It's all about Criticism written by Matthew Arnold a great critic.

1. By Mathew Arnold
BY Shahid Hilal

2. Edited and composed by Shahid Hilal
BS ENGLISH UOM
BY Shahid Hilal

3. 
Lets Start…
BY Shahid Hilal

4. BY Shahid Hilal

5. 
 With this lecture, we begin a new unit, objective
criticism. We shall offer first, an overview of the
main theorists of this unit. We shall them examine
closely, two seminal essays that laid the groundwork
for objective theory, Matthew Arnold's, The Function
of Criticism at the Present Time, and T.S. Eliot's,
Tradition and the Individual Talent.
BY Shahid Hilal

6. 
 In this unit, we shall consider a theoretical shift from
the poet to the poem itself. In other words, we're
going to move from expressive theories, interested in
the relationship between poem and poet, to objective
theories (the fourth and last of our perspectives),
interested in the relationship between the poem and
itself. You'll really understand what that means, by
the end of this unit. Now, this shift to objective
criticism, or objective theories, begins in the critical
essays of Matthew Arnold, and T.S. Eliot.
BY Shahid Hilal

7. 
 So that's what we'll do in this lecture. Now, although
Arnold the poet was strongly Romantic, Arnold the critic
sought to replace the Romantic focus on feeling, with the
renewed focus on ideas. Matthew Arnold is a fascinating
character, because his career breaks smoothly into two
halves. The first is all poetry, and then at a certain point,
he stops writing poetry completely, and begins to write
prose. His poetry is all exceedingly Romantic,
melancholy, over-wrought, and he never was able to
move beyond that. So finally it's as if Arnold gave-up on
the poetry and turned to criticism.
BY Shahid Hilal

8. 
 So whereas, as I mentioned, his poetry is Romantic, his
criticism turns away from Romanticism in many ways,
and wants to go back to ideas. It's sort of like a return to
the 18th century in some ways. So as a Victorian sage,
Arnold attempted to set aesthetic standards for his age,
harkening back to the systematic theories of Pope and
Burke. So we go back to this Neoclassical idea of the critic
setting a kind of refined aesthetic taste. Arnold is going
back to that idea of the critic, and of the poet as well. Now
Eliot, writing half a century later, taking us into the 20th
century, continued this de-Romanticizing of theory,
moving away from Romantics. In fact, Eliot will argue
that poetry is essentially a de-personalizing process. We'll
see that in the second half of this lecture.
BY Shahid Hilal

9. 
 Now again, in this lecture, we shall consider the
theories of Arnold and Eliot, in two ways, both as
critics just in their own right, yet also as precursors
of what we're calling objective theory. Then in
lectures 18 and 19, we shall turn our focus to the full
flowering of objective theory in the 20th century
American school of New Criticism. Through a close
look at essays by I.A. Richards, John Crowe Ransom,
W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brook, we shall explore
the new critical belief that each poem is a self-
contained, self-referential artifact.
BY Shahid Hilal

10. 
 We will see in lectures 18 and 19, how they turn the
poem into its own little universe. That's pure
objective theory! We shall also discuss how the new
critics created a special aesthetic space for poetry that
would preserve it from all external forces. In other
words, the new critics are what we might call, Neo-
Kantians. Just like Immanuel Kant, they want to
create a separate aesthetic place. So it's a different
kind of thing, poetry.
BY Shahid Hilal

11. 
 We'll see that as well in lectures 18 and 19. Finally, also in
those lectures, we shall discuss the battery of new tools
and methods that the new critics taught us to use when
explicating poetry. New Criticism is very practical and
pragmatic, it gives us rules and methods and tools. Then
in lecture 20, we'll take up the archetypal theories of
Northup Frye. Now also like the new critics, Frye kept his
eye on the internal structure of the poem, he delves even
deeper to uncover vast, mythic networks, and so in the
last lecture of the unit, we'll widen our perspective to look
at this large-scale, mythic view of poetry. In studying
Frye, we'll also view him not as only in the context of
objective theory, but in that of Christian typology and
allegory.
BY Shahid Hilal

