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The Study

of Poetry(1880)

Dilip BaradM.K. Bhavnagar UniversityBhavnagarGujarat (India)

[email protected]

www.dilipbarad.com

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Questions:

Discuss Matthew Arnolds views on characteristics of goodpoetry.

Poetry is the criticism of life, governed by the laws of poetic

truth and poetic beauty: Discuss.

real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, ifwe are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic

estimate and the personal estimate, both of which are

fallacious. Discuss Arnolds views of the historic, the Personal,

the Real.

Elucidate Arnolds views on good poetry as the superior

character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance

of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction

and movement marking its style and mannerwith reference his

essay The Study of Poetry.

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Short Notes:

Matthew Arnolds touchstone method Arnolds views of Chaucer as a poet.

Arnolds views on the age of Dryden and Pope

Arnolds views on Robert Burns as a poet

Arnold as a critic: (His limitations and legacies)

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Victorian Criticism

Art and Morality: Art for Lifes sake Carlyle and Ruskin: Moral view point should be the

benchmark to judge the work of literature. Art should

be for the betterment of life.

Art and Aesthetic pleasure: art for Arts sake

Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde: Aesthetic and artistic

delight should be the benchmark to judge the work of

literature: Art should be for delight and pleasure of

mankind.

Golden Mean: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

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Matthew Arnold: The Critic

The business of criticism, he says, is neither to find fault nor todisplay the critics own learning or influence; it is to know the best

which has been thought and said in the worldand by using this

knowledge to create a current of fresh and free thought.

(W.J.Long)

The Study of poetry: The first essay in the 1888 volume was

originally published as the general introduction to T.H. Wards

anthology, The English Poets (1880).

His classicism: He did not like the spasmodic expression of

Romanticism. He advocated discipline in writing and

recommended the classical writers.

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Matthew Arnold: The Critic

W.J.Long: We cannot speak with confidence of his rank inliterature; but by his crystal-clear style, his scientific spirit of

inquiry and comparison, illumined here and there by the play of

humour, and especially by his broad sympathy and intellectual

culture, he seems destined to occupy a very high place among

the masters of literary criticism.

The first great principle of criticism enunciated by Arnold is that of

disinterestednessor detachment. Disinterestedness on the part

of the critic implies freedom from all prejudices, personal or

historical.

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The Future of Poetry

THE FUTUREof poetry is immense, because in poetry,our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and

surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken. But

for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of

illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion tothe idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our

religion to-day is its unconscious poetry.

We have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to

sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete;

and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy

will be replaced by poetry.

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Poetry is Criticism of Life

Arnold asserts that literature, and especially poetry, is"Criticism of L ife".

In poetry, this criticism of life must conform to the

laws of poetic truthand poetic beauty.

Truth and seriousness of matter, felicity and

perfection of diction and manner, as are exhibited in

the best poets, are what constitutes a criticism of

life.

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Poetry interprets life . . .

Poetry, says Arnold, interprets life in two ways: "Poetry isinterpretative by having natural magic in it, and moral

profundity".

And to achieve this the poet must aim at high and excellent

seriousness in all that he writes. This demand has two essential

qualities.

The first is the choice of excellent actions. The poet must

choose those which most powerfully appeal to the great

primary human feelings which subsist permanently in the race.

The second essential is what Arnold calls the Grand Style - the

perfection of form, choice of words, drawing its force directly

from the matter which it conveys.

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Key components of poetry

Thus, the superior character of truth andseriousness, in the matter and substance of the

best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority

of diction and movement marking its style andmanner.

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Touchstone Method

His general principles was - the" Touchstone Method"whichintroduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by

providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for

judging individual poets.

Thus, Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, and Shelley fall short of the best,

because they lack "high seriousness". Arnold's ideal poets are

Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world, Dante and Milton,

and among moderns, Goethe and Wordsworth.

Arnold puts Wordsworth in the front rank not for his poetry

but for his "criticism of life".

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Fallacies of Real Estimate

Arnold while giving his touchstone methodmakes readeraware about the fallacy in judgment. He is of the view that

historical fallacyand personal fallacymars the real estimate of

poetry. While expressing his views of the historic, the Personal,

the Real he writes that in reading poetry, a sense for the

best, the really excellent, and of the strength and joy to be

drawn from it, should be present in our minds and should

govern our estimate of what we read. But this realestimate,

the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we are not

watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimateand the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious.

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On Chaucher

Arnold praises Chaucer's excellent style and

manner, but says that Chaucer cannot be

called a classic since, unlike Homer, Virgil and

Shakespeare, his poetry does not have thehigh poetic seriousness which Aristotle

regards as a mark of its superiority over the

other arts.

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On Dryden and Pope

Hence we can regard Dryden as the glorious

founder, and Pope as the splendid high

priest, of the age of prose and reason, our

indispensable 18th century. Their poetry wasthat of the builders of an age of prose and

reason. Arnold says that Pope and Dryden are

not poet classics, but the 'prose classics' of the18th century.

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On Thomas Gray

As for poetry, he considers Gray to be the only

classic of the 18th century. Gray constantly

studied and enjoyed Greek poetry and thus

inherited their poetic point of view and theirapplication of poetry to life. But he is the

'scantiest, frailest classic' since his output was

small.

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On Robert Burns

Like Chaucer, Burns lacks high poetic seriousness,though his poems have poetic truth in diction andmovement.

Also like Chaucer, Burns possesses largeness, benignity,

freedom and spontaneity. But instead of Chaucer'sfluidity, we find in Burns a springing bounding energy.Chaucer's benignity deepens in Burns into a sense ofsympathy for both human as well as non-humanthings, but Chaucer's world is richer and fairer than

that of Burns. Sometimes Burns's poetic genius is unmatched by

anyone. He is even better than Goethe at times and heis unrivalled by anyone except Shakespeare.

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On Shakespeare

Praising Shakespeare, Arnold says 'In Englandthere needs a miracle of genius like Shakespeare'sto produce a balance of mind'. This is praise

tempered by a critical sense. In a letter he writes.'I keep saying Shakespeare, you are as obscure aslife is'.

In his sonnet On Shakespearehe says;

'Others abide our question. Thou are free./ Weask and ask - Thou smilest and art still,/ Out-topping knowledge'.

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Criticism of his viewpoint

Arnold's criticism of life is often marred by his naive moralizing,by his inadequate perception of the relation between art and

morality, and by his uncritical admiration of what he regarded

as the golden sanity of the ancient Greeks.

For all his championing of disinterestedness, Arnold was

unable to practice disinterestedness in all his essays.

In his essay on Shelley particularly, he displayed a lamentable

lack of disinterestedness. Shelley's moral views were too much

for the Victorian Arnold.

In his essay on Keats too Arnold failed to be disinterested. The

sentimental letters of Keats to Fanny Brawne were too much

for him. But Arnold's insistence on the standards and his

concern over the relation between poetry and life make him

one of the great modern critics.

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Criticism of his viewpoint

George Sainsburry:A History of English Criticism:all literature is the application of ideas of life and

to say that poetry is the application of ideas to

life under conditions fixed for poetry, is simply avain repetition.

T.S.Eliot: His observation that poetry is criticism

of life is repeating Aristotle. Nothing novel is

contributed as a critic.

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Works Cited http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/arnold.html

Long, W.J. The History of English Literature

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237816

http://janetschlarbaum.us/author/admin/page/2/

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bhaskar_Banerjee

http://EzineArticles.com/974637

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold

http://www.superarticledirectory.com/Art/262944/306/The-Study-of-Poetry.html