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Page 53
In strict chronological order, a third example of these most
interesting and stimulating Prefaces should have been mentioned
between the "Wordsworth" and the "Byron"--the latter of which, indeed,
contains a reference to it. This is the famous Introduction to Mr T.H.
Ward's _English Poets_, which, in that work and in the second
series of _Essays in Criticism_, where it subsequently appeared,
has perhaps had more readers than any other of its author's critical
papers. It contains, moreover, that still more famous definition of
poetry as "a criticism of life" which has been so often attacked and
has sometimes been defended. I own to having been, both at the time
and since, one of its most decided and irreconcilable assailants. Nor
do I think that Mr Arnold would have much relished the apology made, I
think, by Mr Leslie Stephen since his death, that its critics "mistake
an epigram for a philosophical definition." In the first place, the
epigrammatic quality is not clearly apparent; and in the second place,
an epigram would in the particular place have been anything but
appropriate, while a philosophical definition is exactly what was
wanted.
Mr Arnold himself never attempted any such defence. He pleaded, with
literal justice, that the phrase "a criticism of life" was only part
of his formula, which adds, "under the conditions fixed for such a
criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty." But this
does not make the matter much better, while it shows beyond
controversy that it _was_ a philosophical definition that he was
attempting. It merely takes us round in a circle, telling us that
poetry is poetical, that the archdeacon performs archidiaconal
functions. And while it is not more illuminative than that famous and
useful jest, it has the drawback of being positively delusive, which
the jest is not. Unless we are to assign some quite new meaning to
"criticism"--and the assignment of new meanings to the terms of an
explanation is the worst of all explanatory improprieties--poetry is
_not_ a criticism of life. It may be a passionate interpretation of
life--that has seemed to some not a bad attempt at the
unachievable,--a criticism it cannot be. Prose fiction may be and
should be such; drama may be and should be such; but not poetry. And
it is especially unfortunate that such poetry as answers best to the
term is exactly that poetry which Mr Arnold liked least. Dryden and
Pope have much good and true criticism of life: _The Vanity of Human
Wishes_ is magnificent criticism of life; but Mr Arnold has told us
that Dryden and Pope and Johnson are but "classics of our prose." That
there is criticism of life _in_ poetry is true; but then in poetry
there is everything.
It would also, no doubt, be possible to pick other holes in the paper.
The depreciation of the "historic estimate," instead of a simple hint
to correct it by the intrinsic, is certainly one. Another is a
distinct arbitrariness in the commendation or discommendation of the
examples selected. No one in his senses would put the _Chanson de
Roland_ on a level with the _Iliad_ as a whole; but some among those
people who happen to possess an equal acquaintance with Greek and Old
French will demur to Mr Arnold's assignment of an ineffably superior
poetical quality to one of the two passages he quotes over the other.
So yet again with the denial of "high seriousness" to Chaucer. One
feels disposed to enter and argue out a whole handful of not quite
contradictory pleas, such as "He _has_ high seriousness" (_vide_ the
"Temple of Mars," the beginning of the _Parliament of Fowls_, and many
other places): "Why should he have high seriousness?" (a most
effective demurrer); and "What _is_ high seriousness, except a fond
thing vainly invented for the nonce?"
But, as has so constantly to be said in reference to Mr Arnold, these
things do not matter. He must have his catchwords: and so "criticism
of life" and "high seriousness" are introduced at their and his peril.
He must have his maintenance of the great classics, and so he exposes
what I fear may be called no very extensive or accurate acquaintance
with Old French. He must impress on us that conduct is three-fourths
of life, and so he makes what even those who stop short of
_latreia_ in regard to Burns may well think mistakes about that
poet likewise. But all the spirit, all the tendency, of the
_Introduction_ is what it ought to be, and the plea for the
"real" estimate is as wholly right in principle as it is partly wrong
in application.
It is well borne out by the two interesting articles on Gray and Keats
which Mr Arnold contributed to the same work. In the former, and here
perhaps only, do we find him putting his shoulder to the work of
critical advocacy and sympathy with an absolutely whole heart. With
Wordsworth, with Byron, with Heine, he was on points more or fewer at
grave difference; though he affected to regard Goethe as a _magnus
Apollo_ of criticism and creation both, I think in his heart of
hearts there must have been some misgivings; and it is impossible that
he should not have known his fancy for people like the Gu�rins to be
mere _engouement_. Gray's case was different. The resemblances
between subject and critic were extraordinary. Mr Arnold is really an
industrious, sociable, and moderately cheerful Gray of the nineteenth
century; Gray an indolent, recluse, more melancholy Arnold of the
eighteenth. Again, the literary quality of the bard of the
_Elegy_ was exactly of the kind which stimulates critics most.
From Sainte-Beuve downwards the fraternity has, justly or unjustly,
been accused of a tendency to extol writers who are a little
problematical, who approach the second class, above the unquestioned
masters. And there was the yet further stimulus of redressing wrongs.
Gray, though a most scholarly poet, has always pleased the vulgar
rather than the critics, and he had the singular fate of being
dispraised both by Johnson and by Wordsworth. But in this paper of Mr
Arnold's the wheel came full circle. Everything that can possibly be
said for Gray--more than some of us would by any means indorse--is
here said for him: here he has provided an everlasting critical
harbour, into which he may retreat whensoever the popular or the
critical breeze turns adverse.
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