Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.
Poetry, he wrote in the Preface, originates from ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ which is filtered through ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’.
An Apology for Poetry[7] (also known as A Defence of Poesie and The Defence of Poetry) – Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defence is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage. from wikipidea
Poetry, he wrote in the Preface, originates from ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ which is filtered through ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’.
An Apology for Poetry[7] (also known as A Defence of Poesie and The Defence of Poetry) – Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defence is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage. from wikipidea
Samuel Coleridge- Biographia Literaria Ch 14Dilip Barad
This presentation deals with chapter 14 of 'Biographia Literaria' written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It deals with his famous defence of Wordsworth's poetic creed, difference between prose and poem; and more importantly, difference between poem and poetry
"For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is fact."
This is said by Matthew Arnold. According to him, IDEA is supreme and in poetry, it is the idea that matters, that are attached by poetry through emotions. According to him THE FUNCTION OF POETRY is to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. He says if SCIENCE IS APPEARANCE then the POETRY IS EXPRESSION and there is no appearance without expression.
Then Arnold talks about setting our standard for poetry high. We must accustom ourselves to HIGH STANDARD and STRICT JUDGEMENT and there is no place for CHARLATANISM in poetry. Charlatanism is for confusing the difference between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half sound, true and untrue or only half true. Judging with little differences has paramount importance, so there is no place for charlatanism in poetry.
The concept of imagination in biographia literariaDayamani Surya
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literature considered that the mind can be divided into two faculties called as imagination and fancy.
Imagination is further divided into two types namely Primary Imagination and Secondary Imagination.
The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. It has come to be seen as a de facto manifesto of the Romantic movement.
More Information :- https://www.topfreejobalert.com
The Waste land it’s a epic poem. A poem made of collage of images. In ‘The Waste land’ Image and symbol take in city life.
Samuel Coleridge- Biographia Literaria Ch 14Dilip Barad
This presentation deals with chapter 14 of 'Biographia Literaria' written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It deals with his famous defence of Wordsworth's poetic creed, difference between prose and poem; and more importantly, difference between poem and poetry
"For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is fact."
This is said by Matthew Arnold. According to him, IDEA is supreme and in poetry, it is the idea that matters, that are attached by poetry through emotions. According to him THE FUNCTION OF POETRY is to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. He says if SCIENCE IS APPEARANCE then the POETRY IS EXPRESSION and there is no appearance without expression.
Then Arnold talks about setting our standard for poetry high. We must accustom ourselves to HIGH STANDARD and STRICT JUDGEMENT and there is no place for CHARLATANISM in poetry. Charlatanism is for confusing the difference between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half sound, true and untrue or only half true. Judging with little differences has paramount importance, so there is no place for charlatanism in poetry.
The concept of imagination in biographia literariaDayamani Surya
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literature considered that the mind can be divided into two faculties called as imagination and fancy.
Imagination is further divided into two types namely Primary Imagination and Secondary Imagination.
The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. It has come to be seen as a de facto manifesto of the Romantic movement.
More Information :- https://www.topfreejobalert.com
The Waste land it’s a epic poem. A poem made of collage of images. In ‘The Waste land’ Image and symbol take in city life.
Essay on Use of Tone in Literature
Essay on Romanticism In Literature
What Is Literature Essay
What Is Literature? Essay
18th Century Literature Essay
The English Bildungsroman Essay
Literature in Life Essay
Defining Literature Essay
Essay On Oral Literature
This document is an essay, a review, of the latest of the books of poetry by Les, or Laci, Endrei. The review has yet to appear at Endrei's website or anywhere else in cyberspace.
In this digital era, teachers are often required to employ successful methods like using the web as a type of technology to manage classrooms effectively. The purpose of this research is to explore how the Private university-based English language teachers’ perceive the use of websites to help students improve their English listening and speaking skills. This study is based on phenomenological qualitative research and took a method that looks at education and technology from different perspectives. The participants (18) were chosen from five private universities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Semi-structured interviews with English language teachers were conducted to collect the data. The findings and analysis showed that using relevant websites and specific content to teach speaking and listening in English can accelerate students speaking and listening skills, as they are motivating and exciting and can help practice the skills inside and outside the classroom.
