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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Study of Poetry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Poetry and the Human Spirit
Excellence and Inferiority
Reason vs. Emotion
Elitism, Democracy, and Popular Culture
Summary
Analysis
Matthew Arnold quotes one of his own impassioned appeals, published a year prior, for society to give poetry a higher place in human affairs. While this quoted appeal is not specifically concerned with the primary topic of “The Study of Poetry”—what makes a poem good and why reading good poetry is necessary—it lays the foundation for Arnold’s arguments by making the case that poetry can be a unique solace in times of uncertainty. Alluding to the diminishing role of religions, creeds, and traditions of all kinds in modern life, Arnold explains that people should look to poetry to fill the gap left by these fading institutions. Religion, especially, Arnold argues, has been weakened by the advances of science; poetry, in contrast, belongs to the realm of ideas, and is thus resistant to the growing influence of the sciences.
Matthew Arnold’s long quotation from his own previous essay (another introduction, in this case to the book The Hundred Greatest Men) reveals two important things about his worldview. First, Arnold is preoccupied with the idea that human beings today need a source of support and consolation in their lives, and he is absolutely certain that poetry can provide it. More than that, he is certain that it is inevitable that poetry will provide it. Second, Arnold considers his era one of declining faith and fading traditions—hence the need for poetry and, it follows, for more attention to the proper ways to read it and reap the benefits of it. Both of these assumptions reveal Arnold’s underlying conviction that he was writing in a fallen era, a time of disillusionment and decreasing standards. Much of Arnold’s argument and tone can be explained by his posture towards his time, the stance of a man who is determined to defend the idea of “the very best,” which he sees in poetry, in a skeptical age. It is telling, also, that Arnold begins his essay with the rather bold decision to quote himself: since he embodies, to some extent, the standards he expects his readers to adopt, it would be false modesty to quote anyone else.
Themes
Matthew Arnold explains that he had a good reason for quoting himself: this idea (that poetry can be a unique solace in a changing world) underlies everything he is going to write about in “The Study of Poetry.” Since “The Study of Poetry” was originally published as an introduction to an anthology of English poets, he adds that his task in this essay is specifically to follow one “great contributory stream to the world-river of poetry.” But whether readers are acquainting themselves with one type of poetry or with poetry of all types, Arnold contends, they should in all cases keep this idea in mind: that poetry has a unique role in modern life.
After acknowledging that it is a bit strange to begin an essay by quoting oneself, Matthew Arnold emphasizes that, in everything that follows, readers must remember the idea that poetry could play a vital role in the drastically changing landscape of society. Everything Arnold will write about in “The Study of Poetry” can be traced back to the supreme place poetry occupies in Arnold’s worldview. Next, Arnold addresses the purpose of the anthology that “The Study of Poetry” is intended to introduce, which is to allow readers to study the development of English poetry. Arnold uses the image of a great river (a “world-river”) fed by the tributaries of national poetic traditions to suggest to readers how he sees poetry: as a mighty, unstoppable force, always moving forward into the future, and the property of all humankind. This is significant, since some of the poets Arnold will use as touchstones for the highest standards of poetic art are not English but classics from other poetic traditions. Finally, Arnold makes it clear that, while this anthology is dedicated to English poetry, the same standards apply to all poetry regardless of national origin. Thus, Arnold’s view of poetry is rooted in a thoroughly international (if Eurocentric) philosophy of art.
Themes
Next, Matthew Arnold makes it clear how highly he regards poetry as an art form. His contemporaries have not been thinking of poetry the right way, he argues. It has much more to offer than they give it credit for. In particular, it is “capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it.” Arnold predicts that, in the turbulence of modern life, we will come to find that we will have to rely on poetry “to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.” Poetry will, in other words, become a necessity.
No critical argument like the one Matthew Arnold makes in “The Study of Poetry” occurs in a vacuum, and in this section readers can discern one of the reasons Arnold feels compelled to write the essay in the first place: to correct the prevailing view of poetry, which does not give it enough credit for its potential to elevate human life. Arnold’s reply to those who underrate poetry’s value reveals his rather utilitarian view of poetry (in other words, it is valuable because it is useful), as well as his fondness for spatial metaphors—in particular, equating the best with “the highest.” Arnold’s explanation of the specific “higher uses” that he foresees human beings turning to poetry for shows that, for him, poetry has a therapeutic function: it is destined to “console” and “sustain” readers for whom the modern world is a source of distress.
