SOURCE: Taylor, D. J. “Counterpoints.” New Statesman 127, no. 4376 (13 March 1998): 53-4.

In the following review, Taylor praises Hamilton's scholarship in A Gift Imprisoned. Taylor observes that Hamilton's biography of Matthew Arnold provides insight into the cultural context in which the poet lived and worked.

In Wild Oats, Jacob Epstein's novel of 1970s' US campus life, the hero, Billy Williams, is induced to explain the meaning of “Dover Beach” to an ignorant fellow-student. Effortfully, each cadence reduced to a demotic approximation, some kind of decoding is achieved, by which time initial bewilderment yields up to grudging approval of Arnold's sentiments: “Yeah, yeah. That makes some sense. The world's fucked up, but the dude's in there with some fox, so he don't give a shit.” A century and a half on, it's tempting to wonder what Arnold would make of this, whether the stern critic would mark it down as another...