Born 10 June 1832. At King’s School, Rochester, 1845–50. At King’s Coll., London, 1850–51. Scholarship at University Coll., Oxford, 1851; Newdigate Prize Poem, 1852; B.A., 1854; M.A., 1856. To King Edward’s School, Birmingham, as Assistant Master, 1854. Principal of Govt. Sanscrit Coll. at Poona, and Fellow of Bombay University, 1857. Joined staff of “Daily Telegraph,” 1861. F.R.G.S., Jan. 1875 to May 1887. C.S.I., 1 Jan. 1877. Siamese Order of White Elephant (on publication of “The Light of Asia”), 1879. Second Class of Imperial Order of Medjidieh, 1876; Imperial Order of Osmanieh, 1886. K.C.I.E., 1888. Japanese Imperial Order of Rising Sun, 1892. Pres. of Birmingham and Midland Institute for 1893. Mem. Royal Asiatic Soc. Works: “The Feast of Belshazzar,” 1852; “Poems, Narrative and Lyrical,” 1853; “Griselda,” 1856; “The Wreck of the Northern Belle,” 1857; “Education in India,” 1860; “The Marquis of Dalhousie’s Administration,” 1862; “The Poets of Greece,” 1869; “Simple Transliteral Grammar of the Turkish Language,” 1877; “The Light of Asia,” 1879; “Indian Poetry” (to “Trübner’s Oriental Series”), 1881; “Pearls of the Faith,” 1883; “The Secret of Death,” 1885; “India Revisited” (from “Daily Telegraph”), 1886; “Lotus and Jewel,” 1887; “Poems, National and Non-Oriental” (selected), 1888; “With Sa’di in the Garden,” 1888; “In my Lady’s Praise,” 1889; “The Light of the World,” 1891; “Seas and Lands” (from “Daily Telegraph”), 1891; “Japonica” (from “Scribner’s Magazine”), 1892; [1891]; “Potiphar’s Wife,” 1892; “Adzuma, 1893; “Wandering Words,” 1894; “The Tenth Muse,” 1895; “East and West,” 1896; “Victoria, Queen and Empress” (from “Daily Telegraph”), 1896. He has translated: “The Book of Good Counsel” from “Hitopadesa,” 1861; “Political Poems by Victor Hugo and Garibaldi” (under initials: E. A.), 1868; “Hero and Leander,” from Musæus [1873]; “The Indian Song of Songs,” from “Jayadeva,” 1875; “Indian Idylls,” from the “Mahâbhârata,” 1883; “The Song Celestial,” from the “Mahâbhârata,” 1885; “The Chaurapanchâsika,” 1896.

Personal

  I have seldom seen a look even of surprise on the mobile face of this delightful optimist; never in my life one of anger. Few of us who study character have met a man of genius with such an enviable disposition, such courtesy and grace of manner, or one gifted with such an incessantly sunny nature. Most of us have our dark hours of depression. We are changeable, moodish, sometimes roaring with laughter, often down in the dumps, but never for one instant have I seen a dark cloud overshadow Edwin Arnold’s bright and attractive countenance. One of the best talkers I have ever met…. A man of Sir Edwin Arnold’s temperament can never grow old. He has, and ever must have, a young heart.

  As he appeared to American audiences, Sir Edwin Arnold was of large frame and good stature, with an open face, strong features, expansive brow, and a broad, full, and well-rounded head, thickly covered with iron gray hair. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue, mild, and courteous in expression. His general air was one of kindness and good breeding. He was in personal manner quite free from self-consciousness, and on the platform was always absorbed in his task and by his audience. His speaking voice was melodious, excellent in compass and timbre. It was, in fact, among the very best for use and wear that the lecture audiences had heard during twenty years. He has shown himself the respect of securing a careful training for his voice, and he knows how to take care of it. It has much of the highbred gentleness in it that made George William Curtis so great a favorite. In personal speech his English intonation was apparent, but when he read, it seemed as though the language lifted him above all such peculiarities. The modulation was perfect, and was indeed sometimes thrilling. He is one of the few poets that can both read and declaim their own poems. I was constantly reminded of Stanley’s expression that if Arnold had not been a great writer and poet, he would most assuredly have been a great actor, for at fitting times the delivery became animated and dramatic.

  Just at this moment from the parlor I heard the flutter of a silk dress, and a beautiful Japanese vision entered the room, and Sir Edwin Arnold arose and said, “Colonel, allow me to introduce Lady Arnold.” The fair Japanese lady was slender and statuesque; she had the bright eyes that lend brightness and never know shadow. Her knowledge of the English language was almost perfect, and she impressed me as a woman possessing a great, tender, loving heart, giving her all and asking no idolatrous homage. Her delight is in serving and willingly, more than willingly, for without thought she breaks the vase of precious ointment and wipes the feet of her beloved with the hair of her head. Sir Edwin Arnold is of medium height, straight as an arrow, and dressed in a gray suit. His eyes are gray, and his conversation gives you the impression, as Emerson says, “A man for whom no surprises await.” His rooms were filled with bric-a-brac, and many articles of rare beauty and exquisite taste, brought from India, Egypt, South Africa, America, and Japan, for he has roamed with willing feet over many lands. Many years he was Professor in an institution of learning at Poona, India.

