A Study Of Matthew Arnold’s Critical Theory

Matthew Arnold (1822—1888), a poet and critic in Victorian period, is a leading figure in British and American academic circle. As poet, he is rated as, together with Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning, "the three pinnacles of Victorian verse," though he has neither their "inventiveness of imagination," nor "lush imagery or verbal exuberance." However, in his poems he speaks to us more "intimately" than Tennyson or Browning, and Henry James thinks of Arnold as "the poet of our modernity." As critic, T. S. Eliot said that the academic literary opinions of his time were formed large by Arnold, and his influence is still felt in both Britain and America. Being "the most influential critic of Victorian time," Arnold’s critical theory still has its readability.The study of the age Arnold lived in is a necessity when studying his theory and his influence upon society. On the basis of the introspection of Victorian period, the dissertation deduces from massive reading the intellectual delivery—what Arnold has given to his time and modern people—and its application. "The age of transition," as Victorians commonly took it as a feature peculiar to their own age, witnessed unprecedented prosperity in material and advance in technology, and an ever widening gap between the material and the spirit. When an old tradition was already falling apart, and a new order yet to be born, where shall we go? Arnold raised the right question inevitable for each transitional period, and his poetry and prose works center the individual and social concern at a transitional age. The ailment of Victorian England, for Arnold, is that it was no longer poetic. In an unpoetic society, man and society, man’s inner self, man and Nature, and man and God no longer formed a unity. Material civilization damaged the internality, integrity and continuity of traditional society. Segregation in industrial civilization brought about modern man’s alienation, fragmentariness, and intellectual priority, which made it all the more impossible to be an integrated poet; what is more, the post-Romantic poets were vulnerable in shaping a new order for their society. He found ancient Greek analogous to Victorian England in their "modernity." Their ability to "see the world steadily and as a whole" and their "disinterested" critical attitude render it possible to "see the world as it is," which was exactly what Hebraism-dominated England needed on their way marching blindly towards the new world. His later shift from poetic creation to literary and cultural criticism is a self-release from the Hamlet complex in the form of dialogue between the divided selves, an act signifying the determination to take the social burden in the pursuit of the all-rounded "best self."Nature as a major theme presents differently in the nineteenth century poetry. Arnold, in a post-Wordsworth period, took an "anti-Wordsworthian" stance towards Nature, which could not longer offer spiritual comfort and guidance to human being as in Wordsworth’s time. Arnold’s conception of Nature, which is indifferent and cool to man in the contrast with man’s vain toils, is elaborated on the comparison between Arnold’s and Wordsworth’s poem, the first attempt in the sphere in China. Arnold chose to learn from Nature’s law to form the inner unity with humanistic dignity. Arnold’s touch of Nature in a different tone arouses modern readers’affinitive sentiment, which verifies again Arnold’s "modernity."The crisis of belief, an unavoidable issue for the Victorians, arises on one hand from revival of religion in the number of believers and the diverging Dissidents, and its verity under suspicion of science on the other hand, which is against Arnold’s presumed unity. Arnold’s great concern in religion is a concern of morality in literary criticism. His criticism, however, is not didactic, but a synthesis and reconciliation between the form and the content so as to reach a balance of "imaginative reason." His theory "style is the man" tends to wear badly, yet it is practical since the need of "cultural hero" is always there.For all the objective orientation, Arnold’s critical theories are generally idealized, whether his "disinterested" attitude or the purpose "to see the thing as it is," and are meant to avoid extremes by means of reconciliation, though almost unfeasible in practice. His endeavor to elevate the people and devulgarize those "Philistines" can hardly be clear of suspicion of usurping cultural power. But isn’t it the belief in the humanistic ideals that push the world forward? Through broad reading, it is summarized that a series of critics, from T. S. Eliot, through F. R. Leavis and W. H. Auden to Terry Eagleton, though vary in specific points, all find Arnold’s critical spirit congenial. Vague and sometimes inconsistent as his criticism may be, Arnold’s meditative critical spirit and his courage might be instructive for modern intellectuals especially when the value system is chaotic in modern world and when impartial criticism has been replaced by market-oriented writing. Along with the rejection of the value and the traditional notion of culture has gone the "cultural centrality," which forces us to find our lost traditional culture in a broader world vision. This dissertation is only a preliminary study of Arnold’s theories, and further study is worthwhile because of the enlightenment he may shed on our searching for an order to sustain our culture in a society similar to Victorian England.