Matthew Arnold - The study of poetry

       

"Poetry is the criticism of life,                            governed by the laws of poetic truth              and poetic beauty".

Matthew Arnold was English poet and cultural critic of 19th century. His notable works are,
# "Dover beach"
# "The scholar-Gipsy"
# "Thysis"
# "Culture and Anarchy"
He wrote on social and cultural issues, religion, and education.
His famous eassy on 'The study of poetry' :
In this work, his concerned with poetry's high destiny. In this eassy he talk about some important points like
# Touchstone method
# His views of chaucer as a poet
# His views on the age of dryden and pope
# His views on Robert Burns as a poet
# The Future of poetry
# poetry is criticism of life
# poetry interprets life
# Fallacies of real Estimate
# Idealism
# High seriousness
# moral and philosophical
The study of poetry, the first eassy in the 1888 volume was originally published as the general introduction to T. H. Ward's anthology, the English poets. He did not like the spasmodic expression of Romanticism.
He also talk about the future of poetry is immense and he also told that 'Literature is better than history'.
Q. 1 Write about one idea of Matthew Arnold which you found interesting and relevant in our time.
According to Arnold, the first great principle of criticism is
             "Disinterestedness or detachment.                    Disinterestedness on the part of the                critic implies freedom from all                        prejudice, personal or historical."
I like his view of disinterestedness and detachment and it is also relevant in today's life because there are many writers who write something which is may be good. Literature should be free from all the prejudice either historical or personal. Critic have to forget his own prejudices of personal as well as historical, but it is depend on critic that he really follow or they try to do something new. It is happen that critic judge the work by some kind of old theory which is given by old writers or critics and we have many old theories. Arnold says that we should be detached from any kind of theories, personal and historical. For example when you feel something good and try to write your poem. According to Arnold it is not good poetry at all.
Second, he talk about future of poetry. Here he talk about others forms like science, religion, philosophy and literature. According to Arnold literature is good because literature gives you something new, something good or releted with our society and gives you delight. On the other hand he talk about philosophy that philosophy is dull or creed. So he favour of literature. He also says that,
     "Idea is more important than feeling and        emotion, or truth of literature is more            profound than science."
For example history is broken by filmmaker to give something new or interesting but people are not agree with that because they broken history.
So like that he talk about literature or he favour literature.
Third, he says that, poetry is the criticism of life, governed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. So here he talk about poetic truth and poetic beauty. Arnold talk about specific kind of truth and beauty. He rightly says that for everybody truth and beauty is different. Beauty and truth is highly personal thing like aesthetic delight. For example when you see some movie or read something at that time this movie and this book gives you asthmatic delight, gives you truth or beauty but on the other side may other not found that beauty or truth in that movie or book. And according to Arnold beauty is equally important to truth.

Q. 2 write about Matthew Arnold which you found out of date and irrelevant in our times. 

Matthew Arnold's "Touchstone method" which is out of date or irrelevant in our present time. According to Arnold, in touchstone Method there is scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as two primary tools for judging individual poet. Here, judging individual genius is not appropriate in present time because when you judge something you have to know about or think about certain basic idea or think. We can not judge by only one fragment of any work. To jung something you have to know about others work or we can not judge new poet's work to the ancient work because as we know that everyone has their own idea, own diction or own genius. According to Arnold in this method he says that take best two poem and compare both, compare the lines of both the poem. So may be this method is problematic.