Selected Poems

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"Bloomsbury Poetry Classics" are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets. The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus. This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient. The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic and biographer Ian Hamilton. Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, the eldest son of Thomas Arnold, the fabled headmaster of Rugby. In his early life, Arnold struggled to cope with the benign domination of his father's early death, and with the "terrible notions of duty" he felt himself to have inherited. After securing a reputation with poems like "The Scholar Gypsy", "Suhrab and Rostum" and "Dover Beach", Arnold in 1869 more or less abandoned poetry and turned his attention to the educational, critical and cultural writings which have proved so influential in this century. Arnold died in 1888.