[Transcriber's notes:
Bold text is denoted with ~.
Footnotes:
In the original, footnote numbering restarted on each page, and they
were collated at the end of the text in page number order. In this
e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively through the text.
However, they are still to be found in their original position after the
text, and the original page numbers have been retained in the
footnotes.
There is one footnote in the Preface, which is to be found in its
original position at the end of the Preface.]
* * * * *
Riverside College Classics
SELECTIONS
FROM THE PROSE WORKS OF
MATTHEW ARNOLD
_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
BY
WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, PH.D.
_Professor of English Literature in the University of Kansas_
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
_The essays included in this issue of the Riverside College Classics are
reprinted by permission of, and by arrangement with, The Macmillan
Company, the American publishers of Arnold's writings._
1913, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
PREFACE
This book of selections aims to furnish examples of Arnold's prose in
all the fields in which it characteristically employed itself except
that of religion. It has seemed better to omit all such material than to
attempt inclusion of a few extracts which could hardly give any adequate
notion of Arnold's work in this department. Something, however, of his
method in religious criticism can be discerned by a perusal of the
chapter on _Hebraism and Hellenism_, selected from _Culture and
Anarchy_. Most of Arnold's leading ideas are represented in this volume,
but the decision to use entire essays so far as feasible has naturally
precluded the possibility of gathering all the important utterances
together. The basis of division and grouping of the selections is made
sufficiently obvious by the headings. In the division of literary
criticism the endeavor has been to illustrate Arnold's cosmopolitanism
by essays of first-rate importance dealing with the four literatures
with which he was well acquainted. In the notes, conciseness with a
reasonable degree of thoroughness has been the principle followed.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SELECTIONS:
I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM:
1. Poetry and the Classics (1853)
2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)
3. The Study of Poetry (1880)
4. Literature and Science (1882)
II. LITERARY CRITICISM:
1. Heinrich Heine (1863)
2. Marcus Aurelius (1863)
3. The Contribution of the Celts to English Literature (1866)
4. George Sand (1877)
5. Wordsworth (1879)
III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES:
1. Sweetness and Light (1867)
2. Hebraism and Hellenism (1867)
3. Equality (1878)
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
I
[Sidenote: Life and Personality]
"The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and I
sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupations
and labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here to
have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them."
This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year,
admirably expresses Arnold's courage, cheerfulness, and devotion in the
midst of an exacting round of commonplace duties, and at the same time
the energy and determination with which he responded to the imperative
need of liberating work of a higher order, that he might keep himself,
as he says in another letter, "from feeling starved and shrunk up." The
two feelings directed the course of his life to the end, a life
characterized no less by allegiance to "the lowliest duties" than by
brilliant success in a more attractive field.
Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham, December 24, 1822, the eldest son of
Thomas Arnold, the great head master of Rugby. He was educated at
Laleham, Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1845 he was
elected a fellow of Oriel, but Arnold desired to be a man of the world,
and the security of college cloisters and garden walls could not long
attract him. Of a deep affection for Oxford his letters and his books
speak unmistakably, but little record of his Oxford life remains aside
from the well-known lines of Principal Shairp, in which he is spoken of
as
So full of power, yet blithe and debonair,
Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay.
From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, and
in 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord
President of the Council. In 1851, the year of his marriage, he became
inspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two years
before his death. As an inspector, the letters give us a picture of
Arnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place to
place, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, or
seeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten "before the astonished
school." His services to the cause of English education were great, both
in the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, and
in thoughtful discussion of national problems. Much time was spent in
investigating foreign systems, and his _Report upon Schools and
Universities on the Continent_ was enlightened and suggestive.
Arnold's first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the larger
part of his poetry was published. Four years later he was appointed
Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Of his prose, the first book to attract
wide notice was that containing the lectures _On Translating Homer_
delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62. From this
time until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series of
critical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men of
letters of his century. He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties as
school inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service of
thirty-five years. He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, at
Liverpool.
