The Scholar-Gipsy Study Material

Summary

“The Scholar-Gipsy” was written by poet and essayist Matthew Arnold in 1853. The poem is based on a story which was found in The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), written by Joseph Glanvil.

The poem tells the story of a poor and disillusioned Oxford student who leaves university to join a group of traveling “gipsies” (Romani people). The Scholar-Gipsy wants not only to withdraw from his studies but also to withdraw from the modern world. He is so welcomed and becomes such a part of the "gipsy" family that they reveal some of their secrets to him. When he is discovered by two of his former Oxford peers, he tells them of how the Romani have their own unique way of learning. He plans to stay with them to learn as much as he can from them. He will then share their wisdom with the world, although he does not wish to return to that world himself.

Arnold begins his poem by describing a rural setting just outside of Oxford. The speaker watches as a shepherd and reapers work in a field there. The speaker remains, enjoying the view of the fields and Oxford in the distance until the sun sets, his book lying beside him.

Although the story (1661) was written two hundred years before the poem (1853), local people still claim to see the scholar-gipsy walking on the Berkshire moors:

This said, he left them, and return'd no more.— But rumours hung about the country-side, That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, The same the gipsies wore.

The speaker even claims to have seen this shadowy figure himself. He questions whether the scholar- gipsy could really still be alive after two centuries, but he also does not believe the scholar-gipsy could have died, as the legendary figure has turned his back on the everyday modern world and mortal life:

Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.

The speaker ends the poem by appealing to the scholar-gipsy to avoid mortals in case he should be infected by the disease of modernity.

Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!

Summary Matthew Arnold’s “The Scholar-Gipsy,” the major British Victorian poet’s central poem, anticipates the crisis of the modernist period. The poem is testament to Arnold’s preoccupation as a poet and a cultural critic: “this strange disease of modern life.” Arnold returns to this theme throughout his work, including in his poetic masterpieces Thyrsis (1866) and “Dover Beach” (1867) and in his major work of prose criticism, Culture and Anarchy (1869). “The Scholar-Gipsy” serves as a template for Arnold’s poetic and intellectual career and epitomizes his paradoxical combination of Victorian vigor and social progressivism with a protomodernist sense of dissociation arising from religious doubt, social fragmentation, and ennui. Written in a ten-line stanzaic pattern for a total of 250 lines, the poem is a major English pastoral elegy in the tradition of John Milton’s “Lycidas” (1637) and Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751). It bears the imprint of Arnold’s classicism, with allusions to Vergil’s Aeneid (c. 29- 19 b.c.e.; English translation, 1553) and its masterful conclusion in the form of an epic simile. At the same time, however, Arnold seems to undermine the sense of tradition, poetic or cultural, that he is seeking to maintain. The traditional pastoral elegy seeks to reaffirm a continuity between past and present and between the person who has died and the still-existing values that he or she had embodied.

The subject of Arnold’s elegy is a legendary, poor Oxford University student of the seventeenth century who has abandoned his studies to learn the occult ways of the nomadic Roma, or gypsy, people. The Scholar-Gipsy is portrayed not as dead but as existing in an immortal twilight of the Romantic imagination. Moreover, rather than reinforce a sense of cultural continuity, Arnold is at pains to warn his elegiac “subject” away from deadening contact with the modern world, which is portrayed as radically alien in form and values from those he inhabits.

Arnold’s unusual pastoral elegy begins well within the expectations of the genre. The poem’s speaker addresses an unnamed shepherd and describes the timeless pastoral duties involved in the care and feeding of his flock. However, even the first stanza suggests something is amiss, as the speaker pictures the sheep at night on a “moon-blanched green” and then urges the symbolic shepherd to “again begin the quest.” The moon becomes a symbol for the power of the imagination, and “quest” seems like a strong word for a simple shepherd’s job of rounding up sheep. The speaker interjects himself into the poem in the second stanza, portraying himself seated in a field high in the Cumnor Hills overlooking his alma mater, Oxford University. The speaker becomes both participant and observer of the setting: He catalogs the flowers in the field but also mentions a decidedly unnatural object that he has brought with him: Joseph Glanvill’s The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), which contains the original account of the Scholar-Gipsy.

