The Study of Poetry by Matthew Arnold Summary and Notes

                                   The Study of Poetry by Matthew Arnold Summary

"Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact" - Arnold

In his seminal work, the “Study of Poetry” Matthew Arnold opines that one should evaluate poetry by comparing and contrasting it with a piece from a high classic. According to Arnold, poetry is worthy of high destinies. We can notice in our society that many of the religions, principles, rules, creeds, and dogmas are all becoming questionable and broken over time. In the case of poetry too, many find it difficult to evaluate the true essence of good poetry.

Arnold wanted to treat poetry as something worth higher value-capable of higher uses and called to higher destinies. He quotes lines from Wordsworth to define poetry, it is“the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science”; poetry is “the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”. All our beliefs like religion and philosophy are but the shadows and dreams and false shows of knowledge

And in order to highly determine the destinies of poetry, we must set certain standards of poetry high - high standard and strict judgment.

Arnold makes a reference to Sainte-Beuve recalling Napoleon's words - Charlatanism is found in every sphere of our lives. Charlatanism is confusing. We find no proper distinction between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true.

But in the higher order of thought, that is poetry, charlatanism shall find no entrance. In poetry, the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true, is of paramount importance. Poetry is an art and though in one, it is a sphere to be kept inviolate and inviolable.

According to Arnold’s observations, the best of poetry will be found to have the power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. There may be something which tends to obscure and distract us from the pursuit of it. So we should always have a steady mindset. We should keep in mind what is best, the power of meaning it conveys, which should govern our estimate of what we read. But the real estimates are liable to be superseded if we are not watchful of two other kinds of estimates, they are 1)the historic estimate and 2)the personal estimate - both of which are fallacious.

The historic estimate value of context over the artistic quality of poetry gives it more importance as poetry than in itself it really is, in short, to overrate it. So arises in our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call the historic estimate. Similarly, our personal affinities, likings and circumstances, blind our estimate of a poet's work, and make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, Here also we overrate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language of praise which is quite exaggerated. Both fallacies are natural but they are biased. Arnold clarifies his view on biased estimates by quoting Critic, M. Charles d’Héricault, “the cloud of glory playing round work of poetry is a mist as dangerous to the future of a literature”, “it hinders us from seeing more than one single point, the summary, fictitious and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work”. It substitutes a halo for a physiognomy, hiding from us all traces of the labour, the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of the poet, it claims not to study but veneration; it imposes upon us a model.

If we come upon a work by a poet, we should feel and enjoy his work and appreciate the wide difference between it and all the other works which do not have the same character. We must look where his work falls short, and drops out of the class of the very best. Negative criticism is enabling us to have a clearer sense and deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent.

The historic estimate tends to affect our judgment and our language when we are dealing with ancient poets and the personnel estimate when we are dealing with poets, our contemporaries. These lead to a dangerous abuse of language. Hence we hear Cædmon, amongst our own poets, compared to Milton.

Arnold does not allow anyone to heap supreme praise upon the poetry of inferior quality. We should have in mind what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. High poetry serves as an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality. Of course, this other poetry need not resemble them but should be congruent in terms of poetic value. Quoting Arnold, “Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite sufficiently.”

He then quotes several lines from various classic texts which he feels can be used as touchstones to evaluate other works. These lines are enough, he says, to keep giving us clear and sound judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. The lines quoted have the possession of the very highest poetical quality.

Critics spend a lot of time scrutinising works in order to determine their quality of work. Arnold believes that it is much better to have some concrete examples - by keeping specimens of poetry as references.

When we are asked to define our stance we need to add substance and matter of poetry one can point to Aristotle’s observation that the superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness. That the substances and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from possessing truth and seriousness.

The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities are closely related and are in steadfast proportion one to the other.

Christian of Troyes was a French romance writer. His works were considered to be of high prestige. Bur Arnold does not think Troyes was a good poet but rather chooses Chaucer over him. Troye's work is overpowered by the historical estimate. Chaucer’s power of fascination, however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the assistance of the historic estimate; it is real.

This is what makes Chaucer superior to Troy’s romance poetry. His superiority is both in the substance of his poetry and in the style of his poetry. Chaucer paints a large but simple view of human life. He has the power to survey the world from a central, truly human point of view.

(Prologue to The Canterbury Tales). The right comment upon it is Dryden’s: “It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God’s plenty.”




It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer’s poetry has truth of substance. .




Of his style and manner - liquidness of diction, fluidity of movement, “gold dew-drops of speech.”




Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry; he is our “well of English undefiled,” because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he makes an epoch and finds a tradition. In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid movement of Chaucer. The power of liquidness and fluidity in Chaucer’s verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious dealing with language,

“O martyr sounded in virginitee!”




Even still, Arnold cannot consider Chaucer as one of the great classics. Yes, his poetry transcends and effaces all the English poetry contemporary with it. But Chaucer lacks spoudaiotes, the high and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry




What Chaucer lacks can be found in Dante, who died eighty years before him. His verses are beyond Chaucer's reach, Dante’s prowess can be expressed in the following line

“In la sua volontade è nostra pace . .”

As per Arnold’s viewpoint, the substance of Chaucer’s poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, and benignity; but it does not have this high seriousness. Homer’s criticism of life has it, Dante’s has it, Shakespeare’s has it., but not Chaucer’s




The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which followed it, believed itself to have produced poetical classics of its own, “that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or practised by our fathers.” - Dryden, but Arnold does not agree to it.




After the Restoration, Arnold notes that English soil felt the imperious need of a fit prose. The requisite qualities for a fit prose are regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. Drden and Pope were good with prose, remarks Arnold. Though they write in verse, though they know the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of poetry, they are classics of prose.

Arnold then moved on to Thomas Gray, and affirms that Gray, though not a natural poet, learned poetic view and manners from others. He had a skill, which differentiates him from Addison and Pope. He is the scantiest and the frailest of the classics in our poetry, but he is a classic.




Arnold then ends his critique with Robert Burns, the Scottish Poet. Poetry of Burns is full of Scottish references, dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, and bacchanalian poetry vibes. And Arnold feels that his lines are poetically unsound. Burns does not speak from his heart, he is more or less preaching. But for poetical success more is required than the verbose application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.




Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be abundantly worthwhile to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never will lose currency with the world, in spite of monetary appearances; it never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world’s deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper,—by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity.







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