ABSTRACT
In "The Buried Life", Matthew Arnold elucidates the perplexity experienced by many nineteenth-century writers as they turned, in different forms of autobiographical discourse, to understand and then present the authentic selves they wished their readers to acknowledge and affirm. Arnold discerns a safeguard in a sort of Carlylean anti-self-consciousness that preserves one's psychic well-being against a restlessness of the meddling intellect. The Newman intended to arrest readers by his assertion of assured, almost ex morte stability of perspective seems clearnote the dismissively parenthetical "of course" in the initial sentence, calculated, along with the excessive nature of his declarations, to provoke thought, possibly even to call forth a skeptical disbelief that is induced only to be forcibly quelled. Newman presents Reding as, unqualifiedly opposed to argument about matters of faith. At Oxford as a first-year student, Reding initially wants a smooth simplicity, and the abundance of good will that distinguishes his personality disposes him to broadminded acceptance of diverse opinion.