Themes
Matthew Arnold goes on to argue that even science, seemingly the opposite of poetry, will need poetry to continue developing. Without poetry, he writes, science will be incomplete. Arnold cites the English poet William Wordsworth, who asserted that poetry is “the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science”—in other words, poetry embodies the spirit of discovery and the passion for knowledge. Going further still, Arnold writes that religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry, since they are also becoming more and more based on reasoning rather than faith or mysticism, though with less success than the hard sciences. Soon religion and philosophy will serve no real purpose, Arnold claims, and people will wonder why they trusted these two old disciplines before turning to poetry for what philosophy and religion used to supply.
This section helps readers understand more clearly how Arnold understands poetry’s “higher destinies,” which he sees as its unique and irreplaceable function in the world. While the idea that poetry plays a fundamental role in scientific progress might seem strange to many, Arnold makes it clear that poetry is what drives the sense of curiosity and passion that move science forward. His use of Wordsworth’s metaphor illustrates the relationship between science and poetry in his conception: science provides the facts, while poetry provides the “impassioned expression” that science relies on to convey its advances to the world. Thus, Arnold clearly acknowledges the important role science plays in the modern world, but the same cannot be said for religion and philosophy, which, according to Arnold’s argument, offer neither the usefulness of science nor the consolation of poetry. Underlying this discussion is the idea that reason (science) is necessary but ultimately incomplete without emotion (poetry), which is the more important member of the partnership. Religion and philosophy, meeting the needs of neither reason nor emotion, are essentially useless in Arnold’s worldview.
Themes
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Matthew Arnold goes on to explain that there is a corollary to the argument he has been making about poetry’s “high destiny”: if people are going to be turning to poetry to meet all these needs—to keep science moving forward and to replace religion and philosophy—it will have to be “poetry of a high order of excellence.” The standard for what counts as true poetry will have to be very high. For this reason, he asserts, readers must learn to discern good poetry from bad poetry and hold themselves to a “high standard” of critical judgment.
In this section, Arnold refines his conception of poetry’s “high destiny” by adding the condition that only poetry of the highest quality can fully live up to this potential. In this way, Arnold introduces another idea that will be key to the argument he makes in “The Study of Poetry”: that excellent poetry is different from inferior poetry, and that it is the reader’s duty to keep such distinctions in mind. As before, Arnold uses spatial terms to describe the very best—only poetry of a “high order of excellence,” held to the highest standards, can fulfill poetry’s “high destiny.” Arnold’s view of poetry and the human flourishing it enables is a lofty one, as he believes that great poetry takes place on a higher plane than that of normal life.
Themes
Matthew Arnold illustrates what he means by these rigorous standards with an anecdote about an exchange between the literary critic Sainte Beuve and Napoleon Bonaparte. When Napoleon hears someone spoken of as a charlatan, he accepts that the person might in fact be a charlatan, but counters that charlatanism (the use of tricks and deception to gain undeserved advantage) is everywhere. Sainte Beuve replies that this might be true in politics and government, but that charlatanism can have no place in the world of eternal art and thought, since the “noble portion of man’s being” is “inviolable.” Arnold adds that Sainte Beuve describes the situation well, and that readers should keep this idea in mind: that there are some things, such as poetry, that cannot tolerate charlatanism.
Arnold uses this anecdote about Napoleon and Sainte Beuve to illustrate his distinction between excellent and inferior poetry. While it might be impossible (or pointless) to distinguish between charlatanism and genuine greatness in the world of politics, it is necessary and inevitable to do so in the world of poetry. In other words, excellent poetry exists, and it is the reader’s duty to distinguish between the work of charlatan poets and the work of truly great poets. Arnold’s anecdote, which is based on the contrast between the wily cynicism of Napoleon and the lofty standards of the critic Sainte Beuve (who sounds much like Arnold himself), also implies that the critics Arnold is arguing against share Napoleon’s cheerful tolerance for charlatanism.
Themes
Matthew Arnold specifies that charlatanism poses a specific threat to poetry: it causes people, whether willingly or not, to confuse good poetry with bad poetry. Charlatanism weakens or removes altogether the distinctions that matter in reading poetry: the distinctions between excellent qualities and poor qualities, between sound ideas and unsound ideas, and between truths and half-truths. This is especially impermissible with regard to poetry, since poetry will only be able to fulfill its high destiny if it is accompanied by a proper criticism of life, Arnold’s term for the moral force and profound truths the greatest poetry offers. Poetry that lacks this “criticism of life” and that, due to charlatanism or inattention, advances half-truths or unsound ideas, will not fulfill poetry’s destiny of providing the ultimate support in a complex world where other consolations have failed. Readers owe it to themselves to reject charlatanism and insist on poetry that offers a true “criticism of life” based on sound ideas.