The testimony to Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his
urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He is
described by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable,
the most companionable of men"; by another as "preëminently a good man,
gentle, generous, enduring, laborious." His letters are among the
precious writings of our time, not because of the beauty or
inimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture which
they make. They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show a
hand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, but
they do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one in
which the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love of
flowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men. His
life was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash between
the pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause,
even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projects
and adherence to the most irritating drudgery.
II
[Sidenote: Arnold's Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers]
By those who go to literature primarily for a practical wisdom presented
in terms applicable to modern life, the work of Arnold will be reckoned
highly important, if not indispensable. He will be placed by them among
the great humanizers of the last century, and by comparison with his
contemporaries will be seen to have furnished a complementary
contribution of the highest value. Of the other great teachers whose
work may most fitly be compared with his, two were preëminently men of
feeling. Carlyle was governed by an overmastering moral fervor which
gave great weight to his utterances, but which exercised itself in a
narrow field and which often distorted and misinterpreted the facts.
Ruskin was governed by his affections, and though an ardent lover of
truth and beauty, was often the victim of caprice and extravagance.
Emerson and Arnold, on the other hand, were governed primarily by the
intellect, but with quite different results. Emerson presents life in
its ideality; he comparatively neglects life in its phenomenal aspect,
that is, as it appears to the ordinary man. Arnold, while not without
emotional equipment, and inspired by idealism of a high order,
introduces a yet larger element of practical season. _Tendens manus ripæ
ulterioris amore_, he is yet first of all a man of this world. His chief
instrument is common sense, and he looks at questions from the point of
view of the highly intelligent and cultivated man. His dislike of
metaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient of
abstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the true
progress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmness
and disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desires
and workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Of
the lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work rather
than by specific teachings, perhaps the most precious is the inspiration
to live our lives thoughtfully, in no haphazard and hand-to-mouth way,
and to live always for the idea and the spirit, making all things else
subservient. He does not dazzle us with extraordinary power prodigally
spent, but he was a good steward of natural gifts, high, though below
the highest. His life of forethought and reason may be profitably
compared with a life spoiled by passion and animalism like that of Byron
or of Burns. His counsels are the fruit of this well-ordered life and
are perfectly in consonance with it. While he was a man of less striking
personality and less brilliant literary gift than some of his
contemporaries, and though his appeal was without the moving power that
comes from great emotion, we find a compensation in his greater balance
and sanity. He makes singularly few mistakes, and these chiefly of
detail. Of all the teachings of the age his ideal of perfection is the
wisest and the most permanent.
III
[Sidenote: His Teachers and his Personal Philosophy]
Arnold's poetry is the poetry of meditation and not the poetry of
passion; it comes from "the depth and not the tumult of the soul"; it
does not make us more joyful, but it helps us to greater depth of
vision, greater detachment, greater power of self-possession. Our
concern here is chiefly with its relation to the prose, and this, too,
is a definite and important relation. In his prose Arnold gives such
result of his observation and meditation as he believes may be gathered
into the form of counsel, criticism, and warning to his age. In his
poetry, which preceded the prose, we find rather the processes through
which he reached these conclusions; we learn what is the nature of his
communing upon life, not as it affects society, but as it fronts the
individual; we learn who are the great thinkers of the past who came to
his help in the straits of life, and what is the armor which they
furnished for his soul in its times of stress.
One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression
often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real
substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no
one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age.
More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual
sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as
_Dover Beach_ and _Stagirius_ should be placed the lines from
_Westminster Abbey_:--
For this and that way swings
The flux of mortal things,
Though moving inly to one far-set goal.
Out of this entanglement and distraction Arnold turned for help to those
writers who seemed most perfectly to have seized upon the eternal
verities, to have escaped out of the storm of conflict and to have
gained calm and peaceful seats. Carlyle and Ruskin, Byron and Shelley,
were stained with the blood of battle, they raged in the heat of
controversy; Arnold could not accept them as his teachers. But the Greek
poets and the ancient Stoic philosophers have nothing of this dust and
heat about them, and to them Arnold turns to gather truth and to imitate
their spirit. Similarly, two poets of modern times, Goethe and
Wordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers.
Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets,
Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and
Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth.
In Homer and Sophocles, Arnold sought what we may call the Greek spirit.
