Matthew Arnold

I have been re-discovering Arnold of late. The degree to which he is neglected or, worse, perversely misunderstood, seems to me to be an index of the degree to which our intellectual life thins to mere posturing. I intend this remark as a self-criticism. Posturing is all too easy today as the brute fact of one's political powerlessness and cultural marginalization is pressed home. Much of what I post on this blog is analogous to grafitti. If I could, I would have covered the walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with screeds and tirades; lacking that outlet, I knock off a few lines of vituperation every so often, to blow off steam. But it is all only an indication of my helplessness. The bridge is out, the school bus blows past, I shout and wave ridiculously to the driver. The kids look out the windows and pull faces or give me the finger. "Who was that crazy guy?" one asks. "That was my Dad," another answers. The driver is heedless, drunk or mad. The bus speeds forward. My heart can barely take the strain. I never intended to put you on that bus, my son...I always intended something better for you...Forgive me. How was I to know?

Arnold knew, which is why, when I was assigned to read him back in 10th grade (if not earlier), I found him such a bitter drink that I savored him only briefly, then spit him out. Of Arnold, Bloom has written:

Arnold is a Romantic poet who did not wish to be one, an impossible conflict which caused him finally to abandon poetry for literary criticism and prose prophecy...But much abides in his work, and he is usefully prophetic also of the anti-Romantic "Modernism" of our time, so much of which, like Arnold, has turned out to be Romantic in spite of itself.

I rarely find it useful to gainsay Harold's judgments. This instance is no exception.