Source identified1
Image design Botanical Sage
Read & copy
“The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay.”
Meaning & context
Arnold predicts an enduring cultural role for serious poetry as inherited beliefs and institutions become less secure.
Source details
'The Study of Poetry,' opening passage in the Matthew Arnold selection represented by Project Gutenberg #12628. Arnold begins by quoting his own claim that 'The future of poetry is immense' and then makes it the governing thought for his essay on poetry's critical and sustaining role. This is Victorian literary-critical forecast and cultural argument, not an empirical prediction that poetry will replace every other source of knowledge or support.