Matthew Arnold

Arnold, Matthew (1822–88), English poet and literary critic. His poetry, as represented by Empedocles on Etna (1852) and New Poems (1867), is mainly introspective, though Arnold also achieved a classical impersonality. Both in his poetry and in his criticism—Culture and Anarchy (1869), Literature and Dogma (1873)—Arnold showed a keen awareness of the changing cultural climate of his time.