Book review by DAVID BROWN

For 20 years Matthew Arnold, the Victorian social prophet, educational reformer and literary critic, attempted to resist his destiny to "make a difference" to the age in which he lived.

In his youth he was an impassioned lyric poet and produced Dover Beach, The Scholar-Gipsy and Empedocles on Etna. Yet he regarded his poetry-writing self as irresponsible and delinquent.

His arrival in Harrow in 1868 coincided with the loss of his battle as he succumbed to his destiny and the start of a `second life' on which his reputation now securely rests.

This suppression of poetry by "purposeful" critical prose is the subject of a compelling study by Ian Hamilton in A Gift Imprisoned: The poetic life of Matthew Arnold.

Arnold is one of the most mysterious figures of the last century and remains a fascinating subject. As a biographic narrative A Gift Imprisoned confronts a number of intriguing puzzles about his work and his life.

In the end it seems that Christianity and his father Thomas Arnold -- the great Rugby School headmaster -- were to blame for the abandonment of poetry.

In his late thirties he decided to renounce his "disparing agnosticism" and criticism was the method with which to advance his new found faith.

The year before Arnold arrived in Harrow his last book of new poetry was published and in 1869 a two volume collection of his work -- leaving a feeling that he was putting poetic affairs in order.

"Arnold himself, although he would always monitor the ups and downs of his poetic reputation with keen interest, was clearly in the mood to look back on the whole body of his work so far as if it formed a chapter of his life that was now closed," writes Mr Hamilton.

"His `poetic life', though, if we have to put a final date on such a deeply preordained demise, ended in 1869: the year his two volume Poems, and the year too in which Matthew Arnold became older than Papa."

He believed his own existance had been shamingly lightweight compared with that of the famous father.

"Two volumes of unapplauded verse was not enough," writes Mr Hamilton. "There had to be a "new begining", a new "poetryless" begining. But how much time was left?"

Mr Hamilton's book ends in 1869 with just a passing reference to the publication that year of Arnold's Culture and Anarchy which heralded his second life.

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