A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold - Hardcover

Hamilton, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747536716 ISBN 13: 9780747536710

Publisher: Basic Books (1995), 1998

Synopsis

Matthew Arnold had two lives. In his later years, he was Victorian England's best-known social prophet, educational reformer and literary critic. In his youth, he was an impassioned lyric poet, deeply at odds with his "damned times". From the very start, however, Arnold viewed his poetry-writing self as irresponsible and deliquent. As the eldest son of Dr Arnold of Rugby, the great shaper of Victorian morality, his destiny - he knew - was inescapable. For about 20 years, however, he made efforts to resist this destiny and this book is the story of that losing battle. As a biographical narrative, it confronts a number of puzzles. Chief among these 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 Arnold met in Switzerland in 1848?

About this title

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

About the Author

Ian Hamilton is one of the foremost literary critics and biographers of our time. He is the author of the definitive biographies on Robert Lowell and that elusive master, J.D. Salinger. Among his other books are two collections of poetry, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English (Editor); Keepers of the Flames: Literary Estates and the Rise of Biography from Shakespeare to Plath; Writers in Hollywood; and most recently the collection Walking Possession. He has been the literary editor of the TLS and various other influential English publications. He has recently been appointed contributing editor for The New Yorker.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books (1995)
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0747536716
• ISBN 13: 9780747536710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 241