In the subsequent four stanzas the natural world and pastoral convention disappear, as the speaker recounts the legend of the Scholar-Gipsy. Unsuccessful in knocking at “Preferment’s door,” the Scholar-Gipsy abandons Oxford University on a seeming whim “to learn the Gipsy lore.” Though the Scholar-Gipsy is a product of the seventeenth century, his quest for a natural philosophy or mystic connection with the spirit manifest in nature seems more in accordance with the British Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Scholar-Gipsy seeks a power of imagination capable of creating and not simply reflecting reality. Like the prophet-wizard at the conclusion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” (1816), the Scholar-Gipsy wants to learn the gypsy “arts to rule as they desired/ The Workings of men’s brains” and, moreover, “the secret of their art,/ When fully learn’d, . . . to the world impart.” The Scholar-Gipsy is a Romantic revolutionary who seeks to improve the world not through the industrial innovations of Victorian materialism but through a spiritual purification and reunification of humans with the universal spirit within nature.

The next seven stanzas continue the narrative of the Scholar-Gipsy’s quest for a divine knowledge that could reconcile human and divine, matter and spirit. However, the Scholar-Gipsy is both present and absent in the passage. The poem recalls various sightings of its subject from the time he left Oxford to the poem’s present. He appears on the banks of “the stripling Thames [River] at Bablock-hithe,” with peasant children at play among the Cumnor Hills, amid the gypsy camps of Bagley Wood, and finally upon a “causeway chill” in the dead of winter. The Scholar-Gipsy—both a seemingly real person and figure of myth—appears and disappears in all seasons. Significantly, neither Arnold nor his speaker seem capable of imagining the Scholar-Gipsy’s quest “for the spark from heaven to fall” from the Scholar-Gipsy’s interior point of view. The subject of the poem remains oddly absent. The poem’s major break comes with the line “But what—I dream!” His imaginative reverie broken, the speaker at first acknowledges in accordance with nineteenth century realism that the Scholar- Gipsy must be long since dead and, in an allusion to Thomas Gray, “in some quiet churchyard laid.” However, like Romantic poet John Keats, who endows a common bird with the immortality of the imagination in “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819), Arnold’s speaker suddenly declares that the Scholar- Gipsy, too, lives on and has achieved his quest for immortality because he has remained untainted by contact with ennui and the spiritual desolation of the modern world: “O Life unlike to ours?/ Who fluctuate idly without term or scope.” Arnold’s speaker can imagine the possibility of imaginative transcendence and the validity of waiting for the “spark from Heaven”; however, he resolutely denies the possibility for his contemporaries, “Vague half-believers of our casual creeds,” including even “our wisest,” limited to mere lamentation for “the dying spark of hope.”

The final five stanzas complete the break with the pastoral elegy and almost subvert literary tradition itself. In self-disgust, Arnold’s speaker urges the Scholar-Gipsy to maintain his immortal spirit of transcendent imagination, which can only be accomplished by fleeing contact with the modern world, which is “feverish” and infected with “mental strife.” The final two stanzas provide an epic simile for a modern world no longer capable of epic thought or in tune with the wisdom of classical tradition. The passage compares the modern audience in the antique garb of a “Tyrian trader,” who has mastered the waves and commerce of material goods. However, the Scholar-Gipsy must maintain his distance to avoid the infection of modern life—like Iberian “[s]hy traffickers” of antiquity who traded with a more technologically advanced Tyrian culture but shunned actual contact with it to maintain their unity of culture—leaving their goods on the shore for Tyrian traders to pick up and leave their own trade-goods in return.

