Essays in Criticism. Second Series

Matthew Arnold's writing career was highly varied, with different periods of his life producing very different modes of poetry and prose. A fop, a dandy, and a spendthrift during his wild youth at Oxford, Arnold lived the classic life of a young poet. He wrote poetry throughout his 20s and 30s before he suddenly ceased and began writing only literary and social criticism. After a period of religious writing, Arnold returned again to literary criticism in his old age. All his writings were inflected with philosophical inquiry into the state of modern man in industrial society.