Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic.
Arnold is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. Some consider Arnold to be the bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. His use of symbolic landscapes was typical of the Romantic era, while his sceptical and pessimistic perspective was typical of the Modern era.
Although Arnold's poetry received only mixed reviews and attention during his lifetime, his forays into literary criticism were more successful. Arnold is famous for introducing a methodology of literary criticism somewhere between the historicist approach common to many critics at the time and the personal essay; he often moved quickly and easily from literary subjects to political and social issues. His Essays in Criticism (1865, 1888), remains a significant influence on critics to this day
He was led on from literary criticism to a more general critique of the spirit of his age. Between 1867 and 1869 he wrote Culture and Anarchy, famous for the term he popularised for the middle class of the English Victorian era population: "Philistines", a word which derives its modern cultural meaning (in English – the German-language usage was well established) from him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold
For additional background on Arnold and his work, see the articles at the Victorian Web:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/
v. 1. Poems: Early poems, narrative poems and sonnets.--v. 2. Poems: Lyric and elegiac poems.--v. 3. Poems: Dramatic and later poems.--v. 4. Essays in criticism, first series.--v. 5. Essays in criticism, second series.--v. 6. On the study of Celtic literature and on translating Homer.--v. 7. Culture and anarchy ... and Friendship's garland ... --v. 8. Literature and dogma ... --v. 9. God and the Bible.--v. 10. St. Paul and Protestantism ... Last essays on church and religion.--v. 11. Mixed essays, Irish essays and others.
