diploma-piece

Updated: May 13, 2025

Still it has always been held that this chair is not merely a chair of criticism; and Mr Arnold lodged a poetical diploma-piece in the shape of Merope. This was avowedly written as a sort of professorial manifesto a document to show what the only Professor of Poetry whom England allowed herself thought, in theory and practice, of at least dramatic poetry.

George Saintsbury - Matthew Arnold