The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

7. Well-judged, fitting. (1779-1859). 8. By Boccaccio (1353): fourth day, fifth story. 1. F.P.G. Guizot (1787-1874), French historian, 9. Introduction to tlte Literature of Europe (1838� discusses Shakespeare's sonnets in his Shakespeare39), chap. 23, by the historian Henry Hallam et Son Temps (1852) I 14.

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1382 / MATTHEW ARNOLD

personal, and inseparable from his own rich nature; it may be imitated and

exaggerated, it cannot be learned or applied as an art. He is above all sugges

tive; more valuable, therefore, to young writers as men than as artists. But

clearness of arrangement, rigor of development, simplicity of style�these may

to a certain extent be learned; and these may, I am convinced, be learned best

from the ancients, who although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare,

are thus, to the artist, more instructive.

What, then, it will be asked, are the ancients to be our sole models? the

ancients with their comparatively narrow range of experience, and their widely

different circumstances? Not, certainly, that which is narrow in the ancients,

nor that in which we can no longer sympathize. An action like the action of

the Antigone of Sophocles, which turns upon the conflict between the hero

ine's duty to her brother's corpse and that to the laws of her country, is no

longer one in which it is possible that we should feel a deep interest. I am

speaking too, it will be remembered, not of the best sources of intellectual

stimulus for the general reader, but of the best models of instruction for the

individual writer. This last may certainly learn of the ancients, better than

anywhere else, three things which it is vitally important for him to know: the

all-importance of the choice of a subject; the necessity of accurate construc

tion; and the subordinate character of expression. He will learn from them how

unspeakably superior is the effect of the one moral impression left by a great

action treated as a whole, to the effect produced by the most striking single

thought or by the happiest image. As he penetrates into the spirit of the great

classical works, as he becomes gradually aware of their intense significance,

their noble simplicity, and their calm pathos, he will be convinced that it is this

effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancient poets

aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of their works, and which

makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his own efforts towards produc

ing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver himself from the jargon of mod

ern criticism, and escape the danger of producing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, and which partake of its transitoriness.

The present age makes great claims upon us; we owe it service, it will not be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who constantly practice it, a steadying and composing effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom they live. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age; they wish to know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they want. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe and cultivate what is best and noblest in themselves; they know, too, that this is no easy task�^aAfTror, as Pittacus said, -/JIXEJIOV koQXbv E/ifievat2�and they ask themselves sincerely whether their age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they are endeavoring to practice any art, they remember the plain and simple proceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results by penetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not by inflating themselves with a belief in the pre-eminent importance and greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of interpreting their age, nor

2. It is hard to be good (Greek); an aphorism of the statesman and sage Pittacus (ca. 650�570 B.C.E.).

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PREFACE TO POEMS (1853) / 1 379

of the coming poet; all this, they know, is the mere delirium of vanity; their

business is not to praise their age, but to afford to the men who live in it the

highest pleasure which they are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by

means of subjects drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the

present age has for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress,

an age commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial development and

social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can do nothing; that the

elements they need for the exercise of their art are great actions, calculated

powerfully and delightfully to affect what is permanent in the human soul; that