Culture and Anarchy - Arnold, Matthew

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Résumé :
Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1869. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, Culture [...] is a study of perfection. He further wrote that: [Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [...]. His often quoted phrase [culture is] the best which has been thought and said comes from the Preface to Culture and Anarchy: The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. The book contains most of the terms - culture, sweetness and light, Barbarian, Philistine, Hebraism, and many others - which are more associated with Arnold's work influence. (wikipedia.org)

Sommaire:
English poet and culture critic Matthew Arnold was born on December 24, 1822, and died on April 15, 1888. He also worked as a school inspector. He was born to Thomas Arnold, who was the famous teacher of Rugby School, and his siblings were Tom Arnold, who taught literature, and William Delafield Arnold, who wrote novels and ran the colonies. People have called Matthew Arnold a sage writer, which means that his books chastise and teach the reader about modern social problems. He also worked as a school inspector for 35 years and backed the idea of secondary education being regulated by the state. Thomas Arnold and his wife Mary Penrose Arnold (1791-1873) had one son. He was born on December 24, 1822, in Laleham-On-Thames, Middlesex. Matthew asked John Keble to be his godfather. In 1828, Thomas Arnold was made Headmaster of Rugby School, which is where the family moved that same year. Arnold was taught in Laleham by his priest uncle John Buckland starting in 1831. In 1834, the Arnold family stayed at Fox How, a vacation home in the Lake District. Wordsworth lived nearby and was friendly with the people who lived there....