'An excellent book ... sharp and sympathetic' - Sunday Times 'Why doesn't Matthew Arnold enjoy a higher reputation today? He wrote some of the most beautiful poetry of the Victorian period ... yet he distrusted his own poetic genius and effectively stifled it after its early blossoming, devoting his maturity instead to writing worthy but unexciting prose criticism. The reasons why he did this, and the extraordinary tension in the poetry he did write between outbursts of passion and fierce repression, are excellently handled ...
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'An excellent book ... sharp and sympathetic' - Sunday Times 'Why doesn't Matthew Arnold enjoy a higher reputation today? He wrote some of the most beautiful poetry of the Victorian period ... yet he distrusted his own poetic genius and effectively stifled it after its early blossoming, devoting his maturity instead to writing worthy but unexciting prose criticism. The reasons why he did this, and the extraordinary tension in the poetry he did write between outbursts of passion and fierce repression, are excellently handled in Ian Hamilton's critical biography.' - Adam Roberts As a youth, Matthew Arnold was an impassioned lyric poet, deeply at odds with his times. In his later years, he turned himself to more "purposeful" prose composition and became a social prophet and literary critic. This biography addresses some of the mysteries surrounding Arnold's life, and attempts to animate certain key moments, or turning points, in Arnold's passage from the poetic life to the prose of his later years.
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Add this copy of A Gift Imprisoned: the Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold to cart. $2.41, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Basic Books.
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Very good. A well-cared-for item that has seen limited use but remains in great condition. The item is complete, unmarked, and undamaged, but may show some limited signs of wear. Item works perfectly. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine is undamaged.
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Very good. Gently read, if at all. No markings or spine crease. Publisher's mark at bottom of textblock edge. Light red ink staining at fore edge. Pasadena's finest new and used bookstore since 1992. Located in POETRY (under ARNOLD).
?The present book is an attempt to animate certain key moments, or turning points, in Arnold?s passage from the poetic life to the prose of his later years.?
The above is a very honest statement quoted from the book?s preface. Ian Hamilton is not trying to pull over the reader?s eyes by suggesting that his book is the complete and definitive life of Matthew Arnold.
This stamp of honesty is ingrained throughout the book, within his style of writing, his objectiveness and his refraining from turning the biography into a hagiography.
Ian Hamilton has created a remarkable piece of work. It is made even more remarkable as it appears Arnold did not leave behind a bounty of diaries, letters etc from which a biography could be constructed.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Wordsworth, Browning and Tennyson, Arnold has all but been forgotten, his poetry no longer fashionable, consigned to be a poet only enjoyed by scholars.
While Arnold?s poetry never had the emotional charge of Wordsworth or the introspective humanity of Tennyson, it did have a grace and a force of nature. While the poetry of his contemporaries had all the beauty and style of a supermodel, Arnold?s poetry was the beauty of the soul, the person within not the external superficial beauty that one could tire of looking at.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Dover Beach
Ian Hamilton does a great service to the memory of Matthew Arnold with his insightful, intelligent and penetrating analysis of Arnold?s verse. Hamilton shows us the development of Arnold?s poetry and as such puts that work in context biographically and historically.
If there is one thing that a biography of a poet?s life should try to attain is to have the reader want to read or reread the poetry of the biographer?s subject.
Arnold turned his back on the world of poetry to concentrate on prose during the last twenty or so years of this life. The nineteenth century and beyond was a poorer place because of this decision.
?He thrust his gift in prison till it died? W.H. Auden.
