Discuss Matthew Arnold's poem "The Strayed Reveller" in detail.
Ans.The Strayed Reveller is an unrhymed lyric poem written in irregular metre, was originally published in Mathew Arnold's first volume of verse, The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems. This poem has received a very little attention, although it was very important for Arnold who gave it the place of honour in his first volume. It is often rega ded as an investigation of the creative process of a poet. The poem is remarkable for its detailed descriptive passages. The poet here of the Strayed Reveller chose the dangerous world of "natural magic" because he thinks that the god is indifferent and the human life is useless. The Strayed Reveller is an important document in the long argument between Arnold the romantic and Arnold the classicist. It also shows how Arnold's ideas about poetry interconnect with his ideas about God, nature and human life. At the core of the poem is a comparison between divine detachment and true poetic empathy as ways of seeing human life.
The best recent critique of the poem finding in it chiefly an analysis of the romantic mode of vision, disagree both about which part of the poem embody the romantic mode and about whether the poem rejects or celebrates it.
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