What he conceived this spirit to be as expressed in art, we find in the
essay on _Literature and Science_, "fit details strictly combined, in
view of a large general result nobly conceived." In Sophocles, Arnold
found the same spirit interpreting life with a vision that "saw life
steadily and saw it whole." In another Greek idea, that of fate, he is
also greatly interested, though his conception of it is modified by the
influence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived a
sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom
of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of
life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the
desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes
on us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose of life.
Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, "Europe's sagest
head, Physician of the Iron Age." One of the things that he learned from
this source was the value of detachment. In the midst of the turmoil of
life, Goethe found refuge in Art. He is the great modern example of a
man who has been able to separate himself from the struggle of life and
watch it calmly.
He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife,
Knows how the day hath gone.
Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed,
isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence.
Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow,
And faint the city gleams;
Rare the lone pastoral huts--Marvel not thou!
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,
But to the stars and the cold lunar beams;
Alone the sun rises, and alone
Spring the great streams.
From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in the
intellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold may
both be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's most
characteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "do
the task that lies nearest us," while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "To
act is easy, to think is hard."
In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenial
than Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attained
spiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, was
untroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things in
Arnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and to
share and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to the
deeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul
Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
Firm to the mark, not spent on other things;
and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance of
duty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity," sharing in the
world's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil."
From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike,
Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life." Overshadowed
on all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity," we must learn
to resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind," to merge
the self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before our
minds
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.
No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than that
of the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence.
These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instincts
which needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greek
poets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct it
toward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance and
perfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachment
and self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, to
pursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. From
the Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. In
general, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and to
distinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values.
IV
[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic]
In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he was
descending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to lift
criticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work.
The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty
ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the
best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate
purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and
vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined
to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society,
politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is
blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best.
For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost of
these is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate your
argument," says Emerson in the essay on _Self-Reliance_. Similarly
Arnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that he
refrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarian
work. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness of
vision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blinds
the partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to see
the object as in itself it really is." This is best accomplished by
approaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible.
Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of vision
is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the
necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and
scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the
critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's
ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his
mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in
Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary
criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own
mind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and to
guide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather than
violently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to present
unpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a people
in its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, the
retention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering belief
that the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it."
Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold's
discussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, and
much upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basic
character to shine through. Such words as "limpidness," "simplicity,"
"lucidity," are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualities
that he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through the
crystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as
"Philistinism," "sweetness and light," "the grand style," etc. That this
habit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to get
hold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered his
thought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to the
coiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truth
when the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass.
Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure to
quite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, in
his celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or the
passage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class as
liking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer."
By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, and
he does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionally
his writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet but
deep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mind
has long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at the
beginning of the _Essay on Emerson_. Sometimes, on the other hand, a
certain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that the
dullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to grasp
even the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on the
literal fact.
One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of his
style, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite of
the frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in his more
intimate and personal writing, his poetry and his familiar letters. In
such a book as _Friendship's Garland_, where it is most in evidence, it
is plainly a literary weapon deliberately assumed. In fact, Arnold is
almost too conscious of the value of humor in the gentle warfare in
which he had enlisted. Its most frequent form is that of playful satire;
it is the product of keen wit and sane mind, and it is always directed
toward some serious purpose, rarely, if ever, existing as an end in
itself.
V
[Sidenote: Literary Criticism]
The first volume of _Essays in Criticism_ was published in 1865. That a
book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character,
so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort,
should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so
single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant
and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality.
What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding"
tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind
nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two
volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_
discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided into
two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing
subjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnold
himself has called "the humanization of man in society." In the former
he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects
some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further
humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates
it for us. But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewhere
in the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us the
essence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escape
us. How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much to
illustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to his
readers. Besides the general purpose of humanization, two other
considerations guide him: the racial shortcomings of the English people
and the needs of his age. The English are less in need of energizing and
moralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with the
passion for perfection. This need accordingly determines the choice in
most cases. So Milton presents an example of "sure and flawless
perfection of rhythm and diction"; Joubert is characterized by his
intense care of "perfecting himself"; Falkland is "our martyr of
sweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper";
George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal life
the normal one; Emerson is "the friend and aider of those who would live
in the spirit."