The Light of Asia, 1879

  As to this great faith of Asia, a generation ago, Mr. Arnold tells us, little or nothing was known about it in Europe. This Poem, it may be hoped, will make it more widely known to English readers than anything else which has been written about it. For it is a work of great beauty. It tells a story of intense interest, which never flags for a moment; its descriptions are drawn by the hand of a master with the eye of a poet and the familiarity of an expert with the objects described; its tone is so lofty that there is nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament; it is full of variety, now picturesque, now pathetic, now rising into the noblest realms of thought and aspiration; it finds language penetrating, fluent, elevated, impassioned, musical always, to clothe its varied thoughts and sentiments. Nor is this surprising when we remember that the religion which is its inspiration is that of so many millions and so many ages, finding expression in the language of a scholar and a poet.

  Mr. Arnold’s poem is in many ways the most “important” that has been published in English for some time. In both theme and treatment it is as ambitious as it is possible to be without pretentiousness; it is interesting enough to secure the popular favor which will miss its finer points, and as an intellectual performance its merit is unmistakable enough to secure the instant recognition of reflective criticism. It has, it may be said, a prodigious advantage in its theme. It might be called the gospel of Buddha in verse according to Edwin Arnold, and the gospel of Buddha is, as every one knows, a very attractive thing…. In fine, we question if this poem would ever have been written if Mr. Arnold and his ancestors had never read the New Testament, by which we by no means intend to deny the parallelisms so often drawn between Buddha and Jesus, of course, but only to intimate the sense of its unworthiness as a natural reproduction of the life, character, and philosophy of Buddha with which this poem leaves one. On the one hand, therefore, Mr. Arnold stimulates small confidence as a synoptic evangelist, and on the other it is not wholly due to him that we have in his “Light of Asia” a noble and touching story, which can only be compared with that of the New Testament, as it is so often observed, and any passable presentation of which would have attractions that few narratives possess. Mr. Arnold’s presentation of it is much more than passable, but we shall not venture to call it poetic. Parts of it appear poetic, such as the lyric in the third book, and some of the sermon of Buddha before the king in book eight, though this is sorely weighted with its philosophy, which last is far too simple in essence to be paraded with pomp as a discovery.

  In the “Light of Asia” we find a life of the true sort. It is a life of Buddha by a hero-worshipper who is not ashamed to own his devotion. He has chosen his hero well, we must think. If only for the extent and duration of his influence, the founder of the great faith of Asia which has seen four-and-twenty centuries roll by, and still holds the hearts of a third of mankind, must claim the reverence which belongs to a masterpiece of religious insight…. It matters little to us that the story mounts back to times when it is hard to look for authentic records, that priestly tradition has overlaid the tale with many corruptions and inventions, and that the “Light of Asia” is a restoration, so to say, of the original story, and, like all restorations, but in a peculiarly high degree, is subject to the distortions and misconceptions of the restorer…. It would be a useless sort of flattery to tell Mr. Arnold that he has written one of the world’s great epics; for he shows too much poetical feeling not to be aware of his shortcomings. It cannot be denied that there is too large a proportion of halting lines, that he allows too often a false accent, and that he will write the same name (Himalâya, for instance) in several ways to fit the exigencies of his five feet. A much more serious fault is his fondness for queer words and odd constructions, which give the poem an air of affectation which can only mar its effect.

  I have been reading a most melancholy, but in parts beautiful book, Edwin Arnold’s poetisation of Buddhism, “The Light of Asia.” But what a Light.

  The world was ready for “The Light of Asia” when it appeared. It might not have been ready for it twenty years before, and it may outgrow it before another twenty years is past. Meantime, Sir Edwin occupies a place among the poets of England, and deservedly so, for admitting the obvious faults of its careless and hasty writing, and granting Buddhism as popularly interpreted, particularly in New England, to be as great a fad as the Faith Cure, “The Light of Asia” is a production that will preserve the name of its author.

The Light of the World, 1891

  What might be expected from the nature of his studies, and the ethical cast of his sympathies. It contains the poetical qualities that distinguished “The Light of Asia;” is rapid in its movement, picturesque in its treatment, reverent in intention, and is likely to interest a larger class of readers than he has ever had before—an emotional class, which, admiring rather than criticising, will give him a high place among sacred English poets.

  It is no disparagement of Sir Edwin Arnold to say that he has failed where none of his contemporaries could well have succeeded. I have endeavoured to measure his work by the great standards of poetic aim—such an attempt challenges no less a consideration. Sir Edwin Arnold would ask no less—but, judged by the smaller ideal of mere literary workmanship, there is, within the broad failure, much of charming and strenuous success, many vivid pictures, beautiful lines, and strongly expressed thought.

