Читаем The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2 полностью

conversely, to overelaborated similes in others. Yet despite these cavils, many readers


find much to cherish and admire. Given Arnold's sophistication as a writer, it is


perhaps surprising that his evocations of nature function so memorably in his poetry:


rather than simply providing a picturesque backdrop, the setting�seashore or river


or mountaintop�draws the poem's meaning together. In this respect, as in many


others, Arnold displays a debt to William Wordsworth, whose poetry he greatly


admired; but he also draws on his own bond with particular landscapes, especially


those associated with his youth and early adulthood. The stanzas of "The Scholar


Gypsy" (1853), for instance�suffused in a deep familiarity with the changing pat


terns of the rural scene, from the "frail-leafed, white anemone" and "dark bluebells


drenched with dews" of May to the "scarlet poppies" and "pale pink convolvulus" of


August�record with sensuous care the distinct seasons of the English countryside


and Arnold's nostalgic memories of the rambles of his Oxford days. Arnold's own verdict on the qualities of his poetry is interesting. In an 1869 letter


to his mother, he writes:


My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last


quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become


conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and interested in the


literary productions which reflect it. It might be fairly urged that I have less


poetical sentiment than Tennyson, and less intellectual vigor and abundance


than Browning; yet, because I have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than


either of them, and have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of


 .


1 35 2 / MATTHEW ARNOLD


modern development, I am likely enough to have my turn, as they have had


theirs.


The emphasis in the letter on "movement of mind" suggests that Arnold's poetry and


prose should be studied together. Such an approach can be fruitful provided that it


does not obscure the important difference between Arnold the poet and Arnold the


critic. T. S. Eliot once said of his own writings that "in one's prose reflections one


may be legitimately occupied with ideals, whereas in the writing of verse, one can


deal only with actuality." Arnold's writings offer a nice verification of Eliot's seeming


paradox. As a poet he usually records his own experiences, his own feelings of lone


liness and isolation as a lover, his longing for a serenity that he cannot find, his


melancholy sense of the passing of youth (more than for many men, Arnold's thirtieth


birthday was an awe-inspiring landmark after which he felt, he said, "three parts iced


over"). Above all he records his despair in a universe in which humanity's role seemed


an incongruous as it was later to seem to Thomas Hardy. In a memorable passage of


his "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse" (1855), he describes himself as "Wander


ing between two worlds, one dead, / The other powerless to be born." And addressing


the representatives of a faith that seems to him dead, he cries: "Take me, cowled


forms, and fence me round, / Till I possess my soul again." As a poet, then, like T. S.


Eliot and W. H. Auden, Arnold provides a record of a troubled individual in a troubled


society. This was "actuality" as he experienced it�an actuality, like Eliot's and


Auden's, representative of his era. As a prose writer, a formulator of "ideals," he seeks


a different role�to be what Auden calls the "healer" of a diseased society, or as he


himself called Goethe, the "Physician of the iron age." And in this difference we have


a clue to answering the question of why Arnold virtually abandoned the writing of


poetry to move into criticism. One reason was his dissatisfaction with the kind of


poetry he was writing. In one of his fascinating letters to his friend Arthur Hugh Clough in the 1850s


(letters that provide the best insight we have into Arnold's mind and tastes), this note


of dissatisfaction is struck: "I am glad you like the Gypsy Scholar�but what does it


do for you? Homer animates�Shakespeare animates�in its poor way I think Sohrah


and Rustum animates�the Gypsy Scholar at best awakens a pleasing melancholy. But


this is not what we want." It is evident that early in his career Arnold had evolved a


theory of what poetry should do for its readers, a theory based, in part, on his impres


sion of what classical poetry had achieved. To help make life bearable, poetry, in


Arnold's view, must bring joy. As he says in the 1853 preface to his Poems, it must


"inspirit and rejoice the reader"; it must "convey a charm, and infuse delight." Such


a demand does not exclude tragic poetry but does exclude works "in which suffering


finds no vent in action; in which a continual state of mental distress is prolonged."


Of Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette (1853) he says witheringly: "The writer's mind


contains nothing but hunger, rebellion, and rage . . . No fine writing can hide this


thoroughly, and it will be fatal to her in the long run." Judged by such a standard,


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