The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanization
determines Arnold's loyalty to that form of art; that classical art is
superior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect,
determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry. He
thus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet has
experienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it.
Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope and
his contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand and
Goethe on the other for his exemplars. He feels "the peculiar charm and
aroma of the Middle Age," but retains "a strong sense of the
irrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, and
play at restoring it" (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); and
again: "No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the
'dæmonic' element--as Goethe called it--which underlies and encompasses
our life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is while
conscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable round
one, to keep pushing on one's posts into the darkness, and to establish
no post that is not perfectly in light and firm" (letter to his mother,
March 3, 1865).
VI
[Sidenote: Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion]
Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold's writing proceeds from a
few governing and controlling principles. It is natural, therefore, that
we should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideas
already encountered in his literary criticism. Of these, the chief is
that of "culture," the theme of his most typical book, _Culture and
Anarchy_, published in 1869. Indeed, it is interesting to see how
closely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism,
already expounded. True criticism, we have seen, consists in an
"endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in
the world." The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is "a
study of perfection." But how may one pursue perfection? Evidently by
putting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known and
thought, and by making it a part of oneself. The relation of the critic
to culture thereupon becomes evident. He is the appointed apostle of
culture. He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to minister
to others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and the
specious from the good and the genuine, rendering the former
contemptible and the latter attractive. But in a degree all seekers
after culture must be critics also. Both pursue the same objects, the
best that is thought and known. Both, too, must propagate it; for
culture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personal
perfection is attained only when shared with one's fellows. The critic
and the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, though
Arnold does not specifically point this out. But the two ideals united
in himself direct all his endeavor. As a man of culture he is intent
chiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic,
upon their elucidation and propagation.
This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequently
brought against the gospel of culture. It would never have been brought
if its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold's express
statements that perfection consists in "a general expansion"; that it
"is not possible while the individual remains isolated"; that one of its
characteristics is "increased sympathy," as well as "increased
sweetness, increased light, increased life." The other common charge of
dilettanteism, brought by such opponents as Professor Huxley and Mr.
Frederic Harrison, deserves hardly more consideration. Arnold has made
it sufficiently clear that he does not mean by culture "a smattering of
Greek and Latin," but a deepening and strengthening of our whole
spiritual nature by all the means at our command. No other ideal of the
century is so satisfactory as this of Arnold's. The ideal of social
democracy, as commonly followed, tends, as Arnold has pointed out, to
exalt the average man, while culture exalts man at his best. The
scientific ideal, divorced from a general cultural aim, appeals "to a
limited faculty and not to the whole man." The religious ideal, too
exclusively cultivated, dwarfs the sense of beauty and is marked by
narrowness. Culture includes religion as its most valuable component,
but goes beyond it.
The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laid
the chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements of
culture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to the
condition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of the
English people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrasts
with the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind and
flexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, of
perfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore,
to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed because
of the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to which
she owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could be
added the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love of
beauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a truly
great civilization would result. That this ideal will in the end
prevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, and
depression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from his
prose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer in
culture. "We go the way the human race is going," he says at the close
of _Culture and Anarchy_.
Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon by
many as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closer
interest and is less discussable than literary criticism. _Literature
and Dogma_, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannot
be denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field to
prevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of his
religious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied.
Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in his
religious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separating
it from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as a
friend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religious
writings, of which _St. Paul and Protestantism_, 1870, and _Literature
and Dogma_, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show the
natural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing it
from dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to make
clear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, true
spirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for him
the bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughly
spiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned,
and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to become
convinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds and
holds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power,
preëminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is
"the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality is
a union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold did
not without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when once
entered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. His
attitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:--
"And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you
require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you!
Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who
have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them
without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with
far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of
intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your
function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very
stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular
because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare
them!"[1]
In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimed
at disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal," he says in the Introduction to
_Culture and Anarchy_, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience,
reflection, and self-renouncement." In the last condition he believed
that his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of culture
entrusted with power." In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is to
be found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. This
saved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the social
movements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end a
sympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles of
liberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism.
Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is always
likely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness
Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses
it, in _Culture and Anarchy_, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the
two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness and
its addiction to an abstract system."
VII
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of the
young Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this
description, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence,
the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the
end. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a
wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. His
prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable
inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his
contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of
ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified
air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and
strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality.
[Footnote 1: From _Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church,
Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336.]
~BIBLIOGRAPHY~
ARNOLD'S POEMS.
1849. _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems_. 1852. ~Empedocles on
Etna, and other Poems~. 1853. _Poems_. 1855. _Poems_ (Second Series).
1858. _Merope_. 1867. _New Poems_. 1869. _Poems_ (First Collected
Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877,
1881, 1885, and 1890.)
ARNOLD'S PROSE.
1859. _England and the Italian Question_. 1861. _Popular Education in
France_. 1861. _On Translating Homer_. 1862. _Last Words on Translating
Homer_. 1864. _A French Eton_. 1865. _Essays in Criticism_. 1867. _On
the Study of Celtic Literature_. 1868. _Schools and Universities on the
Continent_. 1869. _Culture and Anarchy_. 1870. _St. Paul and
Protestantism_. 1871. _Friendship's Garland_. 1873. _Literature and
Dogma_. 1875. _God and the Bible_. 1877. _Last Essays on Church and
Religion_. 1879. _Mixed Essays_. 1882. _Irish Essays_. 1885. _Discourses
in America_. 1888. _Essays in Criticism_ (Second Series). 1888.
_Civilization in the United States_. 1891. _On Home Rule for Ireland_.
1910. _Essays in Criticism_ (Third Series).
For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnold
criticism, see _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, by T.B. Smart, London,
1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E.
Russell in 1896.
CRITICISM OF ARNOLD'S PROSE.
BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: _Res Judicatæ_, London, 1892.
BROWNELL, W.C.: _Victorian Prose Masters_, New York, 1902.
BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Indoor Studies_, Boston, 1889.
DAWSON, W.H.: _Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our
Time_, New York, 1904.
FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: _Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence on
English Education_, New York, 1897.
GATES, L.E.: _Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold_, New
York, 1898.
HARRISON, FREDERIC: _Culture; A Dialogue_. In _The Choice of Books_,
London, 1886.
HUTTON, R.H.: _Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith_,
London, 1887.
JACOBS, JOSEPH: _Literary Studies_, London, 1895.
PAUL, HERBERT W.: _Matthew Arnold_. In _English Men of Letters Series_,
London and New York, 1902.
ROBERTSON, JOHN M.: _Modern Humanists_, London, 1891.
RUSSELL, G.W.E.: _Matthew Arnold_, New York, 1904.
SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: _Corrected Impressions_, London, 1895. _Matthew
Arnold_. In _Modern English Writers Series_, London, 1899.
SHAIRP, J.C.: _Culture and Religion_, Edinburgh, 1870.
SPEDDING, JAMES: _Reviews and Discussions_, London, 1879.
STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE: _Studies of a Biographer_, vol. 2, London, 1898.
WOODBERRY, GEORGE E.: _Makers of Literature_, London, 1900.
~SELECTIONS FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD~
I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM
POETRY AND THE CLASSICS[1]
In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the
other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have
already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time.
I have, in the present collection, omitted the poem[2] from which the
volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the
subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand
years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason.
Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the
delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the
feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of
the family of Orpheus and Musæus, having survived his fellows, living on
into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast
to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists[3] to
prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there are entered much
that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the
fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at
least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great
monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive
characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the
disinterested objectivity have disappeared; the dialogue of the mind
with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we
hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of
Faust.
The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, if
consistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle,[4]
in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our
love of poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all
knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but
to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is
consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it
gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is _not_
interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind;
that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation
which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular,
precise, and firm.
Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting;
but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is
demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that
it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm,
and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod[5] says, were born that
they might be "a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares": and it
is not enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is
required of him also that he should add to their happiness. "All art,"
says Schiller, "is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no more
serious problem, than how to make men happy. The right art is that
alone, which creates the highest enjoyment."