By firmly rejecting charlatanism in poetry—an idea he defines as abolishing or undermining the difference between the excellent and the inferior, between the sound and the unsound—Arnold continues to develop the concept of the excellent and makes it clear that it is up to readers to defend the excellent from the inferior. Arnold explains that the difference between excellent and inferior poetry is the difference between a sound idea and an unsound idea, and he introduces the concept of “criticism of life,” which is his way of articulating the profound moral wisdom poetry offers readers. Thus, the picture of what Arnold expects readers to take away from “The Study of Poetry” continues to become clearer: poetry offers the supreme consolation, in the form of a unique “criticism of life,” but readers can only benefit from this if they reject charlatanism and insist on excellence.
Themes
Matthew Arnold returns to one of the purposes of this essay, which is to introduce an anthology of English poets. A collection of poems like the one this essay introduces, he writes, can offer a valuable service to readers, since it can give them a better sense of “the best in poetry.” However, there is a problem with anthologies: instead of the real estimate of “the best in poetry,” they can give readers false standards of judgment. The two false estimates readers must avoid, Arnold notes, are the historic estimate and the personal estimate.
After calling on readers to reject charlatanism, Arnold turns to two other dangers that could potentially deflect readers from their pursuit of the excellent. Thus, Arnold continues to make it clear that the pursuit of the excellent—the only path to full enjoyment of poetry’s unique virtues—depends on the reader’s vigilance. In addition, by pointing out that such dangers are inherent in anthologies—a type of book that many readers are likely to view as harmless—Arnold continues to position himself as a critic who goes against convention and stands alone against the erosion of standards he warns readers against.
Themes
The historic estimate may seem appealing because, as Matthew Arnold admits, the historical development of a language (such as English) and an art form (such as poetry) is indeed interesting. Anthologies covering large time spans allow readers to consider poems next to other poems from other eras and thus encourage readers to think of poets and their works as stages in the evolution of an art form. This, Arnold contends, often causes us to overrate poets from the past. Poems that play an important role in the development of poetry may seem more important, in retrospect, than they actually are, according to the standards of pure poetry.
While Arnold acknowledges that taking an interest in the historical value of a poem—as opposed to its genuine poetic value—is natural, he makes it clear that this tendency is an obstacle to the reader’s task of distinguishing the excellent from the inferior. Indeed, the pursuit of the excellent is what the reader must constantly keep in mind; the temptation to place too much interest on historical matters ultimately leads to charlatanism by effectively elevating the inferior to the same level as the excellent—a grave mistake, according to Arnold.
Themes
The other fallacy Matthew Arnold warns readers about is the personal estimate. Readers naturally gravitate towards poets they are fond of, and this fondness can cause them to rate these poets and their works more highly than they actually merit. These poems might be of great importance to the reader, but that does not mean they are of great importance in themselves. Readers have a tendency to “apply [to such poems] a language of praise which is quite exaggerated,” and Arnold seeks to warn them about this fallacy.
Not only must readers avoid placing too much importance on the historical estimate of a poem, but they must also resist the temptation to assume that works that appeal to them on a personal level automatically count as great poetry. Arnold warns that confusion in this area leads to “exaggerated” praise for certain works. Thus, the defense of the excellent from the inferior requires readers to set their personal inclinations aside and to recall at all times the true high standards of excellence Arnold lays out in “The Study of Poetry.”
Themes
On the other hand, these fallacies are natural, Matthew Arnold reassures readers. Nothing is more natural, when reading an anthology, to pause over poems that one would not ordinarily spend any time on, or to think oneself an expert on obscure poets and then to chide the public for not taking an interest in them. Arnold points out that French critics of his era committed this error, in a way, by underrating an important genre of early French poetry, the court tragedy. While this genre is flawed, Arnold concedes, a French critic named Charles d’Héricault gets it wrong when he argues that the canonization of this early poetry has prevented critics from appraising it accurately. Arnold produces a long quote from d’Héricault’s argument, noting that there is much truth to what d’Héricault writes but that he goes too far in rejecting the idea of poetic greatness.
While it might be natural for a reader to yield to the temptation of the historic estimate, it is still a mistake, since it hinders the reader’s ability to distinguish the excellent from the inferior. Arnold uses the example of d’Héricault to illustrate all the forces that can push a reader towards the historic estimate and away from the real estimate. According to Arnold, the genre of court poetry was first underrated, then overrated, and then underrated again by d’Héricault, who rightfully argued against canonization but went too far in rejecting the possibility of true excellence. Arnold chooses this example because it makes it clear that avoiding the historic estimate is not always simply a matter of checking one’s own interest in historical matters; one must be conscious of the larger critical trends that might impact the evaluation of a poem.
Themes
The reason Charles d’Héricault goes too far, Matthew Arnold argues, is because a truly great poet should indeed be treated differently from other, lesser poets. Greatness must be recognized; if a great poet seems distant and godlike, that’s the way it should be. If a poet is weak, or falsely categorized with the great, then by all means, Arnold writes, readers can dispense with her or him. But if the poet belongs to the highest echelon, then the right thing to do, in Arnold’s view, is to “feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the same high character.” Indeed, to do anything different is a hindrance to the task readers should set themselves, which is to understand the great poets’ work as deeply as possible.
