Selected Poems and Prose [Second Hand]

Selected Poems and Prose

Matthew Arnold is not only a significant poet, but also a critic of the Victorian age. It is partly because a prose-writer's intelligence shapes his finest poetry that he is set somewhat apart. Believing that poetry should be a criticism of life, in his poetry Arnold often explores personal responses to the society he critizes in his prose. The characteristic notes, in major poems such as Dover Beach or Thyrsis, are meditative and elegiac, informed by doubt and by the conflict between necessity and desire.