A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shown
to be an accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has to
be shown also that it is a representation from which men can derive
enjoyment. In presence of the most tragic circumstances, represented in
a work of art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may still
subsist: the representation of the most utter calamity, of the liveliest
anguish, is not sufficient to destroy it: the more tragic the situation,
the deeper becomes the enjoyment; and the situation is more tragic in
proportion as it becomes more terrible.
What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though
accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which
the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of
mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or
resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be
done. In such situations there is inevitably something morbid, in the
description of them something monotonous. When they occur in actual
life, they are painful, not tragic; the representation of them in poetry
is painful also.
To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears to me, that
of Empedocles, as I have endeavored to represent him, belongs; and I
have therefore excluded the poem from the present collection.
And why, it may be asked, have I entered into this explanation
respecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of the
poem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that the
sole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; and
that it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which many
critics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosen
from distant times and countries: against the choice, in short, of any
subjects but modern ones.
"The poet," it is said,[6] and by an intelligent critic, "the poet who
would really fix the public attention must leave the exhausted past, and
draw his subjects from matters of present import, and _therefore_ both
of interest and novelty."
Now this view I believe to be completely false. It is worth examining,
inasmuch as it is a fair sample of a class of critical dicta everywhere
current at the present day, having a philosophical form and air, but no
real basis in fact; and which are calculated to vitiate the judgment of
readers of poetry, while they exert, so far as they are adopted, a
misleading influence on the practice of those who make it.
What are the eternal objects of poetry, among all nations and at all
times? 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. Vainly will the latter imagine that he has
everything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferior
action equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment of
it: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work will
possess, within itself, an incurable defect.
The poet, then, has in the first place to select an excellent action;
and what actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, 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. These feelings are permanent and the same; that
which interests them is permanent and the same also. The modernness or
antiquity of an action, therefore, has nothing to do with its fitness
for poetical representation; this depends upon its inherent qualities.
To the elementary part of our nature, to our passions, that which is
great and passionate is eternally interesting; and interesting solely in
proportion to its greatness and to its passion. A great human action of
a thousand years ago is more interesting to it than a smaller human
action of to-day, even though upon the representation of this last the
most consummate skill may have been expended, and though it has the
advantage of appealing by its modern language, familiar manners, and
contemporary allusions, to all our transient feelings and interests.
These, however, have no right to demand of a poetical work that it shall
satisfy them; their claims are to be directed elsewhere. Poetical works
belong to the domain of our permanent passions: let them interest these,
and the voice of all subordinate claims upon them is at once silenced.
Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra, Dido[7]--what modern poem presents
personages as interesting, even to us moderns, as these personages of an
"exhausted past"? We have the domestic epic dealing with the details of
modern life, which pass daily under our eyes; we have poems representing
modern personages in contact with the problems of modern life, moral,
intellectual, and social; these works have been produced by poets the
most distinguished of their nation and time; yet I fearlessly assert
that _Hermann and Dorothea_, _Childe Harold_, _Jocelyn_, the
_Excursion_,[8] leave the reader cold in comparison with the effect
produced upon him by the latter books of the _Iliad_, by the _Oresteia_,
or by the episode of Dido. And why is this? Simply because in the three
last-named cases the action is greater, the personages nobler, the
situations more intense: and this is the true basis of the interest in a
poetical work, and this alone.
It may be urged, however, that past actions may be interesting in
themselves, but that they are not to be adopted by the modern poet,
because it is impossible for him to have them clearly present to his own
mind, and he cannot therefore feel them deeply, nor represent them
forcibly. But this is not necessarily the case. The externals of a past
action, indeed, he cannot know with the precision of a contemporary; but
his business is with its essentials. The outward man of Oedipus[9] or of
Macbeth, the houses in which they lived, the ceremonies of their courts,
he cannot accurately figure to himself; but neither do they essentially
concern him. His business is with their inward man; with their feelings
and behavior in certain tragic situations, which engage their passions
as men; these have in them nothing local and casual; they are as
accessible to the modern poet as to a contemporary.