# Arnold's resignation seeks freedom from frustrated desire

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH06.P021](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH06.P021/#char=754,789): "the "resignation" of Matthew Arnold"

Arnold's poem *Resignation: To Fausta* (first published in 1849) provides a more specific target than a generally subdued Victorian temperament. Its speaker recommends surrendering passionate hopes for quiet and fearlessness, and finding a wider life beyond individual struggle. That supports Chesterton's contrast with passions retained at full force. But Arnold presents resignation as liberation and conquest of dependence on chance, rather than a weak average of optimism and pessimism. Calling it dilution is Chesterton's judgment of the remedy, not Arnold's description of its aim. The poem's distinction between the poet's wider vision and ordinary endurance also complicates treating its several voices as one flat attitude. [Inspected text: Macmillan's 1891 *Poetical Works*, pp. 52–62, especially pp. 59–62](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27739/27739-h/27739-h.htm).

## Sources

- [Matthew Arnold, Poetical Works (Macmillan, 1891), Resignation](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27739/27739-h/27739-h.htm), pp. 52–62; especially the passages beginning 'You listen' and 'Rather thyself for some aim pray' on pp. 59–60
- [Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, and Other Poems](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13364/pg13364-images.html), Chronological List of Arnold's Works: 1849, Resignation

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