--- Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As Arnold is the acme of the imperialist poet, who
> thought culture had the
> sacred duty above all to support the Empire, I guess
> this makes sense.
I don't have my Arnold library to hand, but opening
one book I do have ("Discourses in Ameerica") I find
"Every one knows that there has been conquest and
confiscation in Ireland. So there has elsewhere. Every
one knows that the conquest and the confiscation have
been attended with cupidity, oppression, and
ill-usage. So they have elsewhere. "Whatsoever things
are just' are not exactly the study, so far as I know,
of conquerers and confiscators anywhere; certainly
they were not the study of the English conquerers of
Ireland."
And here a quick skip through Project Gutenberg turns
up Arnold's characteristic and omnipresent bashing of
things English and English vainglory:
"It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's
own things, so
hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We
have a great
empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the
"unrivalled happiness"
of our national civilization. But then comes a candid
friend,[349] and
remarks that our upper class is materialized, our
middle class
vulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are
proud of our
painting, our music. But we find that in the judgment
of other people
our painting is questionable, and our music
non-existent. We are proud
of our men of science. And here it turns out that the
world is with us;
we find that in the judgment of other people, too,
Newton among the
dead, and Mr. Darwin among the living, hold as high a
place as they hold
in our national opinion."
A lot can be said against old Matt, but I think
enrolling him posthumously in the Primrose League is a
bit much!
David Latane
http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
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