However, everybody would admit that a false or malicious criticism had better never have been written.
At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modern literature no manifestation of the creative power not working with these can be very important or fruitful.
And I say at the time, not merely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not principally show itself in discovering new ideas: that is rather the business of the philosopher.
It is the business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, “in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it really is.” Thus it tends, at last, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail itself.
It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail.
In other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did not know enough.
This makes Byron so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yet so wanting in completeness and variety.
Wordsworth was himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that he has not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest of critics, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us so much criticism.
Without wasting time over the exaggeration which Wordsworth’s judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attempt to trace the causes,–not difficult, I think, to be traced,–which may have led Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantage seize an occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himself of what real service at any given moment the practice of criticism either is or may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the minds and spirits of others.
The grand work of literary genius is a work of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in the most effective and attractive combinations,–making beautiful works with them, in short.
But it must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these it is not so easy to command.
Comments Essay On Matthew Arnold
ESSAYS IN CRITICISM.; By MATTHEW ARNOLD, Professor of.
Arnold's Essays on Criticism. ESSAYS IN CRITICISM.; By MATTHEW ARNOLD, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. 12mo. Boston TICKNOR.…
Matthew Arnold British Literature Wiki - WordPress at UD
Matthew Arnold 1822-1888 was a British poet and critic during the Victorian era. His major works during this time period include Essays in Criticism, Culture.…
Matthew Arnold and Attic Prose Style - jstor
EE Essays Literary and Critical, Everyman's Library London, N. 1938. E Oxf Essays by Matthew Arnold Oxford, 1936. IE Irish Essays and Others London.…
Matthew Arnold British critic
Matthew Arnold, English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted. Several of the lectures were afterward published as critical essays, but the most.…
Matthew Arnold
Two excellent works devoted to Arnold's poetry are Wendell Stacy Johnson, The Voices of Matthew Arnold An Essay in Criticism 1961, and A. Dwight Culler.…
Matthew Arnold on the Function of Criticism.
The famous essay that ultimately gave birth to the Fortnightly Review transcribed and republished in the. Matthew Arnold, as Vanity Fair saw him in 1871.…
The Function of Criticism at the Present Times by Matthew.
The essay The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time was published by Matthew Arnold in his first collection of critical writing 'Essays in Criticism' in 1865.…
T. S. Eliot's response to Matthew Arnold in his early essays.
The present work represents an analysis of T. S. Eliot's reaction towards Matthew Arnold in his early essays. Therefore, it also traces the transition of literary.…
Matthew Arnold John Keats - Uni-Due
URL https//books.google.de/books?id=TbINAAAAQAAJ. Arnold, Matthew Culture and Anarchy. An Essay in Political and Social Criticism. London Smith, Elder.…