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious, theological fiction in English literature. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.
Originally published: 1678
Author: John Bunyan
Original language: English
Country: England
Genres: Allegory, Novel, Travel literature, Christian Fiction, Christian literature, Religious Fiction
Adaptations: Pilgrim's Progress: Journey to Heaven (2008), Pilgrim's Progress (1979)
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan.
Originally published: 1678
Author: John Bunyan
Original language: English
Country: England
Genres: Allegory, Novel, Travel literature, Christian Fiction, Christian literature, Religious Fiction
Adaptations: Pilgrim's Progress: Journey to Heaven (2008), Pilgrim's Progress (1979)
Part one the third stage, the fourth stage of the pilgrim's progressIffat Jahan Suchona
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan.
Originally published: 1678
Author: John Bunyan
Original language: English
Country: England
Genres: Allegory, Novel, Travel literature, Christian Fiction, Christian literature, Religious Fiction
Adaptations: Pilgrim's Progress: Journey to Heaven (2008), Pilgrim's Progress (1979)
Originally published: 1678
Author: John Bunyan
Original language: English
Country: England
Genres: Allegory, Novel, Travel literature, Christian Fiction, Christian literature, Religious Fiction
Adaptations: Pilgrim's Progress: Journey to Heaven (2008), Pilgrim's Progress (1979)
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious, theological fiction in English literature. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.
In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. The application of parallelism affects readability and may make texts easier to process
Common Examples of Parallelism
Like father, like son.
Easy come, easy go.
Whether in class, at work, or at home, Shasta was always busy.
Flying is fast, comfortable, and safe.
Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence of Poetry or An Apology for Poetry), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
His artistic contacts were more peaceful and more significant for his lasting fame. During his absence from court, he wrote Astrophel and Stella and the first draft of The Arcadia and The Defence of Poesy. Somewhat earlier, he had met Edmund Spenser, who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. Other literary contacts included membership, along with his friends and fellow poets Fulke Greville, Edward Dyer, Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, of the (possibly fictitious) 'Areopagus', a humanist endeavour to classicise English verse.
Both through his family heritage and his personal experience (he was in Walsingham's house in Paris during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre), Sidney was a keenly militant Protestant. In the 1570s, he had persuaded John Casimir to consider proposals for a united Protestant effort against the Roman Catholic Church and Spain. In the early 1580s, he argued unsuccessfully for an assault on Spain itself. Promoted General of Horse in 1583,[1] his enthusiasm for the Protestant struggle was given a free rein when he was appointed governor of Flushing in the Netherlands in 1585. In the Netherlands, he consistently urged boldness on his superior, his uncle the Earl of Leicester. He conducted a successful raid on Spanish forces near Axel in July, 1586.
An early biography of Sidney was written by his friend and schoolfellow, Fulke Greville. While Sidney was traditionally depicted as a staunch and unwavering Protestant, recent biographers such as Katherine Duncan-Jones have suggested that his religious loyalties were more ambiguous. He was known to be friendly and sympathetic towards individual Catholics.
An Apology for Poetry(also known as A Defence of Poesie and The Defence of Poetry) – Sidney wrote the Defence before 1583. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, The School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defence is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the Elizabethan stage.
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is figurative language in the form of a single word or phrase. It can be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words.
In truth, there are a wealth of these literary tools in the English language. But, let's start out by exploring some of the most common figure of speech examples.
For example,
Synecdoche:
Synecdoche occurs when a part is represented by the whole or, conversely, the whole is represented by the part.
Examples include:
Wheels - a car
The police - one policeman
Plastic - credit cards
Figurative language is often associated with literature and with poetry in particular. Whether we're conscious of it or not, we use figures of speech every day in our own writing and conversations.
Figures of speech are also known as figures of rhetoric, figures of style, rhetorical figures, figurative language, and schemes.
A figure of speech is a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it such as a metaphor, simile, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity.
Through the use of figures of speech, the author makes significant the insignificant, makes seem less important the overemphasized, brings colour and light, insight, understanding and clarity.
Figures of speech allow us to assess, interpret and critically analyze not only the writer's attempt, but also his or her purpose.
