Dramatic and Early Poems Author:Matthew Arnold General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1902 Original Publisher: J.M. Dent Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / General Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy th... more »e General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: NOTES Preface and Hiitorieal Introduction tc Merope. -- Like every other substantive essay of Matthew Arnold's, the Preface to Merope is more than worthy of preservation. He never ieprinted it himself; but when he included Merope in the collected editions of his works he prefixed to the poem the brif quotations from Hyginus and Apollodorus (see pages 10 . ind n)and the "Historical Introduction," with its name chanjed to " Story of the Drama." Merope. -- It was not till 1885 that Arnold reprinted this poem, whether because the first edition was still " in stock," or because it had never received much public favour, who shall say ? It has not, with all its learning and accomplishment, either the lyric beauty and vivid realization of character, or above all the wonderful atmosphere of Empedocles. In conception and form it is perhaps more like a Greek play than any other English attempt in that kind. But the very learnedness of the treatment, and the strenuousness of the endeavour to be Greek in form and conception, have absorbed much energy which would have found a more truly poetic expression if forms more suitable to the genius of the English language had been chosen ; and thus this striking work is left too hard in its contours to give the highest pleasure communicable through a dramatic medium. Still, it must ever rank as a British classic. Empedocla an Etna. -- It is right to quote the poet's own condemnation of this beautiful poem from his Preface of 1853 : -- " I have...« less