Matthew Arnold's Theory of Poetry as Criticism of Life

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      Arnold's Theory of Poetry: "Poetry" according to Matthew Arnold "is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty". Arnold does not specify what he means by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. But he does offer us hints regarding the qualities of high poetry. To Arnold, poetry is both the substance and matter on one hand, and the style and manner on the other. Both determine the quality of high poetry. The substance itself acquires its special character from possessing truth and seriousness while the style and manner of the best poetry depend upon their diction and their movement. Both matter and style are inseparably linked in the best poetry.

      Application of Ideas to Life: Arnold elucidates the phrase "a criticism of life" by using another phrase, namely, "an application of ideas to life" application of grand ideas to life. But what are these ideas to be applied to? In other words what are the objects of poetry? Arnold replies, "they are actions, human actions possessing an inherent interest in themselves and which are to be communicated in an interesting manner by the art of the poet? And these actions must be those which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections. To those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race and which are independent of time".

      Treatment of Moral Ideas: Lest there be some ambiguity even in this explanation Arnold further elucidated "criticism of life" as essentially a moral approach to poetry. Poetry to Arnold was not for mere entertainment. There are critics who have found fault with Arnold's definition and pointed out that poetry is not a mere criticism of life, but an idealised reconstruction of life. Arnold, in fact is Aristotelian in his approach to poetry. Aristotle emphasised that poetry is an imitation of life or rather an idealised recreation of it. Worsfold has clinched the issue of moral edification as the supreme object of poetry when he says, "The poet or novelist by creating ideal pictures of life provides an ideal standard with which the facts of real life can be contrasted". In short Arnold's theory of poetry can be summed up as follows:

(i) Poetry is criticism of life. Closely connected with this dictum is the application of ideas moral ideas to life.

(ii) The objects of poetry are human actions possessing an inherent interest in themselves and universally relevant in all places and times.

(iii) Subject and style both inseparably linked in the best poetry.

      A Criticism of Life: Arnold defined poetry a 'criticism of life'. In his Essay on Joubert he wrote

      There are the famous men of literature - the Homers, Dantes, Shakespeare's, of them we need not speak; their praise is forever and ever. Then there are the famous men of ability in literature. Their praise is in their own generation. And what makes this difference? The work of the two orders of men is at the bottom the same, a criticism of life. The end and aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is, in truth nothing but that. But the criticism which the men of genius pass upon human life is permanently acceptable to mankind; the criticism which the men of ability pas upon human life is transitorily acceptable.

      Arnold has further elucidated, criticism of life' as the "noble and profound application of ideas to life" i.e. moral ideas. This definition has however raised a hornet's nest. Garrod interprets it by quoting Edward Caird who says that literature is a criticism of life exactly in the sense that a good man is a criticism of bad one". T.S. Eliot feels that the definition of poetry as a criticism of life is inadequate and 'frigid'. Oliver Elton says that criticism of life implies "something that would illumine and inspire us for the business of living". Poetry seeks to idealise the dull and drab life and thus casts a glow upon life and heightens it. Thus, the Nightingale of Keats is an idealised portrait of unattainable beauty. To beauty, must be added moral ideas. But Arnold did not use "moral idea" in the conventional sense.

      Arnold's Concept of Moral Ideas: Arnold elucidated his concept of moral ideas in his essay on Wordsworth. By emphasising the moral approach, Arnold does not mean the composing of moral or didactic poems. Rather, according to Arnold, it is the question how to live and whatever comes under it, that is moral. It is the question, which most interests every man and with which, in some way or other, he is perpetually occupied with. Arnold quotes Milton:

Nor love thy life nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well; how long or short, permit to heaven.

      In these lines the moral idea is easily perceived. So also in the following line from Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair

      Again Shakespeare utters a moral idea when he says:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made of and our little life
Is round with a sleep.

      Arnold, therefore, concluded:

A poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life, a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards life.

      Arnold's Poetry as a Criticism of Life: No poet was as critical of the Victorian age as Arnold. Hugh Walker says "Arnold's much-condemned definition of poetry as 'a criticism of life' is at least true of his own poetry". Like Browning, Arnold could not say

God's in his Heaven
And all's right with the world.