Themes

The Boredom Bred by Modern Life One of the themes of "The Scholar-Gipsy" by Matthew Arnold is the ennui and boredom bred by modern life. The narrator of the poem clearly finds everyday modern life lacking in excitement and inspiration. He describes everyday life in the following way: "repeated shocks, again, again / Exhaust the energy of strongest souls." Everyday life is wearying and exhausts the mind and body. It is from this kind of wearying life that the scholar-gipsy of lore has escaped. The narrator admires the scholar- gipsy for being able to find release from the life of a scholar in Oxford. Instead, the scholar-gipsy escapes into nature with a band of "gipsies," or Romani people. The "gipsies" represent a group that does not follow modern, industrial patterns but instead still wanders and tries to make a life by reading people's minds.

Nature as Release from Modern Life Another theme is the way in which nature provides a release from modern life. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator is watching shepherds in a pasture. Stalks of flowers shade him from the sun, and the narrator sees the towers of Oxford in the distance. These towers represent the ugly, unwanted intrusion of modern life into a perfectly pastoral scene. Later, the narrator believes he and others see the scholar-gipsy in fields and pastures. The scholar-gipsy has a free, unfettered life in nature, which represents the freedom of life before the industrial age.

Nature as Inspiration A related theme is the inspiration that comes from nature. Arnold writes about the scholar-gipsy, "Thou waitest for the spark from heaven!" The narrator believes that the scholar-gipsy is able to receive divine inspiration and is closer to the sources of this inspiration than he himself is. In contrast, the narrator says that people in modern life are "light half-believers of our casual creeds." The narrator believes that modern people are not believers in anything and have no real convictions. The scholar- gipsy is closer to sources of authentic joy than the narrator and others living modern lives are. While nature brings the scholar-gipsy a life of happiness and creativity, modern people in a more industrial world lead stale, uninspired lives.

Characters

Matthew Arnold's poem "The Scholar-Gipsy" is based on Joseph Glanvil's The Vanity of Dogmatizing. It has three main characters and a group of unnamed minor characters.

Joseph Glanvil Joseph Glanvil is in the preface to the poem. He was a real-life English philosopher and clergyman in the 1600s who argued for rationalism, tolerance, and science. But he also argued for the existence of witches and evil spirits, and his writings were used to justify witch hunts.

The Speaker The poem's speaker, usually considered to be Arnold himself, introduces, tells, and comments upon the story of the wandering scholar as he sits on a hill above Oxford with Glanvil's book.

The Scholar-Gipsy The scholar-gipsy of the title is a poor Oxford student who joins a wandering band of "gipsies," or Romani people. (The term "gypsy" is usually considered derogatory today.) The scholar realized Romani have their own forms of learning. Once he has learned all he can from them, he will share it with the rest of the world. In the twentieth century, scholar Marjorie Hope Nicholson identified the scholar as based on Francis Mercury van Helmont, an alchemist, diplomat, pioneering early chemist, and believer in an esoteric school of thought called Kabbalah.

The Scholar's Colleagues Two colleagues of the scholar-gipsy from Oxford also make a brief appearance in the poem, sharing what they know of the "gipsies."

The "Gipsies" The unnamed members of the band of Romani people, "gipsies," share their knowledge as well. Romani people are believed to have originally come from India, making their way across the Middle East and North Africa, eventually to Europe and then the rest of the world. In Europe, they faced strong stigmas and much persecution and violence, even pogroms and genocide during the Holocaust alongside Jews. They were often accused of or associated with thievery or deception. In many stories they are portrayed as fortune-tellers or practitioners of magic, including the casting of curses said to bring bad luck or misfortune.

Analysis

Matthew Arnold is recognized as one of the most well-known poets of the Victorian era. Victorian poetry focused on using sentimentality and imagery to convey the feelings or message the poet wished to express. The topics of nature and Romantic ideals were common points of inspiration for writers of the Victorian period.

