The Scholar Gipsy
The Scholar Gipsy is a Poem Book that is Composed by Matthew Arnold in 1853. It is based on the 17th century. Here we explain all of the Chapter Line by Line.
Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill
Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill ;
Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:
No longer leave the wistful flock unfed,
Nor let the bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropped grasses shoot another head:
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of the Victorian era. It is a story of a 17th-century scholar who had to leave Oxford for want of money. He then lived among the gipsies and became immortal through his faith in the search for knowledge.
The poet here contrasts the feverishness, the sick hurry and the divided aims of modern life with the tranquil life of The Scholar Gipsy who applied himself assiduously and with single-minded devotion to one aim of searching for the right knowledge.
The poet himself, as it were, is sick of modern civilization, and for a time he wants to go back to the simpler and more primitive life. The poet imagines himself to be lying on the grass in a secluded corner of an elevated cornfield from where he can view the oxford towers.
He is talking to a shepherd about The Scholar Gipsy and takes up Glanvill’s book when the Shepherd retires. Arnold fancies that The Scholar Gipsy continued to be seen at intervals in the places which he had frequented, and the first half of the poem contains descriptions of the country around Oxford.
He flies from the contact of men, indulges in pensive dreams, rests on moonlit pales and listens to the songs of the nightingales.
The poet feels that The Scholar gipsy should not be dead offer the lapse of two hundred years, because his life was free from those shocks and storms which shorten man’s life. The poet asks him to avoid all contact with, and turn away from the restless life of today.
Here in these lines, the poet asks the shepherd to go and look at his flock of sheep as his fellow shepherds who are shouting for him from the hill and his flock of sheep as his fellow Shepherds are shouting for him from the hill and his flock is eagerly waiting to be let out of the pens made of hurdles.
He should not let them shout for him anymore and strain their throats, and make no further delay in allowing the sheep to graze before any fresh shorts of grass come out.
The poet says that with our greetings, speech and smiles he should fly in the same manner as some sober and ancient trader from Tyre, the chief Phoenician city in the north of Palestine while sailing in the sea saw the Greek coaster from a distance.
The coasters being small in size would not dare sail at night time. The Tyrian trader saw this small vessel emerging with the front part, from a sea cave, lifting gently the creepers from ‘the fringe or supply a decorative border as it were to a rock jutting out above the cave. The brow juts out above the socket of the eye.
He saw the coaster in the eastern part of the Mediterranean islands and saw the merry Grecian coaster coming, freighted with amber grapes, and wine from the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea, green bursting figs, and large ocean, fish steeped in the powder which will preserve them.
He knew the intruders on his ancient home. The Phoenicians had been ousted from the Aegean Sea by the Greeks.
Explanation The Scholar Gipsy
Roaming the country-side, a truant boy
Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
And every doubt has long blown by time away…
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of the Victorian era.
When our wisest fellow men also suffer, we lesser men can only endure the ills of life patiently and renounce all claims to bliss. Life is a long torturing dream. We have to bear all pangs and sorrows patiently. ‘Patience’ is close-lipped so that no groans or protections may escape.
We have to resign ourselves to the miseries and tribulations of life and endure them patiently in a spirit of calm resignation. This patience, the poet says, is allied to despair. But none has hope like the Scholar Gipsy.
He wandered through the fields and the forest roaming in the countryside, he was a happy boy, nursing his project in joy undisturbed by doubts and fears. All his doubts were dispelled when he left Oxford a long time ago and joined the band Gipsies and dedicated himself to one aim.
Born in days why wits were fresh and clear
Born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
Before this strange disease of modem life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads were overtaxed, and its palsied hearts was rife
Fly hence, our contact fear!
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stem’
From her false friend’s approach in Hades
Wave us away, and, keep thy solitude.
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of the Victorian era.
The Scholar Gipsy should, by all means, shun our company which might infect him. The poet and the people of his age were born in England during the period of the commonwealth, which followed the stirring times of the Civil War and to which the story of Glanvil relates. But the Scholar Gipsy was born in a day! when wits were fresh and clear, and life runs gaily as the sparkling Thames.
He was born earlier and hence was unaware of this strange disease of modem life, its sick hurry, its divided aims. Our intellectual powers are trained by the multiplicity of the problems of modern life. As we have no vital faith, the spirit is paralysed and unable to achieve anything of worth.
Life in the poet’s days’ was common and prevailed at all places disunity, sick hurry, and materialism, there was no oneness of purpose in the life of the people; the people were earning money at the cost of health and happiness.
Hence the poet appeals to the Scholar to fly away from there and not to haunt the world of the poet’s age. He should still fly to the wood of the countryside which will give him shelter and protection from contamination by the strange disease of modem life, which is so common now.
Aeneas, leaving Troy with a fleet of twenty ships, was shipwrecked near Carthage, where he was kindly entertained by Dido, the Queen of Carthage, who was a widow. Dido fell in love with him, but Aeneas, commanded by the gods, left Carthage.
When Dido was deserted, she in despair took her own life. Later, Aeneas, led by Sibyl, went to the underworld to seek the advice of his father Anchises. There he met Dido. He addressed her trying to excuse himself but Dido turned away and did not even look at Aeneas.