The Good-Morrow by John Donne: Analysis. The Good-Morrow, by John Donne, chiefly deals with a love that advances further from lusty love to the spiritual love.The poem makes use of biblical and Catholic writings, indirectly referencing the legend of the Seven Sleepers and Paul the Apostle's description of divine, agapic love – two concepts with which, as a practicing Catholic, Donne would have been familiar.
Sonnet 18 is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. In the sonnet, the speaker asks whether he should compare the young man to a summer's day, but notes that the young man has qualities that surpass a summer's day.
Mentoring is defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person (the mentor) assists another less-experienced person (the mentee) in developing specific skills.
this is a PowerPoint presentation based on a paper
" A Narrative Inquiry of an EFL Teacher"
AMY B.M. TSUI
The University Of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
SAR, China
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
How to Create Map Views in the Odoo 17 ERPCeline George
The map views are useful for providing a geographical representation of data. They allow users to visualize and analyze the data in a more intuitive manner.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
We all have good and bad thoughts from time to time and situation to situation. We are bombarded daily with spiraling thoughts(both negative and positive) creating all-consuming feel , making us difficult to manage with associated suffering. Good thoughts are like our Mob Signal (Positive thought) amidst noise(negative thought) in the atmosphere. Negative thoughts like noise outweigh positive thoughts. These thoughts often create unwanted confusion, trouble, stress and frustration in our mind as well as chaos in our physical world. Negative thoughts are also known as “distorted thinking”.
1. VICTORIAN ERA - The Victorian Era was characterized by an extended period
of peace and strict codes of Social Conduct. It took place mainly during
the reign of Queen Victoria from about 1837-1901
• The Victorian Compromise was a combination of the positive and
negative aspects of the Victorian Age: The expansion, great
technology, communication and colonial empire (Middle Class).
Poverty, injustices, starvation, slums (working class).
2. MATTHEW ARNOLD
1822-1888
“The critical power is of lower rank than
the creative. . . . It is undeniable that the
exercise of a creative power, that a free
creative activity, is the highest function
of man . . . . The critical power . . . see[s]
the object as in itself it really is. . . .”
The Function of Criticism 1385-6
3. QUICK BIO
Born 24 December 1822
Laleham, Surrey, England
Died 15 April 1888 (aged 65)
Liverpool, England
Occupation Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools
Nationality British
Period Victorian
Genre Poetry; literary, social and religious criticism
Spouse Frances Lucy
4. Matthew Arnold is the first critic who produced
scientific conception of reading.
• Arnold initiated the formal criticism in poetry!
• Mathew Arnold, the most influential of the Victorian critic has been
characterized by David Daiches as “the great modern critic”.
• Arnold deplored [found unacceptable] the lack of firm authority and
centrality of excellence in the literature of their age and within their
criticism each has sought to establish critical standards which would be
valid independent of time and space.
5. • Arnold fought against the romantic theory of criticism with its emphasis
on the mind of the poet and the psychological patterns which prevail in
the given work and stressed the need to see the esthetic object as a
thing independent of the mind of its creator.
• Arnold influenced not only T. S. Eliot but a number of other twentieth
century critics among whom Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, F.R. Leavis
and Lionel Triling stand out.
6. • In THE STUDY OF POETRY (1850) Matthew wrote: “More and more mankind will
discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to
sustain us. Without poetry, our science will remain incomplete; and most of what
now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.”
• Poetry must have “high seriousness”; it must be “a criticism of life”; it must exhibit
“the application of ideas to life.” All of this is asking a great deal of poetry, perhaps
asking more than it is capable of accomplishing. To expect that poetry will take the
place of religion—even of “what now passes for religion”—is to place upon the poet
an intolerable burden.
• Yet the question of religion is one that goes straight to the center of Arnold’s poetry
and of his intellectual and religious predicament.
7. VICTORIAN CRITICISM
• Art and Morality: Art for Life’s sake
– Carlyle and Ruskin: Moral view point should be the benchmark to
judge the work of literature. Art should be for the betterment of life.
• Art and Aesthetic pleasure: art for Art’s sake
– Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde: Aesthetic and artistic delight should
be the benchmark to judge the work of literature: Art should be for
delight and pleasure of mankind.