In his poem "The Scholar-Gipsy," Matthew Arnold uses many examples of vivid imagery to paint a picture of the natural world surrounding the speaker. As the speaker is reclining somewhere near Oxford, he describes the beauty of the natural world all around him.

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; And air-swept lindens yield Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid

As the speaker takes in his surroundings, he begins to narrate the main story that flows through the poem. It revolves around a friend that the speaker knew at Oxford who chose to leave his studies to join a band of traveling "gipsies" (Romani people). This friend that he knew chose to pursue a different type of life: a life of freedom, travel, and exploration of the world and Roma customs, transforming him into the "scholar-gipsy."

Nature is the backdrop that is woven throughout the entire poem, representing the freedom the speaker longs for, an escape from "what wears out the mortal life of men." The speaker describes the adventures of the scholar-gipsy with color and vividness, as in the "dark bluebells" or "purple orchises." The scholar-gipsy represents what the speaker wishes he could be: a truant boy Nursing thy project in unclouded joy And every doubt long blown by time away.

In contrast, the speaker feels he is stuck in a much different reality, and he longs to return to his carefree days at Oxford, when he was younger and the world was still full of possibility— when wits were fresh and clear and life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames.

Now, the speaker feels weighed down by the responsibilities and pursuits of daily life and his inability to "borne fruit in deeds." The scholar-gipsy becomes something more than just a mortal person to the poet; he is seen as an almost immortal being who has risen above the "strange disease of modern life." The scholar-gipsy has learned the secrets of the world, something that the speaker has been unable to accomplish, for he feels he will "lose to-morrow the ground won today." Ultimately, the scholar-gipsy comes to represent an unattainable state of being for the speaker, because unlike the mortal speaker with his limitations, the scholar-gipsy waits for "the spark from heaven."

Matthew Arnold uses the natural world, beautiful imagery, and sentiment to express the speaker's frustration, the limitations imposed on him by the world, and the person he dreams of becoming.

Quotes

At the beginning of the poem, the narrator is watching a bucolic scene of shepherds and other aspects of rural life. In these lines, he describes a rural scene in which nature and its beauty hold sway. Here, modern life and its industry and bustle do not affect the scene. Instead of tall buildings, there are only the stalks of flowers that shade the narrator from the sun. He has momentarily forgotten the cares of the world and achieved a state of transcendence. Nature has inspired him to transport himself to another state in which modern life seems far away. However, at the end of the stanza, his eyes catch sight of Oxford's towers, symbolizing his cares and the travails of modern life. The towers of Oxford stand in stark contrast to nature and its comforts, and they remind him of the story of the "scholar- gipsy" who escaped modern life.

Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew, His mates, had arts to rule as they desired The workings of men's brains, And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. "And I," he said, "the secret of their art, When fully learn'd, will to the world impart; But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill."

The narrator recalls the story of the scholar-gipsy that he read about. This man left Oxford to travel with a band of "gipsies" (Romani people, then called gypsies), and his friends from Oxford found him. He told them that the "gipsies" had revealed to him everything about life that he needed to know, including the art of reading other people's minds. He planned to learn their arts, but he needed divine inspiration, or "heaven-sent moments," to learn these skills. The scholar-gipsy has rejected the learning of Oxford for the more spiritual ways of the Romani, and he wants divine inspiration to learn their ways. His life has become a rejection of modernity and an embrace of older, more traditional ways of life.

—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers.

The narrator claims to have seen the scholar-gipsy in various places in nature until he realizes that the scholar-gipsy was supposed to have lived two hundred years before. The scholar-gipsy acquires the characteristics of a supernatural being. The narrator writes that the scholar-gipsy has transcended the cares and mortality of other men. People who live modern lives are subject to shocks and stresses that wear out their souls and numb their powers of resilience, but the scholar-gipsy has immortal powers because he has transcended the life of modernity for a more spiritual existence. The narrator years for this type of escape from the cares and strains of modern life.