- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
After explaining how the “historic estimate” can lead to a false evaluation of a poem’s value, Arnold turns to the “personal estimate,” another fallacy that is to be avoided when reading poetry. This fallacy is based on the “personal affinities, likings, and circumstances” readers bring to the enjoyment of poetry: their language and dialect, their national origin, their favorite topics, their favorite landscapes, their hobbies, etc.
As with the “historic estimate,” the problem with the “personal estimate”—and, for Arnold, it is a significant problem—is that it hinders the reader’s ability to arrive at the “real estimate” (the genuine value) of…