Arnold continues to develop the idea of the excellent and the inferior by explaining how the idea applies to poets. When it comes to truly great poets, he suggests, the danger is not in overestimating them, as d’Héricault argues, but in underestimating them. Thus, Arnold implies that the difference between excellent and inferior poets is not one of degree but of kind. Excellent poets belong to one class, while inferior poets belong to a separate, lower class. Keeping this distinction clearly in mind will allow readers to enjoy great poets’ work as “deeply” as possible and to appreciate the “wide difference” that separates it from inferior work. Anything tending to erase or diminish this “wide difference,” as d’Héricault’s argument does, is a hindrance to the reader’s task.
Themes
This is not to say, Arnold clarifies, that there is no room for negative criticism in appraising the work of great poets. If a poet’s work falls below the highest standard, then this should be pointed out. However, this negative criticism, along with the work of exploring the minutiae of a writer’s life, should be subordinated to the reader’s primary task, which is “to have a clearer sense and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent.” Arnold acknowledges that some might argue that the more we know about a great poet’s life, the better, but this is flawed reasoning, he replies: life is not long enough to get bogged down in details of secondary importance when there is great poetry to be read. Things would be different “if we lived as long as Methuselah,” he writes, but in our limited time on earth we owe it to ourselves to enjoy the best. Instead of creating distractions for themselves and overrating inferior works as a result, people should focus their efforts on the truly great poets.
Arnold continues to explore the idea of the excellent and the inferior by addressing the functions of what he calls “negative criticism”—the focus on finding and evaluating flaws in great poets’ work. Arnold clarifies that such work has its place, but that the goal should always be to see the differences between the excellent and the inferior more clearly—to cultivate the sense of “what is truly excellent.” In other words, finding flaws for the sake of finding flaws is not a good use of the reader’s time, which is limited, since no one lives “as long as Methuselah”—a biblical reference that humorously reinforces Arnold’s message about the importance of knowing high culture. (The Old-Testament patriarch Methuselah is said to have lived to 969 years old.) This leads Arnold to make a comment on the structure of society and to introduce his position that a democratic society requires people to make choices about how to use their time. Society tends to encourage readers to get bogged down in trivial details, he argues, but readers must reject this impulse and keep their gaze fixed on the truly excellent.
Themes
Returning to a previous point, Matthew Arnold admits that the format of an anthology creates temptations for readers and critics to fall into the historic estimate and the personal estimate, since anthologies present poets in their historical context and the critics assigned to present certain poets are sure to be fond of those poets. That is why it is worth reiterating the primary concern of the anthology: to establish the real estimate of a poem, and thus to reap the real benefits of poetry. Arnold quotes the Christian philosopher Thomas Kempis to this effect: “When you have read and learned many things, you should always return to the one principle.” No matter what an anthology presents us with, Arnold insists, we should keep the one principle—the real estimate of a poem—in mind.
Arnold circles back to the ideas he opened the essay with, returning to the assertion that poetry offers a unique source of spiritual sustenance for human beings but that the only way to enjoy this benefit fully is to immerse oneself in truly excellent poetry. He reiterates that an anthology like the one he is introducing presents readers with the temptation to over- or underrate poetry based on historical or personal inclinations, which is why readers must hold the “real estimate” of excellence and inferiority always in mind. Arnold cites Thomas Kempis on the importance of returning over and over to “the one principle,” which is essentially an analogous term to Arnold’s “the real estimate.”
Themes
Adding to his previous explanation of the two fallacies (the historic estimate and the personal estimate), Arnold explains that the historical estimate is especially likely to be a problem when readers confront ancient works. Matthew Arnold acknowledges that there is not a great deal of harm in overrating ancient poets, but doing so degrades the language used to describe poetry and to make distinctions. For example, Arnold points out, a French critic (M. Vitet), in his determination to elevate the French epic poem The Song of Roland to the highest rank of poetry, uses language that is only appropriate for Homer. To show his readers the travesty of describing The Song of Roland in terms reserved for Homer, Arnold produces excerpts from the former and the latter. The difference in quality, he insists, is stark: “[With Homer] we are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether.”
Arnold has spent a few pages describing how the historic and personal estimates can detract from a reader’s ability to arrive at the real estimate of a poem, but he now gives concrete examples of a poem that he values as overrated (The Song of Roland) and a poem that he cites as worthy of the highest praise (The Iliad). Arnold is willing to acknowledge the virtues of The Song of Roland, which, according to his argument, certain trends in French criticism have elevated to the level of Homer, but he is adamant that The Iliad is “another order of poetry altogether.” Thus, Arnold emphasizes again that the difference between the excellent and the inferior is not one of degree but of kind. The Iliad belongs to “another world.”
