WebAmong the major Victorian writers, Matthew Arnold is unique in that his reputation rests equally upon his poetry and his poetry criticism. Only a quarter of his productive life was WebGeorge Watson follows George Saintsbury in dividing Arnold's career as a prose writer into three phases: 1) early literary criticism that begins with his preface to the edition of WebIntroduction: Matthew Arnold (), the Victorian poet and critic, was 'the first modern critic' [1], and could be called 'the critic's critic', being a champion not only of great
Matthew Arnold Essay - UniversalEssays
Introduction: Matthew Matthew arnold essaysthe Victorian poet and critic, was 'the first modern critic' [1], and could be called 'the critic's critic', being a champion not only matthew arnold essays great poetry, matthew arnold essays, but of literary criticism itself. The purpose of literary criticism, in his view, was 'to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas', and he has influenced a whole school of critics including new critics such as T. Eliot, F. Leavis, and Allen Tate. He was the founder of the sociological school of criticism, and through his touchstone method introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and matthew arnold essays as the two primary tools of criticism.
Arnold's evaluations of the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are landmarks in descriptive criticism, and as a poet-critic he occupies an eminent position in the rich galaxy of poet-critics of English literature. Eliot praised Arnold's objective approach to critical evaluation, particularly his tools of comparison and analysis, matthew arnold essays, and Allen Tate in his essay Tension in Poetry imitates Arnold's touchstone method to discover 'tension', or the proper balance between connotation and denotation, in poetry. These new critics have come a long way from the Romantic approach to poetry, and this change in attitude could be attributed to Arnold, who comes midway between the two schools. To Arnold a critic is a social benefactor.
In his view the creative artist, no matter how much of a genius, would cut a sorry figure without the critic to come to his aid, matthew arnold essays. Before Arnold a literary critic cared only for the beauties and defects of works of art, but Arnold the critic chose to be the educator and guardian of public opinion and propagator of the best ideas. Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold. Scott James, comparing him to Aristotle, says that where Aristotle analyses the work of art, Arnold analyses the role of the critic. The one gives us the principles which govern the making of a poem, the other the principles by which the best poems should be selected and made known.
Aristotle's critic owes allegiance to the artist, matthew arnold essays, but Arnold's critic has a duty to society, matthew arnold essays. To Arnold poetry itself matthew arnold essays the criticism of life: 'The criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism matthew arnold essays the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty', and in his seminal essay The Study of Poetry' he says that poetry matthew arnold essays can be our sustenance and stay in an era where religious beliefs are fast losing their hold.
He claims that poetry matthew arnold essays superior to philosophy, science, and religion. Religion attaches its emotion to supposed facts, and the supposed facts are failing it, but poetry attaches its emotion to ideas and ideas are infallible. And science, in his view is incomplete without poetry. He endorses Wordsworth's view that 'poetry is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science', matthew arnold essays, adding 'What is a countenance without its expression? As a critic Arnold is essentially a moralist, and has very definite ideas about what poetry should and should not be. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas, he says, is a poetry of revolt against life, and a poetry of indifference to moral ideas is a poetry of indifference to life.
Arnold even censored his own collection on moral grounds, matthew arnold essays. He omitted the poem Empedocles on Etna from his volume ofwhereas he had included it in his collection of The reason he advances, in the Preface to his Poems of is not that the poem is too subjective, matthew arnold essays, with its Hamlet-like introspection, or that it was a deviation from his classical ideals, but that the poem is too depressing in its subject matter, and would leave the reader hopeless and crushed.
There is nothing in it in the way of hope or optimism, and such a poem could prove to be neither instructive nor of any delight to the reader. Aristotle says that poetry is superior to History since it bears the stamp of high seriousness and truth. If truth and seriousness are wanting in the subject matter of a poem, so will the true poetic stamp of diction and movement be found wanting in its style and manner. Hence the two, the nobility of subject matter, and the superiority of style and manner, are proportional and cannot occur independently. Arnold took up Aristotle's view, asserting that true greatness in poetry is given by the truth and seriousness of its subject matter, and by the high diction and movement in its style and manner, and although indebted to Joshua Reynolds for the expression 'grand style', Arnold gave it a new meaning when he used it in his lecture On Translating Homer :.
