The Scholar Gypsy

by Matthew Arnold

This small volume contains Matthew Arnold's nine most famous poems. Arnold was at the same time an elegiac poet of loss and separation and a discerning commentator on Victorian English society. His poetry is diverse, both restless and lyrical. Soothing images of calm seas, seen in 'Dover Beach', are set against fraught images of fever and illness: the scholar gypsy is urged to fly from the wasteland which symbolises England's social and cultural ills.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

58 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1853

About the author

Poems, such as "Dover Beach" (1867), of British critic Matthew Arnold express moral and religious doubts alongside his Culture and Anarchy , a polemic of 1869 against Victorian materialism.

Matthew Arnold, an English sage writer, worked as an inspector of schools. Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of rugby school, fathered him and and Tom Arnold, his brother and literary professor, alongside William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew...

Reviews

[Zohoor shinhwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

❉『 اعجبنتني القصيده لدرجة الجنون .. القصيدة باسلوب ال pastoral Elegy وحبيت استخدام هالاسلوب اللي ناسب القصيدةة بشكل مثالي .. لكن على الرغم من الثقافه السائدة ان شعراء العصر الفكتوري يقتدون بشعراء العصر الروممنسي بل يقلدونهم احيانا عوضا عن الاكتفاء بالاقتداء ؟!
ماثيو ارنولد من اكبر معجبي الشاعر كيت keate وهذا معروف لكن اعجابه واقتداءه فيه زاد لدرجة انو ماثيوو يقتبس كلمات وجمل من قصائد كيت ويضيفها بقصائده ؟؟ مرجعا ذلك لمتابعته لخطوات شاعره المفضل هذا ماعاب القصيده او الشاعر برايي ماعدا ذلك جميله وتستحق القراءةة 』❧

[Maryam AL-Ghafri]

"like us distracted, and like us unblest. soon, soon thy cheer would die" if u haven't ready the scholar gypsy by Arnold, it means u haven't read anything.. just finished studying it for my British literature final exam. I adore everything Arnold writes

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a beautiful poem albeit a bit wordy and rambling in places of a scholar who decides to wander the countryside rather than lock himself inside the hallowed halls of Oxford.

[Fnaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Come let me read the oft-read tale again!
The story of the Oxford scholar poor,
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door,
One summer-morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,
And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood,
And came, as most men deem'd, to little good,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more.

But once, years after, in the country-lanes,
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
Met him, and of his way of life enquired;
Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew,
His mates, had arts to rule as they desired
The workings of men's brains,
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.
"And I," he said, "the secret of their art,
When fully learn'd, will to the world impart;
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.'

[Annika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my British Literature class.

Interesting poem but I don’t have much to say about it.

I’m not a huge poetry person but I definitely have been enjoying Victorian Period poets more than Romantic period poets. My favorite poet so far has been Robert Browning.