Matthew Arnold: Poems Summary and Analysis of "The Scholar-Gipsy
The
speaker of "The Scholar-Gipsy" describes a beautiful rural setting in
the pastures, with the town of Oxford lying in the distance. He watches the
shepherd and reapers working amongst the field, and then tells the shepherd
that he will remain out there until sundown, enjoying the scenery and studying
the towers of Oxford. All the while, he will keep his book beside him.
His
book tells the famous story by Joseph Glanvill, about an impoverished Oxford
student who leaves his studies to join a band of gypsies. Once he was immersed
within their community, he learned the secrets of their trade.
After a while, two of the Scholar-Gipsy's Oxford associates
found him, and he told them about the traditional gypsy style of learning,
which emphasizes powerful imagination. His plan was to remain with the gypsies
until he learned everything he could, and then to tell their secrets to the
world.
Regularly
interjecting his own wonder into the telling, the speaker continues the
scholar-gipsy's story. Every once in a while, people would claim to have seen
him in the Berkshire moors. The speaker imagines him as a shadowy figure who is
waiting for the "spark from heaven," just like everyone else on Earth
is. The speaker even claims to have seen the scholar-gipsy himself once, even
though it has been over two hundred years since his story first resonated
through the halls of Oxford.
Despite
that length of time, the speaker does not believe the scholar-gipsy could have
died, since he had renounced the life of mortal man, including those things
that wear men out to death: "repeated shocks, again, again/exhaust the
energy of strongest souls." Having chosen to repudiate this style of life,
the scholar-gipsy does not suffer from such "shocks," but instead is
"free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt." He has escaped the
perils of modern life, which are slowly creeping up and destroying men like a "strange
disease."
The
speaker finishes by imploring that the scholar-gipsy avoid everyone who suffers
from this "disease," lest he become infected as well.
Analysis
Though
this poem explores one of Arnold's signature themes - the depressing monotony
and toil of modern life - it is unique in that it works through a narrative.
There are in fact two levels of storytelling at work in the poem: that of the
scholar-gipsy, and that of the speaker who is grappling with the ideas poised
by that singular figure.
Both
levels of story relay the same message: the scholar-gipsy has transcended life
by escaping modern life. As he usually does, Arnold here criticizes modern life
as wearing down even the strongest of men. His choice of the word
"disease" is telling, since it implies that this lifestyle is
contagious. Even those who try to avoid modern life will eventually become
infected.
In this way, the poem makes a comment on
the perils of conformity, as other poems in this collection do. What make the
scholar-gipsy so powerful is not only that he wishes to avoid modern life -
many wish to do that. More importantly, he is willing to entirely repudiate
normal society for the sake of his transcendence. There is a slightly
pessimistic worldview implicit in that idea, since it is clearly not possible
to revel in true individuality and still be a part of society. The
scholar-gipsy has had to turn his back entirely on Oxford, which represents
learning and modernity here, in order to become this great figure. And yet the
poem overall is much more optimistic than many of Arnold's works, precisely
because it suggests that we can transcend if we are willing to pay
that cost. This makes it different from a poem like "A Summer Night,"
which explores the same theme but laments the cost of separation that
individuality requires.
For
all his admiration, the speaker clearly has not yet mustered the strength to
repudiate the world. The setting helps establish his contradictory feelings.
The poem begins with images of peaceful, serene rural life, a place where men
act as they always have. They have been untouched by the perils of modernity.
Pastoral imagery has always been associated in poetry with a type of innocence
and purity, unfiltered humanity in touch with nature. The speaker is out in the
field contemplating this type of life, the possibility of acting as the
scholar-gipsy did.
And
yet he is also studying the towers of Oxford, which (as mentioned above)
represents the rapidly changing, strictly structured world that the
scholar-gipsy renounced. Arnold deftly expresses the speaker's split priorities
through this juxtaposition. At the same time that he admires the scholar-gipsy,
he cannot fully turn his back on the modern world. It is the same contradiction
that plagues the speaker of "A Summer Night."
Thus,
the poem overall represents Arnold's inner conflict, his desire to live a
transcendent life but inability to totally eschew society. At this point in his
life, Arnold felt pulled in different directions by the world's demands. He was
trying to resist the infection of modernization, but it was creeping up on him
nevertheless, and the pressure to conform was negatively affecting his poetry.
Undoubtedly, Arnold wished he could escape in the way the scholar-gipsy did;
however, he was too tied down by responsibilities to ever dream of doing so.
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