William Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater: The Romantic Notion of Education and its Relation to Culture

This research paper examines the relationship between Arnold, Pater and modernism through the mediation of Wordsworth's ideas on education. Arnold's ideas on education are inspired by Wordsworth, and Arnold remains the most influential critic and theorist of education in the 'Wordsworthian tradition'. It is important to acknowledge the centrality of Arnold's ideas since Wordsworth's influence on later writers was largely mediated through Arnold's writings. Arnold echoes the best of Wordsworth in his best prose work, Culture and Anarchy. Education is a great help to culture as he says emphatically that 'education is the road to culture'. He recommends 'the right educative influences…under the banner of cultural ideals'. Arnold's influence on Pater is well-known (even if he departs from him). Wordsworth is a common source of influence on both Pater and Arnold. It is argued that Pater's aestheticism is not simply its anti-bourgeois, anti-Christian quality but its links to the notion of education and development.