      He found his age barren and sterile. Material advancement had led to spiritual degeneration and Arnold's verse is deeply critical of this. In all his deepest poems, in Thyrsis and The Scholar Gipsy, in Resignation, in the Obermann poems, in A Southern Night, Arnold is passing judgement on life and his age, the life of his country, the lives of individual men. In Dover Beach Arnold strikes a note of sadness when he compares men to an ignorant army clashing in a darkling plain. Having lost faith, man's life on earth is enveloped in the darkness of despair and skepticism and lost in the gloom without knowing its meaning and. In his philosophical poem Empedocles on Etna too, the poet pictures the dilemma of his time through his mouthpiece, Empedocles. The 'skeptical philosopher, at one time very powerful in Sicily but now 'the weary man, the banished citizen', climbs his way to the summit of Etna and reasons his way from despair to suicide. At the same time he muses on man's sad lot and the fate of the soul after death.

      Thyrsis: Thyrsis also offers us a criticism of life i.e., a moral comment on the complicated problem of modern life which vex the mind of the poet and his friends torn by conflicts and cut off from their moorings due to uncertainties and lack of faith. The poct is moved by the insatiable hunger of the human spirit for a sustaining faith and knowledge and a yearning for spiritual calm and poise. "Arnold's serenity is the quiet seclusion of a melancholy soul" and he found solace in the healing power of Nature. This is the message of Thyrsis. The following passage from Thyrsis is another example of the treatment of a moral idea and of a criticism of life.

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night:
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
I see her veil draw soft across the day,
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey:
I feel her finger light
Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train;
The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. (Line. 131-140)

      Although the poet here speaks of his personal feelings and his personal reaction to the advent of old age, there is no doubt about the universal truth of these lines.

      The Scholar Gipsy: It is this poem which admirably illustrates Arnold's application of his theory of poetry as a criticism of life". In it the life of the soul - whose springs are inward and the life of the world-division and distraction of fever and unrest; of pleasures and passion of intellectual lights and crosslights, are contrasted". The curse of modern life is that we are:

Vague-half-believers of our casual creeds
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill'd
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day (Line. 172-179)

      The modern life is one of 'sick hurry' and divided aims' and this dries up the spirit of man. After diagnosing the disease of modern life, Arnold offers his remedy. The Scholar Gipsy, for example, chooses to live away from the sick hurry and divided aims of life. He has no hankering after the material pleasures and passions of life. He seeks spiritual illumination from the Gipsies among whom he has sought refuge from the torment of civilization.

      He has "one aim, one business, one desire. In other words, Arnold's teaching in The Scholar Gipsy, as in many other poems, is that people should seek to "see life steadily and see it whole" and that "the aids to noble life are all within". However, Arnold's criticism of life is not always acceptable. The idealism of the Scholar Gipsy is actually a kind of escapism from life and escapism is never a virtue. According to Eliot "The life pictured in The Scholar Gipsy, however, pleasing and attractive it may be made to look in poetry, can hardly be recommended as the ideal life, for there is nothing in it heroic". Arnold's drawback also was that the brightside of the age included his notice.

      Conclusion: Arnold believed that Europe in his time, principally needed criticism, and he gave his criticism in verse as well as in prose. In A Southern Night, the fate of his brother, dying in exile in the attempt to return to England becomes the text for a sermon on the restless energy of the English; in the Epilogue to Lessing's Lacoon we have a discussion of the principles of the arts of music, painting and poetry. In his verse, Goethe, Byron, Wordsworth and Senancour are all Cxamined with wonderful insight (Memorial Verses). Even his elegiac poetry is never limited to a simple expression of grief; it always becomes reflective and philosophical. Sometimes the directly critical element is uppermost as in Memorial Verses and Heine's Grave. Thus, Arnold's poetry is chiefly a poetry of criticism not only of art and literature but of life itself.

Example Questions

Examine some of the poems of Arnold in the light of his remark that poetry is "a criticism of life".
Or
Examine Arnold's poetic theories and show to what extent his practice as a poet conforms to those theories.
Or
Arnold defined poetry as a criticism of life'. Discuss this with reference to The Scholar Gipsy, Thyrsis and other poems of Arnold.
Or
Enunciate Arnold's Theory of poetry.
Or
Estimate Arnold's poetry as the criticism of life.

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