Culture and Anarchy
Also known as Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism
Matthew Arnold's 1869 essays recommending culture, "the best which has been thought and said", against Philistinism.
At a glance
Key ideas
Culture is a study of perfection, Fresh thought on stock notions, Sweetness and light …
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- Arnold's essays first ran in Cornhill Magazine in 1867 and 1868 and were collected as a book in 1869.
- He recommends culture, a study of perfection, as the way out of England's difficulties.
- Knowing the best that has been thought and said lets people turn fresh thought on habits they follow mechanically.
- He attacks the "Philistine" middle class for valuing material wealth and caring little for culture.
Why it matters
- It set out Arnold's High Victorian cultural agenda, which stayed dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s.
Key facts
- Author
- Matthew Arnold1
- Serialised
- Cornhill Magazine, 1867–18681
- Published
- 1869, as a book; the preface was added then1
- Origin
- Grew from his lectures as Oxford's Professor of Poetry2
- Editions
- Volume V of R. H. Super's Complete Prose Works (1965); Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, edited by Stefan Collini (1993)1
Key ideas
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Culture is a study of perfection1
Culture seeks "to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere".
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Fresh thought on stock notions1
Knowing the best lets people question habits they follow "staunchly but mechanically".
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Sweetness and light2
Culture would let all live in an atmosphere of "sweetness and light", a phrase first coined by Jonathan Swift.
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Philistines2
The great middle class, "the master force in our politics", believed England's greatness lay in material wealth alone.
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Culture against classes1
Culture "seeks to do away with classes".
Connections
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