By Dr Oliver Tearle
‘Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth’ is one of two poems by the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-61) which are still widely read, anthologised, and analysed, the other being his satire on Victorian attitudes to the Ten Commandments, ‘The Latest Decalogue’. ‘Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth’ – in other words, ‘don’t tell me that struggling doesn’t achieve anything’ – is all about the virtue of trying hard and striving to achieve something.