Matthew Arnold is a well-known figure of the Victorian era. This era is very glorious in the history of England because it is an exemplary progress in all branches of life. This era is very popular for its material prosperity, political awakening, democratic reforms, industrial and mechanical progress, scientific development, social unrest, etc. He remained pessimistic at the time due to a conflict between religion and science. He wrote a book ‘Culture and Anarchy’ with a view to reviving the values that were like honey in the ancient Greek. He checks the values of his own time in light of that culture. His work ‘Culture & Anarchy’ is a collection of some separate essays; they show his struggle and struggle against material wealth.
Here we analyze his concept on ‘Sweetness & Light’. In this treatise, his central focus and argument is curiosity. It is defined as a liberal and intelligent desire for the things of the mind or mental activities. According to him, the birthplace of curiosity is desire. It is the desires that make a body pursue them. The work of desire is to see things as they are. If he is pursued by an intelligent person with an unbiased understanding of the mind, he becomes praiseworthy. You have a genuine scientific passion that is the right kind of curiosity. Such curiosity leads us to the real culture. So, beyond the man of culture is curiosity.
Matthew Arnold thinks about a social aspect of culture. He proceeds from love of neighbor. In other words, it can be said that this aspect of culture is born out of the desire to eliminate human error and lessen human misery. He is a person of culture who works in society for its improvement. Such desire sees things as they are, and the cultured man acts impartially with eagerness. So, he gives birth to sweetness and light. He calls it a real culture that inspires a person to see the world better and happier than he found it. In fact, he occupies a genuine scientific passion and a balance and instruction of the mind to fight against the sick inclination of the mind.
The author goes to the origin of the culture that lies in the love of perfection. In other words, culture can be said to be a study in perfection. Two dominant desires work in harmony in him, the scientific passion for pure knowledge and the moral and social passion for doing good. The man of culture must have the pursuit of pure knowledge with impartial desire or passion and prevail in society to reduce human miseries. Such miseries can be lessened by the prevailing sweetness and light, which is the work of a man of culture or a man who pursues perfection. Such work is easy for a man of culture.
The culture is inclined to allow real reason and the will of God to prevail. It consists of the study and the search for perfection. The direct inspiration for man to desire perfection comes from religion. Arnold calls religion “the voice of the depths of human experience.” All the voices of human experience are available in art, science, poetry, philosophy, and history to which a man of true culture listens with distinguished attention. All the above fields make man internally perfect, or the end of him is total human perfection. The outward expression of culture is shown in the sweet general expansion of human nature’s thoughts and feelings, rich in dignity, wealth and happiness. Culture brings both internal and external perfection of the human being. Give up all partialities and errors of man. The biases and errors make anarchy in society.
Arnold finds a sincere and genuine connection between the culture and the idea of sweetness and light. His ideal culture man is a Greek man named Euphuasis. Arnold borrowed the phrase “sweetness and light” from Swift. The character of a man of culture is shaped by religion and poetry. The goal of religion is to make man ethically perfect, while poetry has the idea of beauty and perfect human nature in all its aspects. Culture has the power to make peace and satisfaction prevail by killing our bestiality and bringing us perfectly closer to the world of spirituality. In fact, religion fails to bring us to such perfection. He describes the religious organizations of his day in England that seem to have failed morally. He presents an example of Puritanism that is based on man’s drive toward moral development and self-conquest. This perfection leads to the idea or impulse of narrowness and insufficiency. He jumps to such a conclusion by judging religious organizations in terms of sweetness and light.
The culture has a perfection that is free from all kinds of narrowness, it opposes all mischievous men who have blind faith in machinery. In his opinion, the search for perfection is the search for sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness, in the end also works for light; he who works for light, in the end also works for sweetness. Those who work together for sweetness and light, work so that reason and the will of God prevail. Culture looks beyond the social, political, and economic machinery, beyond population, wealth, and industry, beyond middle-class liberalism, and eschews all kinds of narrowness and hatred. The culture has a high opinion, the passion for sweetness and light.
Arnold takes pleasure in insisting on awakening his contemporaries in all spheres of creative activities in art, literature, and life. He insists that the light of culture must guide this national awakening towards sweetness and light. Culture works differently, and it doesn’t work with prepared judgments and warning words. Its appeal is not limited to any peculiar class of society. It is about the best self that has been thought of and known in today’s world everywhere. Culture is involved in making all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they can use ideas as she uses them freely.
The great men of culture believe in equality and open-mindedness. They are possessed by a passion to spread culture from one end of society to the other. They carry the best knowledge and the best ideas of their time. It is the duty of these men to humanize knowledge, and thus it becomes the best knowledge and thought of the ages, and becomes a true source of sweetness and light. The great men of culture broaden the base of life and intelligence and work powerfully to expand sweetness and light to make reason and the will of God prevail.
Consequently, an educated man is like a honey bee. The job of the honey bee is to suck the juice from all the flowers (sweet or sour) and make honey. Honey is sweet and appreciated by all in all its forms. Honey has wax that is not useless because light candles are made with it. Therefore, at the end of sweetness is light. In this way, a man of culture seeks knowledge from all departments and shares it with everyone. He is not narrow-minded because such knowledge brings perfection. So your search for perfection is sweetness and light.
