Matthew Arnold (1) (1822–1888)

ON THE STUDY OF CELTIC
LITERATURE AND ON TRANSLATING HOMER

INTRODUCTION.

THE following remarks on the study of Celtic
Literature formed the substance of four lectures given by
me last year and the year before in the chair of
poetry at Oxford. They were first published in the
Cornhill Magazine, and are now reprinted from thenes.

Again and again, in the course of them, I have marked
the very humble scope intended; which is, not to
treat any special branch of scientific Celtic studies (a
Mugaaine, and are now reprinted from thence.
task for which I am quite incompetent), but to point
out the many directions in which the results of those
studies offer matter of general interest, and to insist
on the benefit we may all derive from knowing the
Celt and things Celtic more thoroughly. It was im
possible, however, to avoid touching on certain points
of ethnology and philology, which can be securely
handled only by those who have made these sciences
the object of special study. Here the mere literary
critic must owe his whole safety to his tact in choosing
authorities to follow, and whatever he advances
must be understood as advanced with a sense of the
insecurity which, after all, attaches to such a mode of...… (más)