8. LET’S DIG DOWN DEEP
• The Victorians provide the last major step in the advancement of English critical theory
before its twentieth century establishment as a scientific and methodological discourse. It
is also true to assume that Victorian criticism represents the transition to or culminates in
modern literary theory and criticism. In the nineteenth century, the co-existence of
different artistic and literary trends during one period leads to the separation of criticism
from literary process.
• The separation of criticism from literary practice is also a result of the diversity of literary
forms. But primarily the independence of criticism from literature is acquired by creative
and critical writing confronting and falling under the influence of diversity and complexity
of philosophical thought, social theories and scientific advances, where critics attempt to
assimilate science to literary criticism.
9. • The diversification of the critical systems in the Victorian Age is the result of the
massive presence of different critical voices belonging to both professional critics,
like John Ruskin, and writer-critics, like Walter Pater, Matthew Arnold and Henry
James. Among others, they are critics focusing on art and/or literature as well as
metacritics providing critical commentary on criticism.
10. • The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new
period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era was
preceded by Romanticism and was followed by modernism or
realism. Hence, it can also be called a fusion of romantic and
realistic style of writing.
Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord
Tennyson and Robert Browning, the age is also remarkable for the
excellence of its prose.
However, the contribution of Matthew Arnold should also not be
forgotten!
11. TRUTH BE TOLD,
• Matthew Arnold has often been called “the forgotten Victorian,” and it is
certainly true that his poetry is much less read than that of his two great
contemporaries, Tennyson and Browning Their vast productivity tends, as it
did a century ago, to overshadow his rather modest accomplishment.
• After the publication in 1867 of his NEW POEMS, when he was only forty-
five, Arnold wrote very little poetry. He turned more and more to prose, and
his increasing fame as a critic of literature and of society soon drove his
poetic achievement into the background, so that to modern readers he is
familiar, if at all, only through a few standard anthology pieces, such as
“Dover Beach” and “The Scholar-Gypsy”. Yet it has become almost a critical
platitude to say that Arnold’s poetry, in its intellectual content, is much closer
to the modern mind than is that of either Tennyson or Browning.
12. Arnold was quite aware of the limited audience to which his poetry appealed. To write
poetry with the high quality of both content and craftsmanship that he demanded of
himself was, he said, an “actual tearing of oneself to pieces”; moreover, his position as
an inspector of schools did not allow him the time he needed for the writing of verse.
He knew also that he lacked many of the qualities possessed by Tennyson and
Browning that made them so widely popular; he did not have Browning’s intellectual
vigor or Tennyson's musical skill. He was not capable of the strenuous affirmations of
the later browning or of the final struggle to faith that Tennyson achieved in In
Memoriam.
He had only the “gray elegiac mood,” and this was not calculated to make a writer
popular in nineteenth century England or America. There were Browning societies
everywhere in the English-speaking world, and Tennyson became a national institution.
Arnold was ignored except by an intellectual elite.
13. MATTHEW ARNOLD AS A LITERARY CRITIC!
• Arnold was a stern and grave critic who put down certain
ideologies of criticism and educated others how to criticize.
• According to him, criticism did not come from the branch of
philosophy. It was not even a craft; it was a form of art, the art of
judgment. He says that a critic should belong to no party whether
intellectual, religious or political. He should learn to think
objectively, he should demonstrate that this is better than that.
14. • Criticism must be a ‘dissemination of ideas, an unprejudiced and impartial
effort to study and spread the best that is known and thought in the world’, is
what Matthew Arnold says in his essay- The Function of Criticism at the
Present Time (1864).
• Arnold says criticism is nothing if it is not related to life. So his criticism of
literature, society, politics, and religion all tends towards being a criticism of
life. So does his poetic activity. Thus criticism with Arnold denotes a
comprehensive activity which embraces all the departments of life.
• After Aristotle, Arnold was the only one who set rules about criticism. His
input towards English criticism was phenomenal. Matthew Arnold was the first
critic to declare that people could be consoled, healed and changed by reading
literature.
15. THE STUDY OF POETRY
• “THE FUTURE of poetry is immense, because in poetry, our race, as time goes on,
will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken. But
for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion.
Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of
our religion to-day is its unconscious poetry.”
• Meaning: We should turn ourselves to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us,
to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of
what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.
16. POETRY IS THE CRITICISM OF LIFE
Arnold asserts that literature, and especially poetry, is "Criticism of
Life".
In poetry, this criticism of life must conform to the laws of poetic
truth and poetic beauty.
Truth and seriousness of matter, felicity and perfection of diction
and manner, as are exhibited in the best poets, are what constitutes
a criticism of life.
17. POETRY INTERPRETS LIFE
Poetry, according to Arnold, interprets life in two ways: "Poetry is
interpretative by having natural magic in it, and moral profundity".
And to achieve this the poet must aim at high and excellent seriousness in all that
he writes. This demand has two essential qualities.
The first is the choice of excellent actions. The poet must choose those which
most powerfully appeal to the great primary human feelings which subsist
permanently in the race.
The second essential is what Arnold calls the Grand Style - the perfection of
form, choice of words, drawing its force directly from the matter which it
conveys.
18. TOUCHSTONE METHOD
– His general principles was - the" Touchstone Method" – which
introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing
comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual
poets.
– Thus, Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, and Shelley fall short of the best, because they lack
"high seriousness".
Arnold's ideal poets are Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world, Dante and
Milton, and among others, Goethe and Wordsworth.
– Arnold puts Wordsworth in the front rank not for his poetry but for
his "criticism of life".
19. FALLACIES OF REAL ESTIMATE
• Arnold while giving his touchstone method makes reader aware about the
fallacy in judgment. He says that historical fallacy and personal fallacy mars
the real estimate of poetry.
While expressing his views of the historic, the Personal, the Real; he writes that
‘… in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really excellent, and of the strength
and joy to be drawn from it, should be present in our minds and should govern
our estimate of what we read.
However this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we
are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate and the
personal estimate, both of which are fallacious’.
20. ON CHAUCER
• Arnold praises Chaucer's excellent style and
manner, but says that Chaucer cannot be called
a classic since, unlike Homer, Virgil and
Shakespeare, his poetry does not have the high
poetic seriousness which Aristotle regards as a
mark of its superiority over the other arts.
21. ON DRYDEN AND POPE
• Dryden has been regarded, by Arnold, as the
glorious founder, and Pope as the splendid high priest, of the
age of prose and reason, our indispensable 18th century. Their
poetry was that of the builders of an age of prose and reason.
• Arnold says that Pope and Dryden are not
poet classics, but the 'prose classics' of
the 18th century.
22. ON THOMAS GRAY
• As for poetry, he considers Gray to be
the only classic of the 18th century. Gray
constantly studied and enjoyed Greek
poetry and thus inherited their poetic
point of view and their application of
poetry to life. But he is the 'scantiest,
frailest classic' since his output was small.
23. ON ROBERT BURNS
Like Chaucer, Burns lacks high poetic seriousness,
though his poems have poetic truth in diction and
movement.
Also like Chaucer, Burns possesses largeness, benignity, freedom
and spontaneity. But instead of Chaucer's fluidity, we find in
Burns a springing bounding energy. Chaucer's benignity deepens
in Burns into a sense of sympathy for both human as well as
non-human things, but Chaucer's world is richer and fairer than
that of Burns.
Sometimes Burns' poetic genius is unmatched by anyone. He is
even better than Goethe at times and he is unrivalled by anyone
except Shakespeare.
24. ON SHAKESPEARE
• Praising Shakespeare, Arnold says 'In England there
needs a miracle of genius like Shakespeare's to produce
a balance of mind'. This is praise tempered by a critical
sense. In a letter he writes. 'I keep saying Shakespeare,
you are as obscure as life is'.
• In his sonnet On Shakespeare he says; 'Others abide our
question. Thou are free./ We ask and ask - Thou smilest
and art still,/ Out- topping knowledge'.
27. WORKS CITED
– Long, W.J. The History of English Literature
– http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237816
– http://janetschlarbaum.us/author/admin/page/2/
• http://www.superarticledirectory.com/Art/262944/306/The-Study-of-
Poetry.html