Matthew Arnold

Discourses in America . Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 - 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. The Reverend John Keble stood as Godfather to Matthew. Thomas Arnold admired Keble's Christian Year, first published in 1827, but the elder Arnold became disappointed with Keble when he became a leader of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement (1833-1845), whose leaders had a plan for the renewal of the Church of England that Thomas Arnold regarded as too conservative and traditionalist.