The Analysis Of Matthew Arnold's Middle-class Cultural Identity

When it comes to the cultural theory and mass culture,it occurs to us that Matthew Arnold,who is one of the most great masters in cultural field quite deserves the great respect of the latter generations.In 1869,his outstanding representative,Culture and Anarchy,was public to the people,in which he made a systematic statement on his theory of culture and social conception.In this book,he classified Englishmen at that time into three groups: barbarians,philistines and riffraff,which respectively represents nobility,middle class and laboring class.At the same time,he gave his analysis and critique on those three groups of people separately.As a member of the middle class,Arnold held an ambivalent attitude towards the philistines.On one hand,he sharply criticized the various corrupt customs of the philistines.On the other hand,he had high hopes on them and expected to get the whole nation well-developed by the way of improving the middle class themselves.This paper is divided into four chapters.Chapter one analyzes the main concepts of Matthew Arnold's theory of middle-class cultural identification.Through tracing the key words “middle class”,“culture” and “identity”,we could get a clear definition of the concept,and have a more accurate grasp to the view of Matthew Arnold.Chapter two explores the mechanism of Matthew Arnold's middle-class cultural identity,discusses the political,cultural and individual experiences,and solves the relevant information.Matthew Arnold's theory is not constructed out of thin air,but closely related and influenced by his experienced.So there is a necessity and rationality to explore its motivation.Chapter three focuses on the connotation and characteristics of Matthew Arnold's middle-class cultural identity,makes an analysis of the aspects of extension,inherence and realization of strategy,and gradually summarizes some elements with these characteristics.Although his theory is too abstract to carry out the practical operation,and criticizes by later,it guides us to future advancement.Chapter four is about some of the real social concerns,which is mainly about the realistic revelation of middle-class cultural identification such as the “wealth and happiness”,“education and perfect” and “culture and science” and so on,hoping to push the improvement of our thoughts and the progress of our social construction.The conclusion part is a summary of the full text,which highly appraise the theoretical significance and practical value of Matthew Arnold's middle class cultural identity and objectively evaluate his cultural theory and historical merit to be an objective evaluation.It is important to pay attention to the differences of the times to understand Matthew Arnold's thoughts.The readers should dialectically view and analyze Arnold's ideas and return to the past from a historical perspective so that readers can better grasp his purpose of thinking,with a view to to promote China's social and cultural construction.At the end of the text,we briefly discuss some of the shortcomings of Matthew Arnold's middle class cultural identity,which gives a modest evaluation of Arnold's class limitations and the abstraction of cultural theory so that later generations can studied more deeply.Starting with the raising origin of what is middle-class,this paper hackles the development of the word “culture”.Next,on the basis of approval of the intimate relationship between culture and identity,the author makes a brief analysis on the cultural identity posed by Matthew Arnold.As a result,he makes sure that the spiritual culture is the harmonious combination of Greek cultural spirit and Hebraic cultural spirit.Afterwards,the author makes a proverb into the connotation and function of the concept of middle-class cultural identity.Besides,his method to achieve culture,middle-class education is analyzed.At last,a conclusion that the nature expects to construct of middle-class cultural identity with education,and can help them to receive the social approval so as to improve their social status in the aim of realizing their social value is represented.