Matthew Arnold, Thyrsis

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Matthew Arnold’s “Thyrsis”, occasioned by the death of Arnold’s friend and fellow poet Arthur Hugh Clough in Florence in 1861and published in 1866, is one of the last pastoral elegies composed by a major English poet. It has traditionally been grouped with Milton’s “Lycidas” and Shelley “Adonais” as one of the three best pastoral elegies in English poetry

.

David Riede discusses “Thyrsis” along with “The Scholar Gipsy” under the heading “Pastoral Elegy” in his study of Arnold’s poetry (Riede 147-56), and Patrick Connolly has recently reiterated the poem’s dependence on the “long ancestral line” of pastoral elegy: “As a poem ‘Thyrsis’ falls within the pastoral elegy, though this may not be obvious at first reading. Consequently it is dependent on…

2398 words

Citation: Clausson, Nils. "Thyrsis". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32187, accessed 19 March 2024.]

32187 Thyrsis 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.