Poetry for the Inner Ear

Matthew Arnold is the greatest elegiac poet in the world of poetry. His most famous elegiac poems are The Scholar Gipsy, Thyrsis, Dover Beach, A Summer Night, Rugby Chapel. His elegiac poetry is more than a mere expression pf sorrow. His poetry invariably becomes reflective and philosophical. Poetry according to Matthew Arnold is a criticism of life. This is quite true about his own poetry. Garrod rightly says: “His poetry, profoundly melancholic, runs from the world, runs from it, as I think, hurt, hurt in some vital part. It believes itself able to sustain life only in the shade.” His poetry is a spontaneous expression of “his native melancholy, of the Virgilian cry over the mournfulness of mortal destiny” (Hugh Walker).    The above facts are easily substantiated by the following immortal lines from Dover Beach: Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, no