Matthew Arnold is a well-known figure from the Victorian era. This era is very glorious in the history of England because it is 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 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 their struggle and struggle against material opulence.
Next, we analyze his concept about ‘Sweetness & Light’. In this treatise, his focus and central argument is on curiosity. It is defined as a liberal and intelligent desire for things of the mind or mental activities. According to him, the birthplace of curiosity is a wish. It is the desires that make a body chase. The job of desire is to see things as they are. If he is pursued by an intelligent person with an impartial understanding of the mind, he becomes worthy of praise. You have a genuine scientific passion that is the right kind of curiosity. Such curiosity brings us to real culture. So, beyond the man of culture is curiosity.
Matthew Arnold’s views on a social aspect of culture. It comes from love of neighbor. In other words, it can be said that this aspect of culture is born from the desire to eliminate human errors and reduce human misery. He is a person of culture who works in society for its improvement. Such desire sees things as they are, and the man of culture works impartially with enthusiasm. So, it gives birth to sweetness and light. He calls it a real culture that inspires a person to tilt the world better and happier than they found it. In fact, it occupies a genuine scientific passion and a balance and instruction of the mind to fight the unhealthy 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 it: 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 diminish human miseries. These miseries can be reduced if sweetness and light prevail, which is the work of a man of culture or a man who seeks perfection. That job is easy for a man of culture.
The culture leans for real reason and God’s will 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 deepest human experience.” All voices of human experience are available in art, science, poetry, philosophy, and history, which a man of true culture hears with distinguished attention. All the above fields make man internally perfect, or his goal is total human perfection. The outward expression of culture shows itself in the general sweet expansion of thoughts and feelings, rich in dignity, wealth, and happiness of human nature. Culture provides both internal and external perfection of the human being. Eliminate all biases and errors of man. The biases and mistakes make anarchy in society.
Arnold finds a sincere and genuine connection between culture and the idea of sweetness and light. Her ideal man of culture is a Greek 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 impose peace and satisfaction by killing our bestiality and approaching the world of spirituality with perfection. In fact, religion does not lead us to such perfection. It describes about the religious organizations of his time in England that seem to have failed morally. It presents an example of puritanism that is based on the impulse of man towards moral development and self-conquest. This perfection leads to the idea or impulse of narrowness and insufficiency. He reaches 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. He opposes all the antics of 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 machinery, social, political, and economic, beyond population, wealth, and industry, beyond middle-class liberalism, and avoids all sorts of narrowness and hatred. Culture has a great opinion, a passion for sweetness and light.
Arnold shows the pleasure of insisting on the awakening of 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 to sweetness and light. Culture works differently and does not work with pre-established judgment and words of observation. Its appeal is not limited to any peculiar class of society. It is about the best me that has ever been thought 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 ideas of their time. It is the duty of these men to humanize knowledge, and therefore, it becomes the best knowledge and thought of the times, and it becomes a true source of sweetness and light. The great men of culture broaden the basis of life and intelligence and work mightily to expand sweetness and light to make reason and the will of God prevail.
Consequently, a man of culture is like a honey bee. The bee’s job is to suck the juice out of all the (bittersweet) flowers and make honey. Honey is sweet and everyone likes it in all its forms. Honey has wax that is not useless because candles are made from it lightly. 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. It is not narrow-minded because such knowledge brings perfection. So your search for perfection is sweetness and light.
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