According to Arnold, Homer is the best model of a simple grand style, while Milton is the best model of severe grand style. Dante, however, is an example of both. Even Chaucer, in Arnold's view, in spite of his virtues such as benignity, largeness, and spontaneity, lacks seriousness. Burns too lacks sufficient seriousness, because he was hypocritical in that while he adopted a moral stance in some of his poems, in his private life he flouted morality. Arnold believed that a modern writer should be aware that contemporary literature is built on the foundations of the past, and should contribute to the future by continuing a firm tradition.
Quoting Goethe and Niebuhr in support of his view, he asserts that his age suffers from spiritual weakness because it thrives on self-interest and scientific materialism, and therefore cannot provide noble characters such as those found in Classical literature. He urged modern poets to look to the ancients and their great characters and themes for guidance matthew arnold essays inspiration. Classical literature, in his view, possess pathos, moral profundity and noble simplicity, while modern themes, arising from an age of spiritual weakness, are suitable for only comic and lighter kinds of poetry, and don't possess the matthew arnold essays to support epic or heroic poetry. Arnold turns his back on the prevailing Romantic view of poetry and seeks to revive the Classical values of objectivity, urbanity, and architectonics.
He denounces the Romantics for ignoring the Classical matthew arnold essays for the sake of novelty, matthew arnold essays, and for their allusive Arnold uses the word 'suggestive' writing which defies easy comprehension. In the preface to his Poems Arnold asserts the importance of architectonics; 'that power of execution, which creates, forms, and constitutes' in poetry - the necessity of achieving unity by subordinating the parts to the whole, and the expression of ideas to the depiction of human action, and condemns poems which exist for the sake of single lines or passages, matthew arnold essays, stray metaphors, images, and fancy expressions. Scattered images and happy turns of phrase, in his view, can only provide partial effects, and not contribute to unity.
He also, continuing his anti-Romantic theme, urges, modern poets to shun allusiveness and not fall into the temptation of subjectivity. He says that even the imitation of Shakespeare is risky for a young writer, who should imitate only his excellences, and avoid his attractive accessories, tricks of style, such as quibble, conceit, circumlocution and allusiveness, which will lead him astray. Arnold commends Shakespeare's use of great plots from the past. He had what Goethe called the architectonic quality, that is his expression was matched to the action or the subject.
But at matthew arnold essays same time Arnold quotes Hallam to show that Shakespeare's style was complex even where the press of action demanded simplicity and directness, and hence his style could not be taken as a model by young writers. Elsewhere he says that Shakespeare's 'expression tends to become a little sensuous and simple, too much intellectualised'. Shakespeare's excellences are 1 The architectonic quality of his style; the harmony between action and expression. His attractive accessories or tricks of style which a young writer should handle carefully are 1 His fondness for quibble, fancy, conceit. As an example of the danger of imitating Shakespeare he gives Keats's imitation of Shakespeare in his Isabella or the Pot of Basil, matthew arnold essays.
Keats uses felicitous phrases and single happy turns of phrase, yet the action is handled vaguely and so the poem does not have unity, matthew arnold essays. By way of contrast, he says the Italian writer Boccaccio handled the same theme successfully in his Decameronbecause he rightly subordinated expression to action. Hence Boccaccio's poem is a poetic success where Keats's is a failure. Matthew arnold essays also wants the modern writer to take models from the past because they depict human actions which touch on 'the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time'.
Characters such as Agamemnon, Dido, Aeneas, Orestes, Merope, Alcmeon, and Clytemnestra, leave a permanent impression on our minds. Compare 'The Iliad' or matthew arnold essays Aeneid' with 'The Childe Harold' or 'The Excursion' and you see the difference. A modern writer might complain that ancient subjects pose problems with regard to ancient culture, customs, manners, dress and so on which are not familiar to contemporary readers. But Arnold is of the view that a writer should not concern himself with the externals, but with the 'inward man'. The inward man is the same irrespective of clime or time. It is in his The Function of Criticism at the Present Time that Arnold says that criticism should be a 'dissemination of ideas, a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world'.
He says that when evaluating a work the aim is 'to see the object as in itself it really is'. Psychological, historical and matthew arnold essays background are irrelevant, and to dwell on such aspects is mere dilettantism. This stance was very influential with later critics. Arnold also believed that in his quest for the matthew arnold essays a critic should not confine himself to the literature of his own country, but should draw substantially on foreign literature and ideas, because the propagation of ideas should be an objective endeavour. In The Study of Poetrywhich opens his Essays in Criticism: Second seriesin support of his plea for nobility in poetry, Arnold recalls Sainte-Beuve's reply to Napoleon, matthew arnold essays, when latter said that charlatanism is found in everything.
