MATTHEW ARNOLD - TOUCH STONE METHOD

HELLO READERS,

                       

      Today i am going to talk (write) about an English poet and critic MATTHEW ARNOLD and about his essay  THE STUDY OF POETRY. Arnold's literary criticism is closely associated with society and of general life .He was the first critic to declare that people could be consoled ,healed and changed by reading literature.

In  this essay he talked about good poetry and he also introduced TOUCH STONE METHOD .Arnold  is famous for his definition of poetry, "Poetry is the criticism of life". Arnold is sometimes  considered as the third great Victorian Poet along with Tennyson and Robert Browning. From childhood he was surrounded by scholars , his father Thomas Arnold was a headmaster of Rugby School and both his brothers were literary scholars . His brother Tom Arnold was a literary professor and his another brother William Delafield Arnold was a novelist and colonial administrator .some of the notable works of Arnold are DOVER BEACH , THE SCHOLAR GIPSY , THYRSIS .

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD POETRY AND CRITICISM:

➤Poetic truth and poetic beauty

➤Truth and seriousness of matter 

➤Critic must be free from all prejudices ,

    personal or historical 

➤Felicity and perfection of matter

➤Natural magic and profoundness 

➤Excellent action and grand style

          we can consider Arnold as an intellectual giant of the Victorian Age .He gives high position to poetry.According to him the best kind of poetry is a criticism of life.He feels that human will find spiritual power and satisfaction in poetry , every field of human thought and action has been influenced by poetry.Even social , cultural and religious thoughts and actions are also influenced by it .Poetry is an interpretation of life.It is criticism of life.It has power to console ,sustain and form humans and at the same it provides delight too. Poetry plays an eminent role in life . it is more important than religion .Arnold says ,

     "In poetry , as a criticism of life under the conditions  fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty".

           Arnold further says that, the excellence of poetry lies both in its matter or substance and in its manner of style .Like Wordsworth ,Arnold believes that,

                             "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all                                             knowledge".

Truth and seriousness of substance and matter, Felicity and perfection of diction and manner ,natural magic and profoundness use of excellent action and grand style all this aspects of good poetry exhibited in best poets. Poetry is interpretative by having natural moral profundity.we can say that Arnold's views on poetry and criticism are quite mature with logical aspects.

           According to Arnold a critic must be free from all prejudices personal or historical for that he used the words Dis- interestedness or Detachment .Arnold further says that ,                         The business of of criticism is neither to find fault nor                  to display the critic's own learning or influence; it is to                know the best which has been thought and said in the                  world and by using this knowledge to create a current                  of fresh and free thought.

 WHAT IS TOUCH STONE METHOD?

     Touchstone means a fundamental or quite essential part or feature of anything .Arnold's touchstone method is a comparative method of criticism . 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 touchstone method .Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. If the other work moves the reader in the same way as these lines and expressions do , then it is really a great work otherwise not.

            The central idea of Arnold's Touchstone method is that he believed that a real classic is a work, which belongs to the class of the very best. It can be recognized by placing it beside the known classics of the world .

           Those known classics can serve as the touchstone by which the merit of contemporary poetic work can be tested.

          TAMER AND HAWK 

                               - Thom Gunn

I thought I was so tough,

But gentled at your hands,

Cannot be quick enough

To fly for you and show

That when I go I go

At your commands.

Even in flight above

I am no longer free:

The habit of your words

Has hooded me.

As formerly, I wheel

I hover and I twist,

But only want the feel,

In my possessive thought,

Of catcher and of caught

Upon your wrist.

You but half civilize,

Taming me in this way.

Through having only eyes

For you I fear to lose,

I lose to keep, and choose

Tamer as prey.

                          

                      Tom Gunn’s Tamer and Hawk is an extended metaphor depicting a powerful, strong, almighty, wild bird of prey a metaphor for Gunn, being controlled by an inferior body a human – his true love. It depicts an image of a bird and its master (with the use of indirect personification). It tells a story of Gunn’s adoration of his ‘Tamer’ and his strong desire to entice his love. It is an effective metaphor because as the poem continues the danger and violence becomes more prominent, especially at the end of the poem. There are three main theme to the poem; 

                    “To fly for you and show”

                      Loyalty “For you I fear to lose”

                     Devotion “You seeled me with your love”

                 The first stanza explains how the Hawk is happy to be domesticated by this person, as he expresses no objection to his situation. He even wants to show off his capabilities in a performance to his Tamer in the hope of impressing him. Gunn idolises his Tamer by portraying him as kind “But gentled at your hands” and being gently powerful “I thought I was so tough”– with the emphases on the second ‘I’ trying to show the Tamer is more powerful than himself, as well as the quotation “Upon your wrist” which depicts the Tamer as somewhat of a godly figure who is in control of another life