{\b Arthur Hugh Clough}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 1 January 1819

{\b Date of Death}.: 13 November 1861

{\b Works}.

English poet. His first poem of note, The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich (1848) is 
written in classical Hexameters and tells the story of an Oxford scholar who 
marries a 'Scotch lassie'. Amours de Voyage (1858) is similar in its treatment 
of religious doubt, class conflict and romantic love. Clough's dissatisfaction 
with the attitudes of the Victorian age is most forcefully expressed in two 
poems which were not published until after his death: 'Dypsichus', which he 
described as dealing with the 'conflict between a tender conscience and the 
world'; and 'The Latest Decalogue', a biting satire on Victorian morality. His 
collected Poems became very popular when they were published in 1862.

{\b Featured Works}.

'Where Lies the Land to Which the Ship Would Go', 'The Last Decalogue', 'In a 
London Square', 'Qua Cursum Ventus'.

{\b General Comment}.

Arthur Hugh Clough's father was a Liverpool cotton merchant who emigrated with 
his family to America. In 1828 Clough was sent back to England to be educated. 
He attended Rugby school where he began a lifelong friendship with the 
headmaster's son, the future poet and critic Matthew Arnold. After Rugby he 
went to Oxford, and eventually became a fellow of Oriel College.

At this time Oxford dons were required to subscribe to the Thirty Nine 
Articles detailing the beliefs of the Church of England. Clough's religious 
doubts meant that he felt unable to do this, and he resigned his fellowship in 
1848, the same year he published The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich. Following his 
resignation he became Head of University Hall, London, for a short while, and 
also lectured in America, before eventually taking up a post as an examiner 
for the Department of Education.

Clough's religious difficulties were part of his general dislike of the 
established political and religious establishment of his day. He hated the 
Victorian capitalist system, and regarded himself as a republican. His 
sensitivity to the limitations imposed by class barriers provides a recurrent 
theme in his poetry.

Although Clough's beliefs (or lack of them) prevented his professional career 
from developing, his poetic achievement is considerable. As well as Matthew 
Arnold, he counted literary figures such as Ruskin and Carlyle among his 
friends, and his marriage to Blanche Smith in 1854 brought him much happiness. 
He contracted Malaria on a visit to Italy in 1861 and died in Florence. Ten 
years later Arnold composed an elegy for him, entitled 'Thyrsis'.