THE STUDY OF POETRY – AN OVERVIEW

 

The Study of Poetry was originally published as an introduction to an anthology of poems entitled The English Poets edited by T. H. Ward brought out in1880. As the very title suggests, the main objective of Matthew Arnold in writing it is to come up with an authentic method for judging the real worth of a poem. However, prior to doing so, Arnold clarifies why such a method is needed by setting forth the greatness of poetry, its essential nature, the erroneous ways it could be misjudged, before eventually concluding by offering a succinct survey of English poetry.

 

Greatness of Poetry

 

    Charles Darwin in his renowned book on the idea of natural selection cast an indelible shadow over the Biblical view that humanity was created by God. He proved with evidence that every species of this world basically typifies a product of evolution, and in this regard declared that human beings originated from apes. This incited an intense backlash between religion and science, with the upshot that the public at large were plunged into an overwhelming sense of scepticism. Arnold opens the essay by directly addressing this situation of uncertainty through positing that poetry epitomizes a way out. His contention is that unlike science and religion that have failed humanity in its quest for certainty, poetry will not for it is essentially based on ideas that cannot possibly be disproved. He therefore urges that people should regard poetry in high esteem, more so than they have ever done so in the past. In fact, he makes a rather grand speculation that poetry will subsequently outshine even philosophy and religion, insisting that the human race would find itself increasingly turning to poetry to make meaning out of life. In saying all this Arnold nonetheless stipulates that not every poetry that has ever been written would be capable of the things that he had postulated. Only those poems that bear the hallmark of a classic, which is to say, could be considered as belonging to the class of the very best, are potential of enabling humanity to achieve the promised end. It is therefore vital that readers are equipped with a method by which they could discern whether a poem truly bears the mark of a classic or not. It is exactly for this reason that Arnold makes it his chief business in the text to come up with a means by which people could find out a poem’s true worth.

 

Classical Feature in Poetry

 

    Having delineated the most telling attribute of poetry to be its classical feature, Arnold proceeds to elaborate how a poem comes to accrue this value. First and foremost, it should be objective in conception. For Arnold, poetry epitomizes a criticism of life, and criticism as he theorizes represents a disinterested endeavor. This disinterested endeavor that is poetry, is however not unconditional but governed by two regulations. These are, the law of poetic truth that refers to the subject matter of poetry, and the law of poetic beauty that denotes the style or manner of poetry. In Arnold’s view, the subject matter of a poem attains its classical feature by possessing in an eminent degree the virtues of truth and seriousness. Similarly the style of a poem acquires its classical feature by possessing in an eminent degree the attributes of diction and movement. It is nonetheless noteworthy that though explained separately, the aspects of poetic truth and beauty, are vitally inseparable. This is to say, only if the subject is presented seriously, in a pressing tone, and truthfully, as realistically as possible, would it be taken as something important. However, this is not enough, for no matter how important the subject is, the poem would be read only if it is appealingly presented with diction, the right choice of words, and movement, the organization of those words in a proper order.

 

The Fallacies

 

    Before explaining how poetry must be genuinely judged with regard to its classical status, Arnold cautions against two false methods or fallacies that could prove to be counter-productive. The first is the historical estimate in which the worth of a poem is judged on the basis of the significance it commands historically. For instance, some works might have come out at a relatively critical juncture in the course of a nation’s history or the development of its language. Owing to this fact, regardless of the poem’s intrinsic value in terms of its subject and style, we might tend to overate its importance and wrongfully characterize its worth. The second fallacy is the personal estimate, in which the worth of a poem is judged based on the personal likes or dislikes of the individual criticizing it. So if the poem appeals favourably to the one evaluating it, it is estimated highly, but if it does not, then it is conversely dubbed not so good. Here again, the judgement is spurious because it is not done with any regard to the poem’s actual content or manner of expression. Both these estimates are in fact fallacious for the ultimate verdict arrived through them is wholly grounded on external considerations, which apparently have no direct bearing on the poem. Arnold is of the opinion that the historical estimate is most likely to affect our judgement while dealing with works from the past, the personal estimate while criticizing works that are relatively modern.

