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The object of this paper is to plead in favour of rereading Matthew Arnold with a candid eye, at a time when literary studies reconsider historical and contextual approaches. A brief survey of the reception of Matthew Arnold’s critical work and of his influence on twentieth-century criticism will make for some assessment of his place in the history of ideas. Poet and critic, Matthew Arnold never claimed to be a scientist or a philosopher, and it may be argued that it was his strategy to maintain some degree of looseness in the definition of his concepts, as his idea of critical discourse was half-way between the scientific and the literary.