Sainte-Beuve replied that charlatanism might be found everywhere else, but not in the field of poetry, because in poetry the distinction between sound and unsound, or only half-sound, truth and untruth, or only half-truth, between the excellent and the inferior, is of paramount importance. For Arnold there is no place for charlatanism in poetry, matthew arnold essays. To him poetry is the criticism of life, governed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. It is in the criticism of life that the spirit of our race will find its stay and consolation.
The extent to which the spirit of mankind finds its stay and consolation is proportional to the power of a poem's criticism of life, and the power of the criticism of life is in direct proportion to the extent to which the poem is genuine and free from charlatanism. In The Study of Poetry he also cautions the critic that in forming a genuine and disinterested estimate of the poet under consideration he should not be influenced by historical or personal judgements, historical judgements being fallacious because we regard ancient poets with excessive veneration, and personal judgements being fallacious when we are biased towards a contemporary poet.
If a poet is a 'dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best. enjoy his work'. As examples of erroneous matthew arnold essays he says that the 17th century court tragedies of the French were spoken of with exaggerated praise, until Pellisson reproached them for want of the true poetic matthew arnold essays, and another critic, Charles d' Héricault, said that 17th century French poetry had received undue and undeserving veneration. Arnold says the critics seem to substitute 'a halo for physiognomy and a statue in the place where there was once a man.
They give us a human personage no larger than God seated amidst his perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus. Arnold's view is that this poem can never be compared to Homer's work, and that we only have to compare the description of dying Roland to Helen's words about her wounded brothers Pollux and Castor and its inferiority will be clearly revealed. Arnold's criticism of Vitet above illustrates his 'touchstone method'; his theory that in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or matthew arnold essays quotation will serve the purpose, matthew arnold essays. From this we see that he has shifted his position from that expressed in the preface to his Poems of In The Study of Poetry he no longer uses the acid test of action and architectonics.
He became an advocate of 'touchstones'. Some of Arnold's touchstone passages are: Helen's words about her wounded brother, Zeus addressing the horses of Peleus, suppliant Achilles' words to Priam, and from Dante; Ugolino's brave words, and Beatrice's loving words to Virgil. From non-Classical writers he selects from Henry IV Part II III, imatthew arnold essays, Henry's expostulation with sleep - 'Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast. From Hamlet V, ii matthew arnold essays thee from felicity awhile. From Milton's Paradise Lost Book matthew arnold essays, 'Care sat on his faded cheek. The French Romance poetry of the 13th century langue d'oc and langue d'oil was extremely popular in Europe and Italy, but soon lost its popularity and now it is important only in terms of historical study.
But Chaucer, who was nourished by the romance poetry of the French, and influenced by the Italian Royal rhyme stanza, still holds enduring fascination. There is an excellence of style and subject in his poetry, which is the quality the French poetry lacks. Dryden says of Chaucer's Prologue 'Here is God's plenty! There is largeness, benignity, freedom and spontaneity in Chaucer's writings. He has divine fluidity of movement, divine liquidness of diction. He has created an epoch and founded a tradition. Some say that the fluidity of Chaucer's verse is due to licence in the use of the language, a liberty which Burns enjoyed much later. But Arnold says that the excellence of Chaucer's poetry is due to his sheer poetic talent. This matthew arnold essays in the use of language was enjoyed by many poets, but we do not find the same kind of fluidity in others.
Only in Shakespeare and Keats do we find the same kind of fluidity, though they wrote without the same liberty in the use of language.
Essay on Matthew Arnold by George Edward Woodberry
, time: 45:54The literary criticism of Matthew Arnold | London School of Journalism
WebIn Matthew Arnold: Arnold as critic early put into currency in Essays in Criticism (First Series, ; Second Series, ) and Culture and Anarchy. The first essay in the WebGeorge Watson follows George Saintsbury in dividing Arnold's career as a prose writer into three phases: 1) early literary criticism that begins with his preface to the edition of WebEssays in criticism: Matthew Arnold: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming: Internet Archive Essays in criticism by Matthew Arnold Publication date Topics English
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