Arnold offers an explicit definition of culture from the outset of Culture and Anarchy, describing it in his Preface as “a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know […] the best which has been thought and said in the world” (82). Arnold’s main thematic preoccupation throughout Culture and Anarchy is the transformative power of culture to elevate individual men and women, as well as mankind as a whole.

For Arnold, the characteristics of true culture are twofold. First, the essence of culture is embodied in his famous maxim, “sweetness and light”: Culture brings together beauty (“sweetness”) and reason or intelligence (“light”) into a harmonious balance, allowing individuals to recognize and reflect “reason and the will of God” (155). Culture is, in essence, a uniting and civilizing force for Arnold. When an individual is ignorant of culture, they are at the mercy of their “ordinary” self—the selfish, idiosyncratic individualism that leads a person into pursuing their own desired ends even at the expense of the greater good. Culture, by contrast, appeals to a person’s “best” self; it brings a person “ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming” (165), thereby transforming the imperfect individual into something more closely resembling that higher, perfect ideal.