“The Study of Poetry” is an old-fashioned essay in many ways, and Arnold might seem especially old-fashioned in his unwavering insistence that readers not only can distinguish excellent works from inferior ones but that they must do so. Indeed, “The Study of Poetry” is constructed around this principle, since it is primarily a guide to distinguishing “poetry of a high order of excellence” from other kinds of poetry, such as the merely good and the poor.
Readers must cultivate this ability, Arnold argues, because of poetry’s high destiny, which can only be fulfilled by poetry of the highest sort and which in turn demands that well-trained readers have the highest standards. In short, excellence requires excellence, and Arnold has no doubt that his standards are the only true standards. Of course, for some poets and poems to be excellent, others must be inferior, and Arnold spends a good portion of the essay explaining why certain highly regarded poets, such as John Dryden and Robert Burns, fall short of meeting the standard of the “truly classic” (it’s worth noting here that when he says “classic,” he isn’t referring to a certain historical period). Arnold’s method for demonstrating these poets’ inferiority rests on juxtaposing their works with works that are truly excellent, such as verses by Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. At times, Arnold seems to acknowledge the obvious objection that excellence depends to some extent on taste, but he brushes this aside by continuously returning to these “classic” poets, whose work contains “the true and grand note.” Arnold returns to this distinction throughout the essay, suggesting that readers must be uncompromising when reading poetry. In his rebuttal to those who might object to his evaluation of Burns’s poetry, he writes, “The compensation for admiring such passages less […] will be that we shall admire more the poetry where that [perfect poetic] accent is found.” Thus, Arnold is adamant that, if readers work hard enough to familiarize themselves with truly good poetry, excellence can be distinguished from inferiority and that readers must adhere to this standard to understand poetry properly.
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Excellence and Inferiority ThemeTracker
Excellence and Inferiority Quotes in The Study of Poetry
In the present work it is the course of one great contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to follow. We are here invited to study the stream of English poetry. But whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more lightly that it has been the custom to conceive of it.
In poetry, which is thought and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honour, that charlatanism shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these.
The course of development of a nation’s language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a poet’s work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in criticizing it; in short, to over-rate it.
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.
But if [the poet] is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word classic, classical), then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry.
Only one thing we may add to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding ourselves by Aristotle’s profound observation that the superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness… Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness.