Themes
The kind of distortion that M. Vitet engages in, Matthew Arnold argues, threatens to deprive words of their proper meaning and to weaken the solidity of readers’ judgments. The antidote for readers is always to have in mind some lines written by the greatest poets so that they (readers) can use classic verses as a model for comparison. Such lines can be an “infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality.” All it takes is a line or two by a great poet, Arnold asserts, to help ascertain the quality of the poetry being compared.
In this section, Arnold introduces his method for dispensing with the fallacies of the “historic” and “personal estimates” and arriving at the “real estimate”: this method involves keeping lines by the greatest poets close at hand so that they can always be used as a standard to which other works can be compared. Thus, Arnold does not just insist that there is a difference between the excellent and the inferior, but that there is a practical method to distinguish between them, which he proposes to teach to readers.
Themes
Matthew Arnold produces a number of examples to prove what kinds of lines he has in mind, including verses by Homer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, and John Milton. These examples, he insists, are enough in themselves to allow readers to produce “the real estimate” of a poem. This is because all of the examples Arnold has introduced possess “the highest poetical quality.” Readers who truly understand their power will be able to sense whether a given work shares in that power or not. Arnold adds that this is a more useful tool than it might seem; instead of trying to describe high-quality poetry abstractly, critics should use concrete examples, such as the ones Arnold has given, and point out where the evaluated poem shares the qualities of the greatest poems. Arnold remarks acidly that it is far better to read examples of great poetry than to read about it in critics’ prose.
Arnold expands upon his method for arriving at the “real estimate” here and offers an important and telling clarification: it is far better simply to read the best poetry oneself than to read about it in critical works. In this way, Arnold does not explicitly say that criticism is unable to articulate what features separate excellent poetry from inferior poetry, but he certainly implies it. This is consistent with his view that poetry of the highest excellence belongs to “another world”—since it belongs to “another world,” it can’t be fully explained by the critic.
Themes
Still, Matthew Arnold acknowledges that it might be necessary to define what the highest poetic qualities consist of. Arnold’s answer is simple: they consist of “matter and substance,” which is to say subject matter and “style and manner.” In a great poem, both of these attributes will be of the highest worth and power. But Arnold rejects the idea that it is possible to define poetic greatness any further: to do so would only confuse matters, not clear them up.
It has already become quite clear that Arnold is skeptical—if not outright dismissive—of the idea that critics can productively describe what makes excellent poetry excellent (as opposed to what makes inferior poetry inferior, which he acknowledges is within the critic’s ability). However, he seems to be conscious of the fact that his definitions are somewhat vague, so he offers readers some more specific criteria here: poetry of high excellence is excellent in its “manner and style.” Of course, this is still rather vague, and Arnold seems to bristle at the idea that it can be clarified any further, claiming that such a clarification would only make it harder to arrive at the “real estimate.”
Themes
However, there is one thing that Matthew Arnold notes should be added to the definition of the proper subject matter for great poetry: Aristotle’s concept of high seriousness. It is this “high seriousness,” along with high truthfulness, that gives the greatest poetry its special quality, Arnold explains. Likewise, the style of great poetry can be further defined as consisting of diction (word choice) and movement (rhythm) of the highest rank. These qualities—high seriousness, high truthfulness, diction, and movement—work in unison to make a poem great. Where high seriousness is lacking, diction will also be deficient; where movement is inferior, high truthfulness will also be absent.
After developing his concept of the “real estimate” and describing what it consists of and how to arrive at it, Arnold now connects it to the ideas he began the essay with. Excellent poetry is not simply poetry that has excellence in style and content; it is poetry that expresses profound truths about the universe and therefore offers the unique consolation that, as Arnold explains, is poetry’s “high destiny” and that human beings require. Arnold’s term for this profound truthfulness is “high seriousness,” a term he borrows from Aristotle. Arnold thus reiterates that excellent poetry—in contrast to inferior poetry—is connected to the fundamental truths of the world and that it is this connection that makes poetry so valuable to the human spirit. Arnold’s citation of Aristotle is another example of his mastery of the classics.
Themes
Matthew Arnold admits that these definitions might seem rather abstract to readers but insists that readers can verify the ideas by simply reading great poetry. In fact, Arnold adds, reading great poetry will allow readers to encounter the qualities of poetic greatness in a far more profound way than his explanations can. Still, it is worth the effort of looking at a few examples to confirm that, indeed, such definitions allow readers to arrive at the real estimate of a poem. For that reason, Arnold explains, he will run briefly through the course of English poetry as he sees it.
