English poet Matthew Arnold had two lives. In his youth, he was an impassioned lyric poet. In his later years, he was Victorian England’s best-known social prophet, educational reformer, and literary critic. Arnold’s poetic life that gave us ”Dover Beach,” ”The Scholar-Gipsy,” and ”Empedocles on Etna”—was effectively over by the age of forty, when he began to devote all his energies to “purposeful” prose composition. As Auden said, he ”thrust his gift in prison till it died.” From the very start, though, Arnold had viewed his poetry-writing self as irresponsible, delinquent. As the eldest son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, the great shaper of Victorian morality, his destiny—he knew—was inescapable. He had been born to ”make a difference” to the age in which he lived.For about twenty years, however, Matthew Arnold made efforts to resist his destiny as a social moralist, and this book is the story of that losing battle. As a biographical narrative, A Gift Imprisoned confronts a number of intriguing puzzles. Chief among these, of course, is the much-pondered Marguerite. Who was she: a dream-girl, an invention born of too much exposure to the novels of George Sand, or a real person met in Switzerland in 1848? Then there is Dr. Arnold himself: a devitalizing ogre or an inspiration? And, overarchingly, there is the matter of Arnold’s attitude to his own gifts as a poet: Why did he so early on abandon the poetic life and settle for three decades of drudgery as an inspector of elementary schools? Was it really a fierce love of duty that took him down this path—or was it, rather, that he all along had insufficient faith in his own talent? And this leads to the question that matters most of all: How much faith do we and should we have in his talent?In this compelling study, Ian Hamilton brings his own formidable gifts and his lifelong passion for his subject to bear on one of the most mysterious literary figures of the last century—and a figure who still fascinates today. The result is a biography of rare originality and significance.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Matthew Arnold, who wrote some of the most beautiful poetry of the Victorian period, with lyrics that are peculiarly appropriate to the alienated longeurs of modern existence, should, it seems, enjoy a higher reputation today. Yet he distrusted his own poetic genius and effectively stifled it after its early blossoming. He devoted his maturity instead to writing worthy but unexciting prose criticism. His motives, and the extraordinary tension between passion and repression in the poetry he did write, are both excellently explored in Ian Hamilton's critical biography. The title of the study comes from W.H. Auden's assessment of Arnold's career: "He thrust his gift in prison till it died." Hamilton outlines that prison--the Victorian upbringing, the unhappy love affair that was beyond the pale of 19th-century convention and was thus abandoned, and the painful retreat from poetry--the one thing Arnold did best, deftly and wittily. Read Arnold's "To Marguerite--Continued" (surely the bleakest and most beautiful statement of hopeless love in the language); then read this book for its expertly sketched account of the life behind the poetry. --Adam Roberts
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From The New Yorker
"Clever and biting."
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First-Rate Biography,
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This review is from: A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life Of Matthew Arnold (Hardcover)
I first read Matthew Arnold in college, having never heard of him before. I was attracted to the inherent contradictions of his prose notions and his poetic reality. At the same time he was a yearning, deeply personal poet, he would criticize the tendency of contemporary poets to be personal and not grander in their notions. What this book does is give you some background into this contradiction, stemming from growing up with a very stiff, passionate for order father who instilled a sense of duty in Matthew that he was never able to overcome. The examples are plenty in the book and they do a good job of showing Matthew struggle with himself, his poetry, the age and the past to eventually discontinue his poetic works and focus solely on criticism and social reform. A fascinating portrait of one of the giants of Victorian Literature.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A third try for the right book,
By Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life Of Matthew Arnold (Hardcover)
The real book is overlooked, not a single review. Matthew over came his childhood and stern upbringing to break out of the mold of his father's tutulege and become a political thinker.
Allen Tate, a member of the Vanderbilt 'Fugitives' group of poets, preferred Matthew Arnold to Browning or Tennyson. Now, in English Lit., I liked Browning; my favorite poem was ABOU BEN ADHEM. In Birmingham, England, in the farmland and English Midlands, young Arnold was born in 1822. He was the eldest son of "the greatest Headmast who ever lived" who had his own Rugby School. Rugby, Tennessee, here in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee was built on the principle of this stern headmaster, a communal farming project, which failed in the United States. It is steeped in history and still has the crudely built houses with their own small library. They were English intellectuals, not farmers. They were the first organic farmers in this area, near Oneida -- so high it's the closet place to Heaven I've ever been. Matthew became a brilliant 'elegiac' poet of poets who helped to form the 'modern consciousness' with his comparative attitude to problems in Western society and culture. His carrer was a study in "sensitivity, courage and endurance." Strange for a rebel of the family to excel at literary endeavors, as he opposed his unpoetic father. Matthew had been lucky in his marriage and lucky with is teachers and friends, an Archbishop of Canterbury, Wordsworth and Browning. His son, Dick shared a passion for family, which had been one secret of Matthew Arnold's success, He became a poetry professor in 1857, wrote "Essays in Criticism" in 1862 and "Culture and Anarchy" in 1866. His "The Forsaken Merman" inspired Sylvia Plath. Mrs. Arthur Claugh, wife of one of his good friends, in London kept every item in Matthew's room "just as he had left it" and "waiting" as a memorial to a great and beloved poet of the ages across the pond.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lines of Influence,
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This review is from: A Gift Imprisoned (Paperback)
This is a book for the generalist about Matthew Arnold's career in poetry. Things started out promisingly until he undertook to pursue his real vocation as an educational examiner too energetically to permit the gestation of poetic ideas and forms. Family and property concerns seemingly overtook him too.
His father, Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, was a scholar of history, an expert on Thucydides. He was a contemporary of John Keble, the founder of the Oxford Movement. Thomas Arnold's vigorous activist brand of Christianity rather ran counter to the Oxford Movement. Matt had the disadvantage of never escaping the schoolmaster. The family had a vacation house in the Lake District. Friendships with Wordsworth and other poets were important to family members. Matthew Arnold troubled his parents by seeming to never be serious. Sent to Winchester he was unpopular and set fire to his own gun. He returned to Rugby for the fifth and sixth forms. The boys considered him to be cool, detached. He gained entry to Baliol and, notwithstanding a second-class degree, won a Fellowship to Oriel. At this stage Matthew Arnold became a close friend of Arthur Clough. Thomas Arnold died around 1842. Five weeks prior to his death he had been visited by Carlyle. Carlyle's quality of wild fire excited young readers. In 1845 Matthew Arnold was poised between dandyism and melancholia. He was thinking seriously he might be a poet. The novels of George Sand appealed to him. Matthew acquired a patron, Lord Lansdowne. Lord Landsdowne had more than one factotum. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Marquis was the last of a generation of remarkable statesment. Matt journeyed to Thun, Switzerland to meet a mysterious woman, Marguerite, among other things. In the following year he courted Frances Wightman in London. He became an Inspector of Schools. His wedding ceremony took place at Teddington. His new life was hectic and obscure. In 1851 England had no system of state education. Arnold was one of twenty inspectors. He had a practice not to speak out against contemporaries although he thought Tennyson decorative, not penetrative. James Froude was a sympathetic reviewer of Arnold's poetry. He gained a five year Oxford Poetry Professorship. He wrote Rugby Chapel as a tribute to the memory of his father. In the 1860's Arnold built his reputation as a metropolitan savant.
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