Matthew Arnold and Me: A Personal Memoir

Abstract

Recounts the author’s history with Arnold and Arnold studies. Describes how his work on The Arnoldian introduced him to Arnold’s poetry and prose and shaped his journey through academia: from student to scholar to administrator—a professional life that, like Arnold’s own, “shuttle[ed] ‘between two worlds’”—in Arnold’s case, between writer and schools inspector, in the author’s, between academic scholar and university leader. Claims Arnold can serve as a role model for how to live as an academic in the real world.