Arnold reiterates a point he made in a previous section: that, while there is some worth in critical explanations such as the one he is offering, the best (and only true) way to test the validity of the ideas he has been laying out is to read poetry of the highest excellence and judge it by its own standards. Thus, Arnold continues to emphasize the idea that excellent poetry differs in kind from inferior poetry and that this excellence is only partially explicable by critics like him.
Themes
Matthew Arnold begins by looking at two early varieties of French poetry, the langue d’oil and the langue d’oc, from which sprang troubadour poetry and romance poetry, respectively. Arnold focuses on the latter, showing that, while much of this early poetry has been forgotten, it had a direct influence on the poetry of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer, Arnold notes, is a true poet: “a genuine source of joy and strength” who will be read more in the future than he is now, the difficulty of his archaic language notwithstanding. Chaucer’s great virtue, in Arnold’s view, is his “large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life.” Unlike the romance poets that preceded him, Chaucer writes about the world from “a central, a truly human point of view.” This gives his work the high truthfulness that Arnold is looking for in great works.
Arnold begins his exploration of the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, which will allow him to make a few subtle points about what poetry of the highest excellence consists of. Arnold’s praise for Chaucer shows readers that the things Arnold values in great poetry are indeed connected to the idea that poetry is a source of consolation: it is not Chaucer’s wit that he praises, nor his language, but the fact that Chaucer is a “source of joy and strength.” Similarly, Arnold values Chaucer’s “large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life,” which is a “a truly human point of view”—in other words, Chaucer’s poetry offers readers something that everyone can relate to. Thus, Arnold implies once more that excellence in poetry is connected to poetry’s ability to be a source of emotional fortification and consolation for its readers.
Themes
Nor is that all: Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry also possesses a “divine liquidness of diction” and “divine fluidity of movement” that make him the founder of the tradition of English poetry. Matthew Arnold notes that Chaucer’s diction and movement (which is to say, his use of meter) are irresistible and gives two examples of his verse to illustrate its high qualities. It is possible, he notes, that part of Chaucer’s great liquidness is his ability to play with language in a way that is considered off limits to modern poets—by adding an “e” to the end of a word, for instance—but it would be a fallacy to say that this is entirely the cause. The cause of Chaucer’s greatness, Arnold declares, is his talent.
Arnold’s analysis of Chaucer’s poetry introduces two new features of excellent poetry: “divine liquidness of diction” and “divine fluidity of movement” (which is to say meter or rhythm). Chaucer is admirable not only for being a source of joy and strength, as Arnold writes, but also for characteristics that readers are more likely to identify as purely poetic qualities: diction and meter. Arnold goes a step further and suggests that the ultimate reason Chaucer is a great poet is his talent, which implies that talent is yet another criterion for greatness in Arnold’s view, though he doesn’t return to this idea.
Themes
This might all be true, but Geoffrey Chaucer does not belong to the highest echelon, Matthew Arnold argues. What is missing in Chaucer, he writes, can be suggested by the mere mention of the name of the first great poet of the Christian world, Dante Alighieri. Dante’s name is associated with the kind of “high and excellent seriousness” that, according to Arnold, is out of reach for Chaucer. Arnold reproduces a line from Dante’s Divine Comedy to show that, indeed, Dante writes about lofty, grandiose subjects, such as God and fate. Chaucer—unlike Dante, William Shakespeare, and Homer— does not exhibit this high seriousness, for all the freedom and good humor with which he writes about life. Unfortunately for Chaucer, it is this high seriousness that “gives to our spirits what they can rest upon,” so he does not belong in the highest rank of poets.
Readers now learn that, despite Arnold’s praise for Chaucer, his analysis of Chaucer’s works is actually intended to demonstrate its shortcomings and, in doing so, to show readers how to arrive at a “real estimate” of Chaucer’s work. In this way Arnold demonstrates a principle of his criticism, which is to demonstrate what makes poetry excellent by explaining how the nearly excellent falls short. The shortcoming that Arnold identifies in Chaucer also illustrates his argument about poetry’s high destiny, since Chaucer’s poetry lacks the “high and excellent seriousness” that the “spirits […] can rest upon,” which is found in the poetry of Dante and Shakespeare.
Themes
After reiterating that Chaucer is nevertheless a poet of great stylistic and linguistic value, Matthew Arnold moves on to a discussion of the poetry of John Dryden. Arnold skips over the Elizabethan era, arguing that everyone agrees that Shakespeare and Milton are poets of the first rank. The case of Dryden is more difficult. For their part, Dryden and his contemporaries had no doubt that their poetry was as good as or even better than that of their predecessors, a judgment that had some currency even until Arnold’s day. But, Arnold asks, is this historic estimate of Dryden’s work in line with the real estimate? Arnold acknowledges that it takes a brave critic to deal with Dryden so categorically, since Dryden is clearly a powerful and highly respected poet. Nevertheless, Arnold argues that he must find the real estimate of a poet’s value.
