Rediscovering Matthew Arnold: The Commonplace Reader (of Dante)

Abstract

Mines Matthew Arnold’s notebooks and journals in order to explain how Arnold engaged with, received, and incorporated Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy into his own work. Argues that Arnold’s notebooks and diaries are, despite some scholarly opinion to the contrary, important sites for understanding Arnold’s construction of his “self-in-time,” especially as that authorial self relates to his reception and reading of Dante. Maps the movement from Arnold’s personal reading of Dante into the Italian poet’s eventual appearance in many of Arnold’s public pieces, a poignant example of Arnold applying and enacting his own “touchstone” method of reading.