The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

most nineteenth-century poems, including his own long poem Empedocles on Etna

(1852), were unsatisfactory. And when Arnold tried to write poems that would meet

his own requirements�Sohrah and Rustum (1853) or Balder Dead (1855)�he felt

that something was lacking. By the late 1850s he thus found himself at a dead end.

Turning aside to literary criticism enabled him partially to escape the dilemma. In his

prose his melancholy and "morbid" personality was subordinated to the resolutely

cheerful and purposeful character he had created for himself by an effort of will. Arnold's two volumes of Essays in Criticism (1865, 1888) repeatedly show how

authors as different as Marcus Aurelius, Leo Tolstoy, Homer, and Wordsworth pro

vide the virtues he sought in his reading. Among these virtues was plainness of style.

Although he could on occasion recommend the richness of language of such poets

as John Keats or Tennyson�their "natural magic," as he called it�Arnold usually

preferred literature that was unadorned. And beyond stylistic excellences, the prin

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MATTHEW ARNOLD / 135 3

cipal virtue he admired as a critic was the quality of "high seriousness." In a world in

which the role of formal religion appeared to be shrinking, Arnold increasingly empha

sized that the poet must be a serious thinker who could offer guidance to his readers.

This belief perhaps caused him to undervalue other qualities in literature: in "The

Study of Poetry" (1880), for instance, he displays little appreciation for Chaucer's

humor and chooses instead to castigate him for his lack of high seriousness. In "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1864), Arnold makes clear

that he regarded good literary criticism, like literature itself, as a potent force in

producing what he conceived as a civilized society. From a close study of this essay

one could forecast the third stage of his career: his excursion into the criticism of

society that was to culminate in Culture and Anarchy (1869) and Friendship's Garland

(1871). Arnold's starting point as a critic of society is different from that of Carlyle and

John Ruskin. The older prophets attacked the Victorian middle classes on the grounds

of their materialism, their selfish indifference to the sufferings of the poor�their

immorality, in effect. Arnold argued instead that the "Philistines," as he called them,

were not so much wicked as ignorant, narrow-minded, and suffering from the dullness

of their private lives. This novel analysis was reinforced by Arnold's conviction that

the world of the future, both in England and in America, would be a middle-class

world and therefore would be dominated by a class inadequately equipped either to

lead or to enjoy civilized living. To establish this point Arnold employed cajolery, satire, and even quotations from

current newspapers with considerable effect. He also used memorable catch phrases

(such as "sweetness and light") that sometimes pose an obstacle to understanding the

complexities of his position. His view of civilization, for example, was pared down to

a four-point formula of the four "powers": conduct, intellect and knowledge, beauty,

and social life and manners. Applying this simple formula to a range of civilizations,

Arnold had a scale by which to judge the virtues as well as the inadequacies of dif

ferent countries. When he turned this instrument on his own country, he usually

awarded the Victorian middle classes an A in the first category (i.e., conduct) but a

failing grade in the other three categories. Unsurprisingly, he also had pronounced

opinions on what he viewed as the distinct national characters of different peoples:

a sample of this strain in Arnold's writing appears in the extract from his lectures On

the Study of Celtic Literature (1867) in "Empire and National Identity" (p. 1619). Arnold's relentless exposure of middle-class narrow-mindedness in his own country

eventually led him into the arena of religious controversy. As a critic of religious

institutions he was arguing, in effect, that just as the middle classes did not know

how to lead full lives, neither did they know how to read the Bible intelligently or

attend church intelligently. Of the Christian religion he remarked that there are two

things "that surely must be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men

cannot do without it; the other that they cannot do with it as it is." His three full-

length studies of the Bible, including Literature and Dogma (1873), are thus best

considered a postscript to his social criticism. The Bible, to Arnold, was a great work

of literature like the Odyssey, and the Church of England was a great national insti

tution like Parliament. Both Bible and Church must be preserved not because his

torical Christianity was credible but because both, when properly understood, were

agents of what he called "culture"�they contributed to making humanity more

civilized. Culture is perhaps Arnold's most familiar catchwood, although what he meant by