 

The Touchstone Method

 

    The true method of examining poetry as devised by Arnold exemplifies a comparative system of evaluation, in which the classical worth of the poem being judged is invariably done so based on how it stacks up against the poem to which it is compared, whose classic status has already been established. To explain, there is on the one hand the poem to be evaluated whose classical quality has not yet been confirmed. Let us call it target poem, TP for short. Then on the other we have the poem to which it is compared, whose classical status has been proved. Let us call it Classical poem, CP for short. Now, what the critic has to do is initially study the CP and discern the merits manifested in it. This is to be ensued by the enterprise of studying the TP, with the view to find out if the same merits in CP are present in TP too. If yes, then TP is identified as a classic, and it can be in future used as a CP for evaluating other TPs. It must be however specified that the qualities in CP need not be replicated in TP for the latter to be recognized as a classical poem. This is to say, what is required is for the qualities in CP and TP to be essentially similar, not exactly identical. The logic on which Matthew Arnold is allegedly basing his true method of evaluating poetry, is drawn from the popular practice of testing the purity of gold with the aid of a touchstone. After all, what Arnold wants the critic to do is use the CP as a touchstone, to check if the TP typifies a pure form of gold, which is to say, is possessive of the classical feature. Hence, the method is more famously identified as the touchstone method, though Arnold himself did not call it so, preferring to label it merely as the real estimate. It must be noted that in recommending the use of the CP as a touchstone, Arnold clarifies that it is not required of the critic to take the entire CP into consideration. The critic can instead take samples in the form of brief extracts, which could be single lines or even phrases, and employ them as touchstones.

 

Survey of English Poetry

 

    After explaining how the real estimate works, Arnold moves on to provide a brief survey of English poetry from earliest times. The main objective of Arnold in doing so is not to impart a historical knowledge of English poetry, but to identify poets from the various eras of English literature, whose poems could be utilized as potential touchstones in practicing the real estimate. In this regard, the first poet he takes into consideration is Chaucer who belongs to the 14th century. Arnold has no qualms in conceding that Chaucer is undoubtedly the father of English poetry, and that it is with him the glorious tradition of poetry in England commences. However, he does not recognize him as one of the classical poets of English literature, and thus his poems in his opinion cannot be employed as touchstones. Arnold’s reservation is owing to the fact that Chaucer’s poetry lacks one of the four important aspects required to complete the holistic framework of a classic. It is certainly truthful, no other poet presents the medieval times in so realistic manner as he does in his poetry. His diction and movement as far as his poetic style is concerned is also flawless. However, Chaucer’s poetry is lacking in seriousness, and therefore is missing an integral ingredient in being regarded as a classic. Arnold then moves on to English poetry during the 16^th and the 17^th century, where he identifies three poets as classics by default. These are Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. Subsequently turning his attention to the 18^th century, he focuses on the two most significant poets of the neoclassical era namely that of Dryden and Pope. Here Arnold makes an interesting observation that Dryden and Pope are indeed classical writers, but that of prose, not poetry. The poet Arnold ultimately identifies as the true poetic classic of the 18^th century is Thomas Gray, who is dubbed by him as the weakest classical poet of all. It is however noteworthy that Arnold does not attribute the weakness of Gray as a poet classic to any flaw or limitations in him as a poet. Rather he ascribes it to the fact that Gray comes in much later in the tradition of English poetry, which has meant that most things original have already been done by the poets before him, and therefore he himself is hardly left with anything authentic to do. Proceeding further to the later part of the 18^th century, past the neoclassical to the pre-romantic or transitional period, Arnold takes up the name of Robert Burns for consideration. Here too the observation that Arnold posits is quite interesting. He recognizes Burns as certainly a poet classic, but having said so, stipulates that the classical feature of Burns as a poet is found only in his Scotch poems, not in those he wrote in English. With Burns, Arnold concludes his survey of English poetry in the quest to set forth names of classical poets. He does not consider the romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Keats and the rest of them, who belong to the 19^th century, because Arnold feels such poets are too close to his own generation, and this fact might make him liable to committing the error of employing the personal estimate in judging them. Arnold’s implication is that ‘there has got to be a healthy time gap between the generation of the person judging, and that of those being judged, so that there would be objectivity in the verdict arrived at.