Book Description
This digital document is an article from Poetry, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 630 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Arthur Hugh Clough: 1819-1861.(ENTHUSIASMS)
Author: Michael Hofmann
Publication: Poetry (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 187Issue: 6Page: 495(2)

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Book Description

Book Description

Book Description
Arthur Hugh Clough is one of the most undervalued Victorian poets.His importance is now being recognized, and the New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse assigns him his rightful position as a major poet.While an undergraduate at Balliol and a Fellow of Oriel, Clough wrote a series of intensely personal diaries, which throw light not only on his own development as a poet, but on the Oxford education of the time and the religious sensibility of the early Victorian era.Having been influenced by Thomas Arnold at Rugby, Clough felt the attraction at Oxford of the charisma of Newman.He was torn between the liberal and the catholic view of Christianity and began to raise the questions which led him eventually to agnosticism.In lighter moments the Diaries show Clough boating on the river and walking with Matthew Arnold through the countryside immortalized by The Scholar Gypsy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The full-scale biography of one of the Victorian era's most modern and forward-thinking British poets
Written by a former President of the British Academy and Chair of the Board of the British Library, Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life is the full-scale biography of one of the Victorian era's most modern and forward-thinking British poets. Though his work fell into relative obscurity immediately after his death, it was revitalized in the Second World War when Winston Churchill quoted lines from "Say not the struggle naught availeth" during his efforts to attain American cooperation, including "Westward, look, the land is bright." Tracing Clough's life from his childhood to his schooling to his years in London, his marriage, and his final days, Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life examines the influence of Clough's life experiences upon his poetry at each stage, the important role that women played in his life and particularly in influencing his love poetry, the transitions of his character and personality, and much more. Black-and-white photographs and an index round out this exceptionally detailed portrayal and literary study.

The full-scale biography of one of the Victorian era's most modern and forward-thinking British poets
Written by a former President of the British Academy and Chair of the Board of the British Library, Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life is the full-scale biography of one of the Victorian era's most modern and forward-thinking British poets. Though his work fell into relative obscurity immediately after his death, it was revitalized in the Second World War when Winston Churchill quoted lines from "Say not the struggle naught availeth" during his efforts to attain American cooperation, including "Westward, look, the land is bright." Tracing Clough's life from his childhood to his schooling to his years in London, his marriage, and his final days, Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life examines the influence of Clough's life experiences upon his poetry at each stage, the important role that women played in his life and particularly in influencing his love poetry, the transitions of his character and personality, and much more. Black-and-white photographs and an index round out this exceptionally detailed portrayal and literary study.
... Read more

Book Description

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), poet, skeptic, friend of Emerson and of Matthew Arnold, was a man concerned with thereligious, political, and social issues of the turbulent times in which he lived. In this fresh examination of Clough, Greenberger traces the intellectual development of a poet who was considered a brilliant failure in his own day, a reputation that still persists despite the fact that Clough is now attracting considerable critical attention. Her study contradicts this traditional view of him as ineffectual and uncommitted and reveals instead a complex figure whose varied interests enriched his prose and poetry.

Greenberger has made a thorough study of all of Clough's prose on contemporary issues written between 1837 and 1853. These largely neglected writings, many of which remain unpublished, enable her to follow the poet's development through religious doubts and conflicts and to trace his political metamorphosis from naive idealism through radicalism to a final disenchantment with utopias. Having placed the poet's work in its proper historical context, the author goes on to reveal the great extent to which Clough succeeded in making the issues of his day viable subjects for poetry.

Greenberger, thoroughly versed in the intellectual history of the Victorian period, vividly depicts the English social and economic scene and contemporary life at unreformed Oxford. She suggests new insights into Clough's relations with Emerson, the influence of Carlyle upon the poet, and his reactions to the America of the early 1850's.

The author concludes that the techniques Clough developed for presenting his ideas in poetic form and the concerns that pervaded his thinking make him a precursor of twentieth-century literature. In the last chapter she relates her findings to Clough's three major poems. She includes in an appendix a number of new poems and other material by Clough found in manuscript during her research.