Arnold presents Dryden as another case in which the historic estimate tends to obscure the real estimate. This exploration of Dryden’s work gives Arnold another occasion to analyze what separates the excellent from the inferior.
Themes
The first thing Matthew Arnold makes clear about John Dryden is that he is a great writer of prose. Arnold compares Dryden’s prose to that of two other writers, Chapman and John Milton, and argues that Dryden’s is superior to them all. One of the reasons for the greatness of Dryden’s prose is the circumstances in which he wrote: after the age of Puritanism, English culture needed to free itself from religious preoccupations, a task which required strong prose writing, with its “regularity, uniformity, precision, balance.” One downside of a strong prose, Arnold points out, is that it tends to undermine religious and spiritual feeling. More importantly, it cuts against the demands of poetry.
As with Chaucer, Arnold begins by praising Dryden. He points out that Dryden is an excellent writer of prose and adds that Dryden’s prose is a product of the era he lived in (the period after the Restoration), when prose’s “regularity, uniformity, precision, balance” met the needs of a society that had endured a turbulent period. On the other hand, prose’s strengths are also its weaknesses where poetry is concerned, something Arnold is careful to point out. Thus, Arnold introduces the idea that prose and poetry represent diametrically opposed tendencies in human life and, by associating prose with the restoration of order and poetry with religious and spiritual feeling, ties poetry more closely to the function he has set out for it: as consolation for weary spirits. In this way, Arnold implies that prose, for all its value, is inferior to poetry, which, to be sure, has a uniquely “high destiny” in his view.
Themes
Thus, Matthew Arnold regards John Dryden, along with Alexander Pope, as the “splendid high priest of our age of prose and reason.” But he does not regard him as a poet of the first rank. Dryden’s poetry lacks the poetic criticism of life, the high seriousness, and the “powerful poetic application” that readers should expect from great poets. Arnold produces three lines from Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer as evidence that Dryden cannot match these classic poets. Dryden and Pope are respectable poets, but, belonging to the age of reason, they are first-rate prose writers, not poets.
Arnold’s verdict on the “real estimate” of Dryden’s and Pope’s poetry—essentially, that their work was fine for a period of “prose and reason” but not of the first rank—reinforces the argument about prose and poetry he makes earlier. For, according to Arnold, Dryden and Pope put verse together admirably—that is, they mastered the part of writing poetry that can be mastered through reason and logic—but their works lack the “powerful poetic application” that is characteristic of poetry of the highest excellence. What is missing, essentially, is the profound truthfulness (accessed through imagination) that Arnold identifies as the hallmark of classic poetry. Arnold’s analysis reinforces the diametric opposition between prose and poetry that he identified earlier.
Themes
Matthew Arnold takes a brief detour to discuss the poetry of Thomas Gray, an English poet of the 18th century. While Gray does not meet the highest standard that Arnold looks for in the greatest poets, he is a classic poet because he caught the spirit of the Greek poets and put it into his own works. This spirit is not a permanent feature of Gray’s verse, but it is present, which is enough to make him a classic, even if he is “the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry.”
Arnold’s brief discussion of the work of Thomas Gray returns readers to his definition of the excellent and the inferior, and specifically to one aspect of it: namely, the idea that excellence can result from being in close touch with the classics and great works. While adopting the techniques of the classics is a good thing, in Arnold’s view, it is not enough in itself to make a writer a poet of the first rank—on the contrary, Gray is “scanty” and “frail” next to the other classic poets.
Themes
At this point Matthew Arnold turns to Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the 18th century. Arnold points out that the personal estimate applies particularly to Burns, since he wrote rather recently (at the end of the 18th century) and embodied Scottish culture, which leads some to value him for patriotic reasons. But, as with John Dryden, it is important to arrive at the real estimate of Burns’s poetry. Arnold begins his discussion of Burns by dismissing his English-language poetry, which he describes as “not the real Burns,” and insisting that readers study his Scotch poems if they want to get a real sense of Burns’s value. Arnold acknowledges that Burns’s Scottish subject matter will endear him to some readers, but that it is important to consider him independent of his world. “Let us look at him closely, he can bear it,” Arnold writes.
Whereas Chaucer and Dryden present readers with the temptation to let the historic estimate sway their judgment, Burns presents readers with a different challenge: the appeal of the personal estimate, which tempts readers who are fond of his poems to overrate his value as a poet. Thus, Arnold’s discussion of Burns’s work is parallel to his earlier discussions of Chaucer’s and Dryden’s, only he approaches the matter from the opposite side. In this respect, Burns is another example provided by Arnold to show readers how to distinguish the excellent from the inferior—in this case after dismissing the personal inclinations associated with Burns’s work.
