Matthew+Arnold



Matthew Arnold was a 19th century English poet. He was known as a sage writer, which is one who chastises and instructs the reader about contemporary and social issues. Arnold is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, and Robert Browning. The rationalistic tendency of his writings offended many people, but Arnold and his literary work undoubtedly made a mark on this time period. Although a poet of the Victorian Age, Arnold was said to have served as the bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. Matthew Arnold showed a restraint to expressing emotion due to his philosophy that poetry should be the "criticism of life". Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" was said to have been written about the shore of the English fery port of Dover, Kent. It was also said that it was written on his honeymoon with his wife in 1851.