Volume : 7, Issue : 8, August - 2018

Matthew Arnold's Theory of Poetry And Its implementation in his poems

Kalyan Kishor Barman

Abstract :

<p>&nbsp;Great service to English Poetry has been done by Matthew Arnolds as because he was a critic also. He has rendered</p> <div>great services to English Poetry. He lived in a period which was facing turmoil due to scienti􀃶c and material</div> <div>progress of England. The people of that period were 􀃸uctuating between two worlds one is dead and other is to born. Many moral as well as</div> <div>religious codes have been changed rapidly and people become frustrated. In this condition Arnold came before the tormented public with</div> <div>his poetry which proved to be a ray of hope. Arnold with his fellow countrymen craved for life in the age of darkness, longed for sweetness in</div> <div>world of bitterness and he has incarnate an Apostle of Culture trying to lure his fellowmen in a radiant realm where thought and life blossom</div> <div>like roses. Arnold has been recognized universally that he is a great poet not only of Victorian age (1831-1901) but also the whole gamut</div> <div>English Literature. He made poetry not a mere means of expressing emotion but as a mirror of life where the wounds of social life clearly</div> <div>visible. In the age of turmoil Arnold offered people safe ground poetry based on moral values of life. G.K. Chesterton said that Arnold was</div> <div>‘even in the age of Carlyle and Ruskin, perhaps the most serious man alive‘. H. J. Muller declares that &ldquo;if in an age of violence the attitudes he</div> <div>endangers cannot alone save civilization, it was worth saving chie􀃸y because of such attitudes.&rdquo; Arnold‘s poetry &ldquo;must be called modern</div> <div>because that applied to the ideas of critic, reformer, and prophet who dedicated most of his life to oadening the intellectual horizons of</div> <div>his countrymen.&rdquo; Arnold‘s poetry still being read and has many contemporary elements. These are as valid today as in Victorian age. Kenneth</div> <div>Allott said, &ldquo;if a poet can never teach us to understand what we feel and how to live with our feelings, then Arnold is a contemporary.&rdquo;</div>