Matthew Arnold's : characteristics of Good Poetry and Criticism.

Maharaja Krishnakumar Singhji Bhavnagar University, the head of the Department of English, Dr. Dilip Barad, gave this work to students through blogs - according to Matthew Arnold, we were tasked to write about our understanding of the specialty of good poetry and criticism.Click here

Matthew Arnold (born December 24, 1822, Laleham, Middlesex, England—died April 15, 1888, Liverpool), English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted especially for his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the “Barbarians” (the aristocracy), the “Philistines” (the commercial middle class), and the “Populace.” He became the apostle of “culture” in such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869).

Matthew Arnold is an intellectual giant of the Victorian Period. His views about poetry are elaborately stated in his "The Study of Poetry". He has a high conception of poetry. He points out the characteristics of the best poetry where man will stay in the future. He is confident that poetry has an immense future. He expresses his views on the nature, function, and character of poetry to a great extent. He gives poetry a very high position. Arnold sets high standards for poetry. According to him, it attains the place of religion. It is an application of ideas to life. The best kind of poetry is a criticism of life. He was a Victorian cultural critic and poet belonging to the 19th century. He has written famous critical essays like The Study of Poetry (1880), and Function of Criticism at Present Time (1865). He has supported poetry more than any other dialect of studies like science, theology, religion, and philosophy. Matthew Arnold has given something significant that he stands as a link between the Romantic critic Coleridge and the New Critics or 20th-century critics like T. S. Eliot, Cleanthes Brooks, and Harold Bloom.

Characteristics The study of poetry:

(1) poetic truth and poetic beauty

(2) Truth and seriousness of the matter

(3) The critic must be free from all prejudices personal and Historical

(4) Felicity and perfection of matter

(5) Excellent action and grand style

(6) Nature magic and profoundness

According to him, the best poetry is a criticism of life, abiding laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. By poetic truth, he meant representation of life in a true way. By poetic beauty, he meant the manner and style of poetry. He said the poet should be a man with enormous experience. His intellect should be highly developed by means of enormous reading and deep critical thinking.

          Arnold says poetry is an ” application of ideas to life”. If the application of ideas is powerful the poetry will become great. He also lays emphasis on quality of ” high seriousness “

It comes with a sincerity which the poet feels for his subject. Many critics disagreed Arnold, T.S.Elliot a great poet himself disagreed with his view by saying  Arnold’s view is “frigid to anyone who has felt the full surprise and elevation of new experience in poetry”.Arnold's classic poets include Dante, Milton, Homer, and Shakespeare. He quotes the famous line of Milton

WHAT IS TOUCHSTONE METHOD?

It's a theory put forward by Matthew Arnold. He suggests that the best way of judging excellence is to have at one's command some passages from the great masters such as Dante, Shakespeare, et al. and such passages can be used as a “touchstone" with which to evaluate one's poetry. According to this theory, the critic must allow himself to feel the presence of high poetry in the select passages to avoid giving a falsely high estimate of inferior poetry.

Simply...Suppose if you are writing a poem, then you should compare that poem with a well-known poet's poem. This will make you understand the difference and helps you in producing a better poem.

” Nor thy life nor hate; but what thou livest

Live well: howling or short, permit to heaven”.

According to Arnold Geoffrey Chaucer was not a classic poet as he lacked ” high seriousness”.

Arnold said poetry should deal with ideas, not facts. Ideas should be moral. He said moral should not be taken in a narrow sense. He says ” poetry of revolt against life; the poetry of indifference towards moral idea is a poetry of indifference towards life “.

Thank you...