Nineteenth-century English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was best known for his poems Dover Beach", “The Scholar-Gipsy”, and “Thyrsis”, and for his critical work “Culture and Anarchy”. Elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in 1857, Arnold was the first in this position to deliver his lectures in English rather than in Latin.

Arnold is regarded as one of the three great Victorian poets, along with Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning.