Matthew Arnold views on characteristics of good poetry and criticism.

 
Matthew Arnold views on  characteristics of good poetry and criticism.

        Hello Readers,

     The Touchstone Method:The Study of Poetry: a shift in position - the Touchstone Method
He condemns the French critic Vitet, who had eloquent words of praise for the epic poem Chanson de Roland by Turoldus,  saying that it was superior to Homer's Iliad. Arnold's view is that this poem can never be compared to Homer's work, and that we only have to compare the description of dying Roland to Helen's words about her wounded brothers Pollux and Castor and its inferiority will be clearly revealed.Arnold's criticism of Vitet above illustrates his 'touchstone method'; his theory that in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry.

 Characteristics of good poetry and criticism.

        We know that the different types of poetry.  Like a sonnet , prose etc.

          It is a worthy expression of emotions, or deep feelings and aesthetics, or a sense of what is beautiful about the world.

         A good poem must be well written with a concise and accurate use of language the great advantage of poetry is that it can encapsulate ideas in the minimum of words.
  
           The elements of poetry include figures of speech , Meyer , rhyme, form , sound and rhythm. Different pietd use these elements in many different ways.

     
     The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialised itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious poetry.”

It is of paramount importance because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as in criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of the criticism of life.

    Thank you.....