Thinking Activity on Matthew Arnold - The Study of Poetry

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Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic of Victorian era who worked as an inspector of schools. Arnold is acknowledged as being one of the first poets to display a truly modern perspective in his work.Perhaps his most famous piece in literary criticism is his essay "The Study of Poetry".

In the Victorian period in between the two two esteem of Art for Art's sake and Art for Life's sake Arnold presented the Golden mean.

Write about one idea of Matthew Arnold which you found interesting and relevant in our times.

Mathew Arnold in his definition of poetry said that, Poetry is a criticism of life.It also seems very relevant in present time also. It must concern itself with life and its problems. Whatever poet or writer write that is not only considered as a  creative work but it is also a criticism of surrounding nature and life. And the most interesting and relevant idea which I found that is the...

 Disinterestedness or Detachment.Disinterestedness on the part of the critic implies freedom from all prejudices, personal or historical.

As in literature especially in criticism writer used to evaluate the work with the some kind of theories which were given by earlier writers. But here Arnold put more emphasis on the detachment or disinterestedness.By detaching from prejudices, personal and historical things we can fairly judge any work and also in the best way. If we look at the Plato's objection on poetry than we can also say that he also put stress on  the detachment. He  asserted in his Republic that children not be not exposed to the poetry so that later in life they will be able to seek the truth of reality without having any preconceived and misrepresented view of reality.

Write about one idea of Matthew Arnold which you found out-of-date and irrelevant in our times.

The idea which I found out-of-date and irrelevant that is Arnold's Touchstone method. In which he introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual poets.In this method talent of individual is not fairly judged and it also seems to neglect the beauty and uniqueness of an individual. It is not necessary to compare the work of an ancient writers with any other writers for passing judgement on their work.Because everyone has his/her own beauty, talent and uniqueness. Arnold's ideal poets are Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world but Chaucer, Dryden,Shelly and Pope fall short of the best because they lack high seriousness.It is not a fairway to judge the work of an art.What Homer and Sophocles wrote it might also be not relevant in today's time.By comparing the work of one with another it is not fairway to judge any writer's work.