Dover Beach by Arnold

Poet Background

Arnold is a Romantic poet who did not wish to be one, an impossible conflict which caused him finally to abandon poetry for literary criticism and prose prophecy. From the middle 1850s on, Arnold was primarily a prose writer, and his influence has been largely as a literary critic. Arnold was born on December 24, 1822, the eldest son of the formidable Dr. Thomas Arnold, who from 1828 on was to be Headmaster of Rugby School. Dr. Arnold, a historian of some limited distinction, was a Protestant moralist of the rationalizing kind. Arnold nevertheless understood the joy ...