“For
the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of
the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the
moment.” – Matthew Arnold
Born on Christmas Eve, 1822, Arnold
was an English poet and cultural critic who worked many years as a fulltime
inspector of schools. Those duties
required him, at least at first, to travel constantly and across much of
England, both spending time in countless railway waiting rooms and also reaching
and interacting with thousands of school children, their parents and
teachers. It was during that time that
he not only became a writer but also a writer of and for the entire nation
because of his broad interaction with people from all regions and walks of
life.
While he wrote prose and literary
criticism, it was his poetry that gained Arnold the most fame. Sometimes called the
third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert
Browning, he eventually was elected "Professor of Poetry" at
Oxford. As such, he became the first in
this position to deliver his lectures in English rather than Latin. Arnold’s groundbreaking move set a precedent
for generations of other professors at the school.
As a teacher, he had simple advice
for his students: “Use your gifts
faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall
attain to higher knowledge.”
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