The Poetry of Matthew Arnold

Area 10 – Scienze dell'antichità, filologico-letterarie e storico-artistiche

The present study explores the development of Matthew Arnold’s poetic vision through three specific stages. Close attention is particularly devoted to the poetic language and structure of representative texts in the attempt to stress the often neglected aspects of his prosodical and rhetorical skills. Although traditionally regarded as the third major poetic figure of his age after Tennyson and Browning, Arnold undeniably remains the most neglected poetic voice of the Victorian period. Yet, the existential angst and struggle that marks his poetical works, together with his essentially irresolvable world–view, are factors which speak directly to the modern reader. Contradictory and fully Victorian though his thought may be, Arnold establishes a precise ideological line which connects him with our modern–day sensibility.Renzo D’Agnillo teaches English language, English literature and translation at the “Gabriele d’Annunzio” University (Pescara). He has published articles on D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, W.B. Yeats, Desmond Egan, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Percy B. Shelley, Christina Rossetti and Dante. He is co–editor of Percorsi di poesia irlandese, with Francesco Marroni and Maria Concetta Costantini (Tracce, 1998) as well as co–author of the volume Six Romantic Poets with Adriana D’Angelo (Tracce, 1999). He has translated a book of poems by Eros Costantini, La Coda della lucertola (Solfanelli, 1995) and Five One–Act Plays by Renzo Ricchi (University College Dublin, 1996). He is also the author of Bruce Chatwin, Settlers, Nomads and Exiles (Tracce, 2000).

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