On Matthew Arnold’s Cultural Outlook In His Poems

Matthew Arnold is a British poet and critic in Victorian age. Facing theunbalance between material civilization and spiritual civilization, he puts forwardpursuing perfection as his cultural outlook and devotes himself to spreading hiscultural outlook with the hope that this kind of cultural outlook could moderate theunbalanced British society and thoughts and culture. His cultural outlook is embodiedin his books, prose and poems. This thesis is planned to have a thorough analysis ofArnold’s cultural outlook pervaded in his poems.The thesis consists of four chapters. The main body unfolds its argumentsgradually in three steps: the missing of perfection, the pursuing of perfection and theacquisition of perfection. The major contents undergo as follows. Chapter One is theintroduction and the literature review, first briefly to the situation of MatthewArnold’s life, writings, his important function in the area of thoughts and culture inVictorian Britain and his profound influence to Britain. The second part is about therange of poems which are discussed in the thesis. The third part is the structure of thethesis. And the last part is about the origin and support of the topic. The secondsection reviews respectively the studies on Arnold’s poems at home and abroad.Chapter Two introduces the background information of Victorian Britain and Arnold’scultural outlook. The first section summarizes the background information ofVictorian Britain in the areas of politics, economy, ideology and religion. The secondsection sketches Arnold’s cultural outlook about its implications, its significance andits relation with his poems. Chapter Three discusses the manifestations of Arnold’scultural outlook in his poems following the process of the missing of perfection, thepursuing of perfection and the acquisition of perfection. The first section starts withthe missing of perfection from current tendencies in Victorian Britain, the anarchy ofpersonal spirit and the gap among people. The second section is about the progress ofpursuing perfection including the philosophy of fleeing and the choice of goals. Thethird section enumerates four ways of the acquisition of perfection: the comfort oftranquility, the power of nature, the guidance of religion and the influence of culture. Chapter Four is the conclusion.In summary, Arnold’s poems embody his cultural outlook to the full. Not onlydoes his cultural outlook play a fundamental role in mollifying the frustration andperplexity in the area of thoughts and culture in Victorian Britain but it still hassignificance as well as inspiration for the ongoing of socialist ideological and ethicalprogress in China. The merits of Arnold’s poems and cultural outlook want furtherdigging and studies.