The book contains most of the terms – culture, sweetness and light, Barbarian, Philistine, Hebraism, and many others – which are more associated with Arnold’s work influence.
The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. His often quoted phrase “ the best which has been thought and said” comes from the Preface to Culture and Anarchy: Melvyn Bragg visits the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, where Matthew Arnold first unveiled his ideas about culture being a powerful force for good. He further wrote that: “ seeks to do away with classes to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light ”. He also believed that the state administration system of education should replace the priestly programme leading to free thinking and more devotion to the community.
The preface was added in 1869.Īrnold’s famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s.Īccording to his view advanced in the book, “Culture is a study of perfection”. Arnold’s unremitting persuasion of modelling the masses who were uneducated into hard working and perfection striving individuals makes culture and anarchy much more interesting. Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867–68 and collected as a book in 1869.
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