THE GREAT POETS: MATTHEW ARNOLD

Matthew Arnold's poetry is not widely read today, except for "Dover Beach" and perhaps "The Scholar Gipsy," but this selection shows the strengths that made him popular in the nineteenth century. Jonathan Keeble's readings are romantic, as the poems are, and they show the result of careful thought. Arnold's writerly craft and ideas come through. Keeble reads the antique diction and Romantic ideals as they might have been first heard, even if those qualities are no longer in fashion. The contemporary audience for Arnold's poetry is probably rather specialized, but these texts helped shape later poems and thinking about poems. Keeble gives us a more than worthy introduction to an important mid-Victorian artist. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2017]