12. 
 That is a Medieval thing I skipped, so we'll go back to it them, because it's
linked to Frye. Finally, in all four lectures of this unit, you'll want to note
how we'll focus on how theorists since Arnold have increasingly
emphasized the importance and centrality of criticism itself. Starting with
Matthew Arnold, the critic comes into his own, and has only gotten more
and more important as we move to the end of our century. All right, lets
turn to Matthew Arnold. In his seminal essay, The Function of Criticism at
the Present Time, he argues for the central role of the critic in fostering
great literature. He begins his essay by asserting that criticism is a positive,
noble task (agreeing with Alexander Pope in this, but even more fully on
it). You know that even today, a lot of people look down on critics. For
many, they are like parasites, like lawyers (no offense to lawyers in the
audience), but a lot of people look down at them as sort of like sponges.
Well, it was even more so in Arnold's time. So Arnold wants to say that
criticism is positive and noble.
BY Shahid Hilal

13. 
 Now, like Pope, he does agree that finally, the creative
faculty is superior to the critical, but still he insists
strongly that criticism is a worthwhile endeavor; it is
worth doing, it is good, it is noble. Here's a little
explanation he gives: “All people have the need to
exercise (what he calls) 'free creative activity.' Indeed, the
exercise of this power, constitutes man's greatest joy.”
Now if you think back to lecture 11 and Schiller, his idea
of the play-drive is very similar to this “free creative
activity;” our need to sort of expand our mind, to
emphasize ideas, to move-out, to think; that's called free
creative activity. Now the problem is that not all men
exercise this power through the production of literature.
BY Shahid Hilal

14. 
 Very few of us are great poets. So if the only way to
do this, is the only way to get to joy, then there are
going to be very few happy people, since so very few
are poets! So, Arnold tells us that for many people,
criticism functions as their main outlet of mental
play. Not everyone is a poet, so sometimes criticism
can be a way to exercise free creative activity. Now,
Arnold carefully distinguishes between the creative
faculty, and the critical faculty, showing us the
difference.
BY Shahid Hilal

15. 
 Whereas the creative faculty most expresses itself in the
synthesis of existing ideas, it's the critical faculty that creates
these ideas. Let's see how this works. Critics create new ideas
through analysis and discovery, by seeing objects as they are.
So critics use analysis and then look at the object, in order to see
it as it really is. They're very clear-minded, almost scientific in a
way. Isn't that different than poets? Romantics said poets are
interested in synthesis, and they're interested in perception, in
how things are perceived by poets, not as how they are. So
now, Arnold is doing something interesting. Criticism is
analysis, and poetry is synthesis. So now the critic is not to be
disparaged, as he so often was by Romantics. Why did
Romantics spurn critics? They privileged synthesis and
subjective perception, over objective analysis.
BY Shahid Hilal

16. 
 So even Wordsworth, later in life, said that he shouldn't
have wasted his time with criticism. Now, we're glad that
he did waste his time with it, but even he eventually
turned against it. So that's sort of a Romantic thing,
almost a Romantic myth, to turn away from analysis.
Now if you're listening carefully, note what else he says.
If the critic does analysis in order to prepare the way for
the poet, then the critic is the one who offers raw material
to the poet. It's almost like the critic is the primary
imagination, and poetry is the secondary imagination, if
we want to think about it in that way.
BY Shahid Hilal

17. 
 So it's the critic who comes up with new ideas, and it's the
poet who uses those new ideas. Let me explain more
fully, the way Arnold does. He carries this distinction
between critic and poet, into a wider, aesthetic view of
history, by distinguishing between two epochs or ages, in
what we might call the life-cycle of a culture. So there are
two different epochs. The first epoch is called an epoch of
expansion. Well, there's really no first and second here.
Yet this is where a culture is rich with new and fresh
ideas. So ideas are expanding, they are lively, full of life,
vivacious. Now, during such epochs, poets are needed to
harness this intellectual energy and convert it into great
works of art. Let's put it in Shelly's way.
BY Shahid Hilal

