Culture and Anarchy

By the middle of the nineteenth century, culture was often considered to be nothing but a meaningless 'smattering of Latin and Greek'. In this work, first published in 1869, Matthew Arnold (1822-88) redefines culture as a striving for 'the best that has been thought or said', and as a contrast to 'philistinism' and the over-valuation of the practical. Critical of the uninspiring lifestyles of many...