As he had proved a false friend’ and been treacherous to her. She fled back to the shady grove. As Dido fled away in the Hsdes from Aeneas with her averted eyes. the Scholar Gipsy should also fly away from us and keep himself in solitude.
Still nursing the unconquerable hope.
Still nursing the unconquerable hope.
Still clutching the inviolable shade.
With a free onward impulse brushing through
By night, the silver branches of the glade
For on the forest skirts, where none ‘pursue.
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of The victorian era.
The Scholar Gipsy should cling to the shady recesses of the forest where none can disturb him. The Scholar having. withdrawn himself to the shade of his Inner-Self. has experienced ineffable bliss and no one can now intrude into his glorious privacy. the privacy and inner light.
The Scholar, still nursing the unconquerable hope, still clutching the inviolable shade, with a free onward. impulse brushing through.
by night which has been brightened by the silvery moon, should take refuge in the distant forest skirts. In the dense and deep forest. away from the sickness of this world of materialism, none shall pursue him.
The Scholar should emerge on some mild pastoral slope. and resting on the moonlit fence. freshen his flowers, as in former years. with dew. or listen with enchanted ears, from the dark dingles to the nightingales.
The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold
For early didst, thou leave the world, with powers
For early didst, thou leave the world, with powers
Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
Firn to their mar not spent on other things;
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings
O life unlike ours’
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,
And each half lives a hundred different lives;
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope
Explanations: We have no vital faith or settled convictions, whereas the Scholar Gipsy always waited hopefully for the fulfilment of his aim which was firm, fixed and one. The Scholar left the world with powers fresh, early, unpolluted by the materialistic pleasures of the world.
He had a firm object, he did not spend his energy on other things; he was free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt which has baffled and fatigued the men of the age of the poet. His life was quite unlike ours; it was different from our common rut. We go on fluctuating idly without term or scope, aimlessly.
We go on striving for what we do not know; our life is grouped in darkness. We live a half-life; it is never a complete life with any fixity of aim and determination. We also wait like the Scholar but hopelessly.
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book
Come let me read the oft-read tale’ again,
The story of that Oxford sc. solar poor.
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain;’
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of the Victorian era. Near the poet on the grass is lying Glanvil’s book, Vanity of Dogmatizing.
The poet reads once more from Glanvil’s oft-read book the story of the Scholar who was forced by poverty left Oxford never to return.
The Scholar was very talented and brilliant. He had talents likely to produce something original. He left Oxford for want of a fellowship or living.
The Scholar frequently knocked at the doors of those who might have recognized his ‘pregnant parts’ and helped him to a remunerative post. But nothing came his way. No friend or patron helped him and in disappointment, he left Oxford.
He left Oxford on a summer morning to have occult and mystical knowledge possessed by the gipsies. Most men thought that he was wasting his talents by roaming with the gipsies. That Scholar Gipsy never came back to Oxford.
And near me on the grass lies a Glanvil’ book
And near me on the grass lies a Glanvil book
come let me read the opt-read tale again.
The story of that Oxford Scholar poor
Of pregnant parts & quick inventive brain
who is tired of knocking at Preferment’s door
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of the Victorian era.
Near the poet Matthew Arnold, there lay Glavil’s book, Vanity of Dog- mating on the grass. The poet had read more than once the very book of Glanville & he wanted to read the book again & again to know the story of the scholar.
That scholar was forced to leave Oxford due to his poverty & he didn’t return to Oxford. In a true sense, the scholar was very talented & Brilliant Hehe desired duce something original & unique. He left Oxford for want of fellowship or living.
It was surmised that the scholar had frequently knocked at the doors of those. Who might have recognised his pregnant parts gloomy stage of his life? He was swinging in the pole of disappointment.
While to my ear from uplands for away
While to my ear from uplands for away
The bleating 0 the folded blocks are borne,
With distant cries of reapers in the corn
All the life of summer’s day.
Explanations: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of The victorian era.
Here in these lines while asking the Shepherd to attend his work; the poet pointed to him the exact spot where the latter will wait for his return to resume the search.
In the meanwhile, he will stay at a particular comer of a shaded field where the reaper has left his food and jug of water and coat and where he will return after his morning work to take his food.
From the spot, he will enjoy the sand of the bleating sheep confined in pens and also hear the voices of the reapers working in remote upland fields. Thus the genial sound of living beings will be borne to his ears. From the uplands throughout the pleasant day of summer.
Thou hast not live, why shouldst thou perish, so?
Thou hast not live, why shouldst thou perish, so?
Though hadst one aim, one business, one desire
Else went thou long, since numbered with the dead!
Else hadst thou spent, like other men, they fire.
Explanation: These lines occur in The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold, a great poet of The victorian era.
Here in these lines, the poet says that The Scholar Gipsy could not possibly die, as his life was different from that of ordinary people. He had one aim in life to learn the gipsy lore and its secret; one desire to learn and then propagate it for the good of the world.
He was not distracted by the multiplicity of eyer changing aims in life. This constancy of purpose and singleness of devotion being quite different from the purpose of life pursued by ordinary people made him immortal.
What wore away the lives of others was not present in his case. Otherwise, he o would have died long ago, and his energies wrested as in the case of all others.
Read more from The Rape of the Lock (click)
