The “personal estimate” of a poem, according to Arnold, is the evaluation of a poem that a reader might arrive at by relying on personal tastes and predilections rather than the criteria of truly great poetry (especially high seriousness). Arnold gives the example of Robert Burns: a Scottish reader might value the poetry of Robert Burns especially highly, since Burns writes of Scottish life so movingly—but it would be a fallacy, in Arnold’s view, to classify Burns as a poet of the first rank as a result of this fondness. Arnold points out that the closer a poet is to the reader’s own time and place, the more likely the personal estimate is to interfere with the real estimate.
Personal Estimate Quotes in The Study of Poetry
The The Study of Poetry quotes below are all either spoken by Personal Estimate or refer to Personal Estimate. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Study of Poetry
Quotes
Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal to ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, have great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet’s work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here also we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language of praise which is quite exaggerated.
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Personal Estimate Term Timeline in The Study of Poetry
The timeline below shows where the term Personal Estimate appears in The Study of Poetry. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Study of Poetry
...The two false estimates readers must avoid, Arnold notes, are the historic estimate and the personal estimate .
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The other fallacy Matthew Arnold warns readers about is the personal estimate . Readers naturally gravitate towards poets they are fond of, and this fondness can cause...
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...anthology creates temptations for readers and critics to fall into the historic estimate and the personal estimate , since anthologies present poets in their historical context and the critics assigned to present...
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Adding to his previous explanation of the two fallacies (the historic estimate and the personal estimate ), Arnold explains that the historical estimate is especially likely to be a problem when...
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...to Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the 18th century. Arnold points out that the personal estimate applies particularly to Burns, since he wrote rather recently (at the end of the 18th...
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...Lord Byron, and William Wordsworth. Arnold refers to this as “burning ground,” since a reader’s personal estimate is so likely to interfere with arriving at a real estimate of these poets. Arnold...
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