„Bóg nie może być wszędzie, dlatego wynalazł matkę.“
— Matthew Arnold
Źródło: Leksykon złotych myśli, wyboru dokonał Krzysztof Nowak, Warszawa 1998.
Matthew Arnold cytaty
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Matthew Arnold
Data urodzenia: 24. Grudzień 1822
Data zgonu: 15. Kwiecień 1888
Reklama
Matthew Arnold – angielski poeta i krytyk kulturalny; pracował jako inspektor szkolny. Jego ojcem był historyk i pedagog Thomas Arnold.
Absolwent Oksfordu. Najlepsze dzieła stworzył przed czterdziestym rokiem życia, kiedy to zwrócił się bardziej w stronę krytyki literackiej i kulturalnej. W jego poezji widać wpływy Williama Wordswortha, czego zresztą sam Arnold nie ukrywał. W latach 1867-1869 napisał ogólnokrytyczne dzieło Culture and Anarchy, w którym po raz pierwszy określił część wiktoriańskiego społeczeństwa mianem "filistrów" w sensie ludzi pogardzających intelektem, sztuką i pięknem na rzecz materialnie wyrażonego dobrobytu i kiczu.
Poeta rozpoczął swoją karierę literacką jeszcze w szkole, zdobywając nagrodę za poemat Alaric at Rome. Do najbardziej znanych wierszy Arnolda należy poemat epicki Sohrab i Rustum, opublikowany w 1853.
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„Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy’d the sun“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy’d the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes?
Act I, sc. ii
„Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole.
"To a Friend" (1849), line 9-12
„The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.
Ch. I, Sweetness and Light
„Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: The sophist sneers: Fool, take
Thy pleasure, right or wrong!
The pious wail: Forsake
A world these sophists throng!
Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man.
Act I, sc. ii
Reklama
„Thou waitest for the spark from heaven!“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d;
For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—
Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?
St. 18
„And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: 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, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
St. 4
„For both were faiths, and both are gone.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone —
For both were faiths, and both are gone.
„Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
I see her veil draw soft across the day,
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;
I feel her finger light
Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train; —
The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again.
St. 14
Reklama
„Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay;
Now the great winds shoreward blow;
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way!
St. 1
„Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d;
For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—
Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?
St. 18
„Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone —
For both were faiths, and both are gone.
„Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.“
— Matthew Arnold
Context: Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay;
Now the great winds shoreward blow;
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way!
St. 1