18. 
 Poets are needed to embody the zeitgeist, the spirit of the
age. Now Arnold tell us, unfortunately, that such epochs
are rare. In fact, he only really identifies two of them, with
which most people would agree. The first is Periclean
Athens, the age of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
The second, you might guess, is Elizabethan England, the
age of Shakespeare, the British Renaissance. Those are
really the only two he sees as full-fledged epochs of
expansion. Yet oddly, unlike Shelly, Arnold did not
consider the Romantic age, that which was born of the
French Revolution, to be an epoch of expansion. He
thought it almost was, but it failed.
BY Shahid Hilal

19. 
 Instead, he considered his age (recall he's still
thinking of himself as a Romantic until he really
thinks of himself as Victorian), to be an epoch of
concentration, one in which ideas are stagnant and
the free exchange of ideas is stifled. So if you think
about concentrated in terms of stifled, like a swamp
or something, that's what he means by an epoch of
concentration.
BY Shahid Hilal

20. 
 There are no new ideas; they've grown stagnant, clichéd, and old.
Well, you might be thinking about something now, and come up
with the idea before I even say it. Just as poets are needed to
harness the energy of epochs of expansion, so critics are needed
during epochs of concentration, in order to help create and foster a
free flow of ideas that will initiate a new epoch of expansion. So
you see, during epochs of concentration, a poet can't do anything,
because there are no new ideas. So you need the critic in order to
create those new ideas, through analysis and objective observation.
Louis thinks it's a fascinating idea. Now for Arnold, great literature
is the product of a creative fusion between a great poet (“the
man”), and an epoch of expansion (“the moment”). So just being a
great poet is not enough. You've got to be one living during an
epoch of expansion, because if not, there will not be the raw
material for you to write your great poetry.
BY Shahid Hilal

21. 
 Allright, let's be a little bit critical of Matthew Arnold.
Louis thinks it's very possible that the reason he invented
this idea, was because he wanted to give us an excuse for
why he wasn't a great poet! He tried to, and failed! His
poetry is still worth reading, but he's not on the level of a
Wordsworth or anything. Perhaps what he's doing is
saying, hey, the reason I couldn't be a great poet, is
because here I am, stuck in this epoch of concentration! So
let me turn to criticism and do something. Now even if it's
true that this is Arnold's motivation, Louis still thinks the
system makes a lot of sense and really works. There are
ages when poetry flourishes more, because there are more
ideas.
BY Shahid Hilal

22. 
 Again, epochs of concentration need the analysis of
criticism, whereas the epochs of expansion need the
synthesis of poetry. Again, it's not enough to be a gifted
poet, without the fresh ideas available in an epoch of
expansion. The poet will lack the necessary raw material
for great art. What is the upshot of this? Poets and critics
are interdependent, they need each other. Without the
critic, there can be no poet. Without the poet, there is not
much reason for the critic, so they are interdependent.
This notion helps set-off a steady increase in the role and
status of the critic. Now I would say, as I will later again,
that we've gone a little bit overboard.
BY Shahid Hilal

23. 
 We've made the critic too much. Arnold would still
say that the critic is the handmaiden of the poet, like
Alexander Pope did. So again, he opened the way,
and nowadays criticism sometimes even takes itself
more seriously than poetry. Allright, if criticism is so
important for Arnold, what is criticism? Well very
luckily, he gives us a very famous definition of what
criticism is, and we encourage you to memorize this,
because it's a great one: “Criticism is a disinterested
endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is
known and thought in the world.”
BY Shahid Hilal

24. 
 There are two parts to that, the disinterested part,
and the part that is best known in thought. Let's look
at the disinterested part first. Now, the word
disinterested, as opposed to uninterested, signifies a
critical approach that is removed, objective, and free
from all political agendas. It's not uninterested, so it
doesn't say, I don't care. Disinterested means again,
that it's above these things. It doesn't worry about
political agendas and ideologies, but it rises above,
it's objective and removed.
BY Shahid Hilal

