CRITIC MATHEW ARNOLD_THE_STUDY_OF_POETRY.pptx

MATHEW ARNOLD'S THE STUDY OF POETRY

1. Matthew Arnold “The Study of Poetry” Deb Dulal Halder Associate Professor/ English/Kirori Mal College/ University of Delhi 9818745199/ [email protected]

2. THE STUDY OF POETRY Mathew Arnold’s critical essay “The Study of Poetry” (Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to ‘The English Poets,’ edited by T. H. Ward.) not only traces the history of English poetry critically but also provides the readers with a parameter of judging good poetry. The essay can be described as one where Arnold is emphasizing on the need for having a scientific basis of estimating poetry.

3. STATUS OF POETRY “The Future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious poetry.”

4. Poetry as Criticism of Life Poetry is the ‘criticism of life’ which is ruled by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. It is in this aspect of poetry as ‘criticism of life’ that poetry would provide some respite to the human race, when other aspects of human life are fall apart – “In poetry, as in criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than untrue on half-true.”

5. Religion – replaced by Poetry “Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.”

6. Framework of Evaluation – Historical and Personal as Fallacious He vouches for a genuine and disinterested estimate of poetry and he names it as “real estimate.” He considers historical judgments of poetry fallacious as it is a usual tendency to regard the ancient classical poets with excessive veneration – so what Arnold prescribes is that 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.” Whereas personal judgments are fallacious as human beings are mostly biased in our perception – “Our personal affinities, likings and circumstances, have great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet’s work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance.”

7. The Real Estimate – Touchstone Method Matthew Arnold prescribes “Touchstone Method” -- in order to judge poetry 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.

8. Truth and Seriousness “Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding ourselves by Aristotle’s profound observation that the superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness … Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substances and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness.”

9. Evaluation of English Tradition From Chaucer to Romantics Mathew Arnold provides a ‘Real estimate’ of the English poets and says that “Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be abundantly worthwhile to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never will lose currency with the world, in spite of monetary appearances; it never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world’s deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper,—by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity.”