Edwin Arnold | |
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| Born | (1832-06-10)10 June 1832 Gravesend, England |
| Died | 24 March 1904(1904-03-24) (aged 71) London, England |
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| Education | |
| Notable works | The Light of Asia |
| Children | 6, includingEdwin Lester Arnold |
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Sir Edwin ArnoldKCIE CSI (10 June 1832 – 24 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist. He is best known for his 1879 work,The Light of Asia.[1]
Born inGravesend, Kent, Arnold's early education atKing's School, Rochester, and later atKing's College London andUniversity College, Oxford, laid the groundwork for his career. Initially a schoolmaster and later the Principal of theDeccan College in India, Arnold's experiences abroad influenced his literary endeavors. He became associated withThe Daily Telegraph, serving as its editor-in-chief, and facilitatedH. M. Stanley's exploration of Africa. Arnold's poem,The Light of Asia, an exploration of Buddhist philosophy through the life ofPrince Gautama, earned him widespread acclaim. Despite the success of this work, his later attempts to emulate its triumph withThe Light of the World centered onJesus Christ, faced mixed reception. Arnold's personal life was marked by multiple marriages, including one to a Japanese woman, reflecting his deep engagement with Japanese culture as evidenced in his writings. An advocate forvegetarianism, he played a significant role in the West London Food Reform Society alongside figures likeMahatma Gandhi. Arnold died at the age of 77, in London, in 1904.
Arnold was born atGravesend, Kent, the second son of aSussex magistrate, Robert Coles Arnold. He grew up at Southchurch Wick, a farm inSouthchurch,Essex, and was educated atKing's School, Rochester;King's College London; andUniversity College, Oxford, where he won theNewdigate Prize for poetry on the subject of "The Feast of Belshazzar" in 1852.[2] He became a schoolmaster, atKing Edward's School, Birmingham, and in 1856 went toIndia as Principal of theDeccan College atPoona, a post which he held for seven years, which includes a period during themutiny of 1857, when he was able to render services for which he was publicly thanked byLord Elphinstone in the Bombay Council.[3] Here he received the bias towards, and gathered material for, his future works.
Returning to England in 1861 he worked as a journalist on the staff ofThe Daily Telegraph, a newspaper with which he continued to be associated as editor for more than forty years, and of which he later became editor-in-chief.[4] It was he who, on behalf of the proprietors ofThe Daily Telegraph in conjunction with theNew York Herald, arranged the journey ofH. M. Stanley to Africa to discover the course of theCongo River, and Stanley named after him a mountain to the north-east ofAlbert Edward Nyanza.[3]
Arnold must also be credited with the first idea of a great trunk line traversing the entire African continent, for in 1874 he first employed the phrase "Cape to Cairo Railway" subsequently popularised byCecil Rhodes.
It was, however, as a poet that he was best known to his contemporaries. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work with this object isThe Light of Asia, orThe Great Renunciation, a poem of eight books in blank verse which was translated into various languages such asHindi (tr. byAcharya Ram Chandra Shukla).
In it, in Arnold's own words, he attempted 'by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary to depict the life and character and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer,Prince Gautama of India, founder of Buddhism.'[5] It appeared in 1879 and was an immediate success, going through numerous editions in England and America, though its permanent place in literature is quite uncertain. It is an Indianepic, dealing with the life and teaching of theBuddha. The poem was subjected to two lines of criticism: it was held by Oriental scholars to give a false impression of Buddhist doctrine; while, on the other, the suggested analogy betweenSakyamuni and Jesus offended the taste of some devout Christians.[3]
The latter criticism probably suggested to Arnold the idea of attempting a second narrative poem of which the central figure should be Jesus, the founder of Christianity, as the founder of Buddhism had been that of the first. But thoughThe Light of the World (1891), in which this took shape, had considerable poetic merit, it lacked the novelty of theme and setting which had given the earlier poem much of its attractiveness; and it failed to repeat the success gained byThe Light of Asia. Arnold's other principal volumes of poetry wereIndian Song of Songs (1875),Pearls of the Faith (1883),The Song Celestial (1885),With Sa'di in the Garden (1888),Potiphar's Wife (1892),Adzuma,[3] orThe Japanese Wife (1893), and "Indian Poetry" (1904).
In "The Song Celestial" Sir Edwin produced a well-known poetic rendering of the sacredHindu scriptureBhagavad Gita.[6]
Sir Edwin was married three times.[7] His first wife was Katherine Elizabeth Biddulph, of London, who died in 1864. Next he married Jennie Channing of Boston, who died in 1889. In his later years Arnold resided for some time in Japan, and his third wife,Tama Kurokawa, was Japanese. InSeas and Lands (1891)[8] andJaponica (1891) he gives an interesting study of Japanese life. He was appointedCSI on the occasion of the proclamation ofQueen Victoria asEmpress of India in 1877, and was knighted in 1888 (asKCIE). He was also honoured withdecorations by the rulers ofJapan,Persia,Turkey andSiam. One of his six children was the novelistEdwin Lester Arnold, born in 1857.
He was a founder member, together withAnagarika Dharmapala, of theMahabodhi Society of India and was a close associate ofWeligama Sri Sumangala.[9] Ablue plaque unveiled in 1931 commemorates Arnold at 31 Bolton Gardens in South Kensington.[10]
Arnold was avegetarian. He was vice-president of the West London Food Reform Society, a vegetarian group based inBayswater, founded in 1891, withJosiah Oldfield as president andMahatma Gandhi as secretary.[11][12] The Society was short-lived and dissolved as soon as Gandhi left Bayswater.[13] He also served as vice-president of theLondon Vegetarian Society,[14] after being invited by Gandhi.[15]
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Arnold, Sir Edwin".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 634. Cousin, John William (1910), "Arnold, Sir Edwin",A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.
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| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Daily Telegraph 1873–1888 | Succeeded by |
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