Themes
Next, Matthew Arnold analyzes one of Robert Burns’s poems about drinking alcohol, arguing that, while many admire poems such as this one, it lacks the sincerity required for truly great poetry. Arnold asserts that there is something insincere in Burns’s poem and that, since the poet is not speaking to us in his true voice, there is something “poetically unsound” about the poem. Similarly, Arnold examines three other poems by Burns—all of them, he says, admired by readers—before declaring that these examples show Burns falling short of the most important of Arnold’s standards, that of high seriousness. Pointing to Dante once more, Arnold claims that Burns’s verse is not fully sincere but is more akin to preaching. Arnold has some words of consolation for Burns’s admirers: if they admire Burns less now, their admiration for Dante and his peers will be greater.
Arnold’s detailed analysis of Burns’s work shows how the “personal estimate” can interfere with the “real estimate” and thus with the reader’s ability to distinguish the excellent from the inferior. Since there is much to like about Burns’s work—as Arnold readily acknowledges—it is especially important to hold his work up next to that of the greatest poets, such as Dante. Thus, Arnold puts his own method into practice, showing readers how referring back to lines by Dante, Shakespeare, or Milton can help them keep the distinctions between excellent and inferior poetry clear.
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There are times, to be sure, when Robert Burns meets the threshold of high seriousness, but these, Matthew Arnold argues, are the exception that proves the rule. The accurate estimate of Burns is that he has “truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accent or the poetic virtue of the highest masters.” The real Burns is not the poet who talks about the most grandiose concerns, but the poet who writes about whistling. Comparing him to Geoffrey Chaucer, Arnold notes that both poets have a certain freedom and largeness, but Burns is fiercer and more energetic, while Chaucer is more profound and more charming.
Arnold’s honest admiration for Burns’s vigor and Chaucer’s profundity reinforces part of his argument about the excellent and the inferior: there is no risk in praising inferior poetry, since its virtues also make the virtues of excellent poetry stand out more strongly. Similarly, Arnold’s detailed analysis of the works of Chaucer and Burns shows once more that their poetry can have a great many virtues, including ones we value very highly, but if it lacks “high seriousness,” then it falls short of the standard.
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Matthew Arnold uses this real estimate of Robert Burns to address the case of more contemporary English poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and William Wordsworth. Arnold refers to this as “burning ground,” since a reader’s personal estimate is so likely to interfere with arriving at a real estimate of these poets. Arnold explains that he does not have space to discuss these poets at length, but that the same method he applied to Burns—comparing Burns’s verse to that of classic poets such as Dante—should allow readers to arrive at a real estimate. Arnold points out once more that an anthology is little more than an opportunity for readers to practice properly estimating great poetry.
Arnold uses the examples of Shelley, Lord Byron, and Wordsworth—poets who in his time would have been considered writers from the recent past—to make another point about distinguishing the excellent from the inferior: namely, that it is always harder to arrive at the “real estimate” of a writer who is close to one’s own time. Still, Arnold is confident in his method and confirms that, despite the challenges that accompany such a task, comparing modern poets to the classics will allow readers to arrive at the “real estimate.” In this way, Arnold attempts to reassure readers that his method is as useful as promised.
Themes
Matthew Arnold closes his essay by returning to the purpose he outlined at its beginning and reflecting on the democratization of English culture in his day. Arnold reiterates that readers cannot get the full benefit of reading poetry—a benefit he describes loftily as the ultimate source of consolation in life—unless they are able to feel and enjoy the things that make classic poetry classic. The world is becoming a more common place, Arnold complains; while there are more readers than ever, the masses seem not to be interested in the work of the great poets. However, after sounding this note of pessimism, Arnold is defiant: whatever happens, poetry “never will lose supremacy,” since humanity, whether it knows it or not, must rely on it for “self-preservation.”
The word “supremacy” aligns with Arnold’s view of poetry because he insists that poetry has a uniquely “high destiny”—which is related to its unique value as a source of consolation for people in the modern world—and, moreover, that the best poetry is the best thing humankind can produce. What Arnold is worried about is not that poetry will lose its unique excellence—he has no doubts about this whatsoever—but that readers will not be able to extract its full benefit because they can no longer distinguish the excellent from the inferior. But Arnold does not believe this skill will vanish. Arnold’s holds the rather pessimistic yet defiant prediction that, no matter how far society drifts from the values of great poetry, it will return to the classic poets for “self-preservation.” And this, in turn, encapsulates his view that democracy requires certain elite standards to survive.
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