ABIR LAL BISWAS
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MRS. SWETA ANTONY
MASTER OF ARTS ENGLISH (PREVIOUS) SEMESTER II
13 APRIL 2015
CULTURE AND ART: A CRITICAL CROSSOVER The origin of the very word “Culture” comes from the world of ‘agriculture’ from which it developed a metaphorical meaning in the eighteenth century for culturing the mind rather than crops. And in this sense gradually it became associated by the early nineteenth century with the knowledge of Greek, Latin and the fine arts. The acquisition of culture was a symbol of one’s elite status as these were the elements for a gentleman’s standard education. But Mathew Arnold in his Culture and Anarchy (1869) objects to this narrow definition of culture, terming it a combination of ‘Vanity and …show more content…
Thomas Arnold (1795- 1842) – the father of Mathew Arnold, a famous educator of that time insisted that, no matter whatever goal one choose to pursue in life, they must better be socially useful. In the other sense, to pursue a goal only for one’s interests for selfish causes alone was not enough. In his early adulthood as a dedicated poet, Arnold grappled himself with a grim problem of reconciling his love of fine art with the need for social utility, a topic that created the mainstay of his written correspondence with his nearest friend and poet – Arthur Hugh Clough (1819- 61). On this note, Arnold was a representative of the era in which handful of artists raised the question of the relevance of art to society; even as Victorian Britain underwent a radical social transformation, leaving behind its agricultural history in the wake of the new Industrial economy. Arnold’s thinking was precipitated by this incident and its violence represents the ‘Anarchy’ in his Culture and Anarchy. He hardly comprehend the requirement for social change while staunchly opposing violence. As one of Arnold’s biographer points out his job as a school inspector helped him to expose himself ‘to more working class children than any other poet who has ever lived’. The injection of social transformation into his new theory was the equation he delivered to combine his own love of fine art with social
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MRS. SWETA ANTONY
MASTER OF ARTS ENGLISH (PREVIOUS) SEMESTER II
13 APRIL 2015
CULTURE AND ART: A CRITICAL CROSSOVER The origin of the very word “Culture” comes from the world of ‘agriculture’ from which it developed a metaphorical meaning in the eighteenth century for culturing the mind rather than crops. And in this sense gradually it became associated by the early nineteenth century with the knowledge of Greek, Latin and the fine arts. The acquisition of culture was a symbol of one’s elite status as these were the elements for a gentleman’s standard education. But Mathew Arnold in his Culture and Anarchy (1869) objects to this narrow definition of culture, terming it a combination of ‘Vanity and …show more content…
Thomas Arnold (1795- 1842) – the father of Mathew Arnold, a famous educator of that time insisted that, no matter whatever goal one choose to pursue in life, they must better be socially useful. In the other sense, to pursue a goal only for one’s interests for selfish causes alone was not enough. In his early adulthood as a dedicated poet, Arnold grappled himself with a grim problem of reconciling his love of fine art with the need for social utility, a topic that created the mainstay of his written correspondence with his nearest friend and poet – Arthur Hugh Clough (1819- 61). On this note, Arnold was a representative of the era in which handful of artists raised the question of the relevance of art to society; even as Victorian Britain underwent a radical social transformation, leaving behind its agricultural history in the wake of the new Industrial economy. Arnold’s thinking was precipitated by this incident and its violence represents the ‘Anarchy’ in his Culture and Anarchy. He hardly comprehend the requirement for social change while staunchly opposing violence. As one of Arnold’s biographer points out his job as a school inspector helped him to expose himself ‘to more working class children than any other poet who has ever lived’. The injection of social transformation into his new theory was the equation he delivered to combine his own love of fine art with social