Culture and Anarchy Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Linda Ray Pratt

Critical Essay by Linda Ray Pratt

SOURCE: Pratt, Linda Ray. “Culture against Anarchy.” In Matthew Arnold Revisited, pp. 94-120. New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000.

In the following essay, Pratt traces the development of Arnold's philosophy in works written prior to Culture and Anarchy, commenting on the incorporation of these ideas into his most well-known work.

Looking back on Arnold's career from the perspective of more than a century, the break between the poet and the critic appears more sharply defined than it really was. As the poetry waned, the critical essay bloomed, but the ideas and concerns that marked his later work grew out of themes that were lifelong interests. Poems such as “The New Sirens,” “The Strayed Reveller,” “Resignation,” “The Scholar-Gipsy”—even those early school poems on Alaric and Cromwell—reveal an intellect that linked poetry, criticism, education, and civic life to creating a society in which the moral, intellectual, and political life reflected a general commitment...
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