25. 
 Note how this has a little touch of Kant here, this idea of
poetry. Basically, what Kant says about poetry, he says
about criticism, but it's aesthetic criticism after all.
Criticism is free from all agendas. Arnold says that:
“Criticism constitutes a higher kind of curiosity, a free
play of mind that follows the flow of ideas wherever that
flow may lead.” Now recall again in our Schiller lecture,
we actually got you thinking about Arnold when we said
that he became upset because in his day, curiosity had a
negative connotation in the British language, as
something childish; while in France, it has a good
reputation, as something intelligent adults do.
BY Shahid Hilal

26. 
 Well, here's where this comes from. Curiosity is a
good thing, linked to the free play of mind; it is
criticism. Now, Arnold was upset with the critics of
his day, because he felt they were too partisan. We've
heard a lot about partisan politics these days of
course. They only engaged in as much free play of
mind, as their party platform allowed. In other
words, there were lots of great journals in Britain
during this time, but some of them were Tory
journals, and some were with Whigs, or other
different parties.
BY Shahid Hilal

27. 
 Each party had journals that were linked to that party. So what
would happen was, if you were writing for a Tory journal, you
would only allow for as much free play of mind as would fit-in
with the Tory political agenda, and the same thing for the Whig
agenda. Yet for Arnold, criticism has got to rise above any kind
of party politics or partisan ideologies. So again, it's linked to
this British view of negative curiosity. They think , ah, that's
just too childish. Criticism has got to be pragmatic, linked to a
party. No, Arnold says that true criticism has to be free, free to
explore. If it's linked to a platform, it's not free. So what we're
saying is that for Arnold, criticism has a value that transcends
pragmatism (very Kantian). Indeed, it even transcends narrow,
national boundaries, to interest itself in the culture and
traditions of all Europe.
BY Shahid Hilal

28. 
 In other words, Criticism can't only not join the
bandwagon of Tory or Whig, but also cannot get involved
in any British jingoism that says Britain is better than
France, is better than Germany, etc. Criticism should be
truly disinterested and treat all of European literature
with equal respect. Now in addition to propagating new
ideas to inspire poets, the job of the critic includes
identifying (again the definition), the best that is known
and thought. That's why the critic has to be free to explore
all of Europe, because England no got got the sole
authority on the best that is known and thought. You've
got to go out and... Now this tends to be pretty European.
We could expand it to Asia or something, but he's
thinking in a European context here.
BY Shahid Hilal

29. 
 So you've got to be open to all the literature throughout
Europe, if you are going to identify the best that is known
and thought. Now, by the best, what Arnold means is
what we today call the canon, or the great books of the
western world. You know what I mean, those by Homer,
Dante, Shakespeare, and Chaucer, etc. In other words, this
is the canon, the great books that traditionally formed the
core of great studies. Until fairly recently, everyone
accepted that this was the western tradition, and this is
what we should study. Now Arnold firmly believed that
these works in the canon (like the canonical books of the
bible), were aesthetically superior, and that they could be
shown to be so, by objective disinterested criticism.
BY Shahid Hilal

30. 
 In other words, he believed that you could prove that
certain books belonged in the canon by objective, non-
political criteria. He basically believed it to be self-evident
and obvious. Now most people felt that way as well, but
many critics today, moderns and post-moderns, totally
disagree with Arnold. They view the canon as the product
of socio-political forces, which determine what is
acceptable and what isn't. We'll use the phrase you all
know, that everything which is in the canon, is not
because it's not great, but because it was written by dead,
white, male heterosexuals. We've heard this before in the
vernacular.
BY Shahid Hilal

31. 
 In other words, what modern and postmodern people
often say, is that those things are not in the canon because
they are aesthetically, objectively superior, as Arnold
claims, but because they are politically correct to that time
period. So as you can imagine, Arnold is a huge bugbear
of modern and postmodern theory. Guess what, Eliot is
also a bugbear, because they both are at one in their view
of the canon. In fact, they helped to sort of organized it.
Now people knew what it was already, but they helped to
get it as a sort of system in schools. So Arnold and Eliot
are out of favor in many ways, because of their canonical
view of literature, and just the western tradition in
general. Well, let's turn to Eliot now.
BY Shahid Hilal

32. 
Composed and edited by Shahid Hilal
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BY Shahid Hilal