16, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1976), pp. 677-691

Shumaker, Wayne. "Matthew Arnold's Humanism: Literature as a Criticism of Life." First page of article only. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 2, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1962), pp. 385-402

Wallace, Jennifer. A substantial introduction to Matthew Arnold from the Literary Encyclopedia, 7/7/01

Ward, David A. "Transformed religion: Matthew Arnold and the refining of dissent." Renascence, Winter 2001

Introduction

Extended article on Matthew Arnold's themes, reputation, and career. From the Poetry Foundation

Essays on Matthew Arnold's writing techniques, themes, biography, and the Victorian background. The Victorian Web by Professor George P. Landow

Very brief introduction to Matthew Arnold's poetry from the Academy of American Poets

Lakshmi, S. N. Radhika. "Matthew Arnold as a Literary Critic." An introductory essay on Matthew Arnold from the London School of Journalism Distance Learning Course

A posting of "Dover Beach" inviting reader comments, which are appended at the end. The poem elicited some surprisingly passionate responses

Web Sites

"Victorianism." From George Landow's Victorian Web

Jackson, Lee. "A Dictionary of Victorian London." Victorian social history through a "dictionary" of Victorian institutions

"Monuments and Dust," a project by an international group of scholars who are creating a complex visual, textual, and statistical representation of Victorian London.

"The Oxford Movement 1833-1845," in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

A guide to research resources from the Victoria discussion list for Victorian Studies

Harper's Magazine has articles on Matthew Anrold available online, for subscribers, that go back to 1864

Main Page | 19th-Century Literature | 19th-Century Poetry | Arnold's First Editions

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