Incarnate Incoherence: Arnold, Victorian Tragedy, and the 1853 Preface

Abstract

Looks to explain Arnold’s conflict between self-absorption and public engagement by examining the concept of tragedy as understood by the Victorians. Reviews the two major formulations of tragic theory, classical and Romantic, to show that Arnold was working within a larger cultural context when he formulated his own ideas about the function of literature in his 1853 Preface, a theory that led him to move into the public sphere as a critic.