Matthew Arnold BY LIONEL TRILLING NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PRESS LONDON GEORGE ALLEN and UNWIN, LTD. Copyright 1939, 1949, by
Lionel Trilling FIRST PRINTING 1939 BY W. W. NORTON COMPANY, INC.
REISSUED WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 1949 BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
AND GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN, LTD. REPRINTED 1958 MANUFACTURED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO DIANA CITY MO. PUBLIC PREFACE TO THE
SECOND EDITION BOOK was first published ten years ago. The demand I
for it during this time, although certainly not large, has been
--steady enough to have exhausted the last printing of the original
publisher this is naturally a satisfaction to me, and no less
gratifying is the action of the Press of my own University in
making the book again available. Because of technical
considerations a re vision of the text was not possible. I have
been able to correct certain literal inaccuracies, although
probably not all. But I have not been able to let my pencil follow
its strong, irritable impulse to alter phrases, sentences, and
paragraphs, or to modify and make juster the state ments that now
cause me uneasiness. For this I am very glad. One s sense of style
does, I think, improve with the years and one is likely to acquire
stricter notions of how prose should sound and of what is due one s
readers and possibly one even does also acquire more precise
notions of the way things are, of what the object really is. But
were I able to undertake incidental revisions I should certainly be
led on to fundamental ones, and I am relieved that circumstance pro
tects me from this temptation. Leaving aside the question of
whether or not it is proper to impose a present self on a former
self, I know that ten yearsago I had the advantage of a much more
intimate con nection with Matthew Arnold than I have now, and, of
much more knowledge of certain aspects of 19th-century thought.
When the book was done, I quite intentionally turned away from the
subject, know ing that my absorption in it had inevitably had its
effect on my mind, one that on the whole I thought beneficial, but
having no wish to be, Preface to the Second Edition as one says in
the academic profession, quot an Arnold man. quot Were I now to
undertake any fundamental revision, I should be tampering with the
work of a writer who, whatever the lapses of his knowledge, knew
more about certain matters than I do now and, whatever the failures
of his judgment, had the considerable advantage of a deep involve
ment with his subject. I may, however, without encroachment,
mention two faults of the book of which I became aware soon after
its publication. Mr. Ed mund Wilson remarked in a review that in my
narrative of Arnold s youthful stress the figure of Arthur Hugh
Clough is not sufficiently clear and solid I think that this is so,
and it is indeed a fault, and an opportunity missed. Then I am in
agreement with the reviewers who said that I did not pay enough
attention to the aesthetics of Arnold s poetry. I speak in
particular of these two insufficiencies because they are of a kind
which the reader can supply if once he has been put in mind of
them. The ten years have of course seen a continuing production of
scholarly and critical work on Arnold. I could certainly have
derived benefit from this work had it been available to me as I was
writing but, so far as I know, nothing has as yet appeared which
would lead me to change in any essentialway my account of Arnold s
thought. The two most considerable publications of the decade are
The Poetry of Matthew Arnold A Commentary, by Chauncey Brewster
Tinker and Howard Foster Lowry Oxford University Press, 1940, which
is mentioned in my original preface as not yet published, and
Matthew Arnold, Pohe Essai de biographic psychologique, by
Professor Louis Bonnerot Paris, Didier, 1947, The new edition of
Arnold s poems by Professor Tinker and President Lowry is on the
point of publication and Dr...
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