  In “The Light of the World” Sir Edwin Arnold essays the profoundly difficult task of telling anew the story of Christ. Though not without occasional beauty, the poem is far from being successful, and exhibits in a marked degree many of its author’s most characteristic faults.

General

  There is little that need be said in praise of this wonderful Oriental love-song, after such passages as these. Whether one reads it for its poetry alone, or, as some are said to read the love-songs of Solomon, to discover figurative meanings underneath the poetry, there is an abundant reward for the perusal. Its passion is genuine and deep—like that of the love-songs of Burns; and its music is in many places exquisite and haunting. Mr. Arnold’s warm admiration of Radha, will be little wondered at by those to whom this embodiment of this lovely being in the colder form and more sombre colorings of English verse shall suggest the free and luxurious charm which she must have owned in her native garb.

  The Sanskrit scholar who takes up the translations which Mr. Edwin Arnold has made from the Mahâbhârata will first ask himself how far the Anglicised version corresponds with the phraseology of the original; but the literary critic who cannot claim acquaintance with the prodigious poem that epitomises the antique Hindu world will first ask himself how far the net result of the translation as he finds it is an addition to the store of English poetry…. In any case, Mr. Arnold’s book is rightly named; and, when we bring it to that first test to which we think it fairly liable, we have no difficulty in saying that it is a valuable addition to the store of English poetry…. We cannot better describe these legends than to say they are works of fancy and understanding. There is elation and grandeur in them here and there, but the great body of them do not rise above the level of ordinary common-sense, rendered beautiful by gleams of that faculty—fancy—which finds parallels of imagery and antithesis of phrase…. It was Milton’s rule of poetry that it should be simple, sensuous, and impassioned. The first two of these conditions Mr. Arnold’s “Idylls” fulfil, but they fall short of the last.

  The artistic value of these “Idylls” is of a high order. Mr. Arnold assures us that “the Sanskrit verse is ofttimes as musical and highly wrought as Homer’s own Greek.” His translation makes good the statement. The reader easily forgets that he is reading a translation. Mr. Arnold’s muse strings her own lyre. Poetic inspiration rings through every line. The themes are simple; but the artistic treatment lends them a weight and gives them a rounded finish rarely held by poems of greater pretensions.

  During the latest quarter of a busy life he has gained a respectful hearing in his own country and something like fame in America. He is not a creative poet, yet the success of his Asiatic legends is due to more than an attractive dressing-up of the commonplace. He has zest, learning, industry, and an instinct for color and picturesqueness strengthened through absorption of the oriental poetry, by turns fanciful and sublime. Above all, he shows the advantage of new ground, or of ground newly surveyed, and an interest in his subject which is contagious. There is a man behind his cantos, and a man clever enough to move in the latest direction of our unsettled taste and thought.

  It is scarcely possible to open Sir Edwin Arnold’s version of Sa’di without finding something that one would like to quote…. The perusal of them has something of the effect of a change of climate. We open the book, and forthwith leave behind our modern practical life, to find ourselves in a spiritual region of yearning, an ecstacy, and high-strung devotion. We close in, and come back to our work-a-day world with a feeling as if we had been breathing a softer and purer air.

  He cannot of course be placed—he would not, I am sure, dream of any claim to be placed—on the same line with the two great poets whom this era has produced—Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning. In any attempt to rank the poets of this generation a line must be drawn between their names and that of any of their contemporaries…. Nor again can Sir Edwin Arnold match the exquisite felicities of diction, the consummate taste and classical refinement of Mr. Matthew Arnold; nor is he gifted with the rich vocabulary and lyric frenzy—what De Quincey might have called the “jewelly hæmorrhage” of words and metaphors—which are to be found in the best work of Mr. Swinburne. But he has little to fear from comparison with any other poet of our time, and the intrinsic merit of his poems will secure them a permanent place in English literature.

  Does not the frank story of the fair Asenath [“Potiphar’s Wife”], the wife of Potiphar, belong to “the locked book-case?” Surely no French novel was ever more “realistic.”

  The popularity of Sir Edwin Arnold’s poetry is curiously characteristic of the British temper. His two pseudo-epical productions, “The Light of Asia” and “The Light of the World,” have found a joyous acceptance in every middle-class household. There is sufficient reason for this: the literary sensibilities of the great middle-class are but coarse; monotonous rhythm and poverty of imagination jar not upon them at all; the exaggeration of ineffective epithet and the constant strain after cheap sensuousness give them mild but unfeigned pleasure. Then, again, Sir Edwin Arnold, is always intelligible; not, indeed, through any crystal limpidity of phrase, but because his thought never goes deep enough to be obscure, or to call for answering subtleties of intellectual activity on the part of the reader. And, lastly, he has drawn his materials from the only subjects perennially interesting to the middle-class, the mysteries of religion; that is to say, he has uniformly degraded high themes by tawdry treatment, and presented ideal figures in a lurid and distressing light.