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Study Questions on Matthew Arnold

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"Preface 1853," "Function of Criticism," Poems
Al Drake, Various Courses

"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1864, 1875)

1. What is the nature of the "critical effort" (806), and what, according to Arnold, is the "highest function of man" (808)? How do we know this to be so? Can criticism fulfil this highest function, or is it the case that only art can do so?

2. What, according to Arnold, are the elements with which literary genius works? What precisely is the "grand work" of literary genius? What is it not? To what extent is literary genius therefore dependent upon the age in which it works? (808)

3. What relationship does Arnold posit between the "critical power" and the "creative power"? Why can't there be a truly great period of literary creation without criticism? What, for instance, was the problem with the romantics' exercise of their creative genius? (808 bottom-810)

4. How does Arnold analyze the French Revolution? What was the Revolution's greatest strength, and what was its "greatest error"? How does this analysis of the Revolution relate to Arnold's claims about "the function of criticism at the present time"? (810-11)

5. How is Edmund Burke's career, in Arnold's view, an example of "living by ideas" and therefore a counterbalance to the errors of the French Revolutionaries? How does Arnold explain his phrase "living by ideas"? (812-13)

6. What notion "hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts" (813-14)? How is this missing notion essential to criticism? How does Arnold define criticism and its goals on 814-15? For example, what one italicized word on 814 sums up the rule criticism ought to follow? (813-15)

7. What forces in current British life, according to Arnold, are getting in the way of intellectual progress? What is his complaint on 817 about the newspaper headline "Wragg is in custody"? (815 bottom-817)

8. What objections does Arnold anticipate against his view of British society's need for critical activity? What social vision is he offering -- who or what will be the agent of change, and when will that change come about? (817 and following)

9. What is Arnold's final definition of criticism? Does this definition seem convincing after all his elaboration and argumentation? (824)

10. If you have read some of John Stuart Mill's work, how does Arnold compare to that author in the objects of his social criticism? In what regard might Arnold differ from Mill? (general question)

11. Towards the end of his essay, Arnold describes his notions of the modern nation and the individual's place within it. For those who have read T.S. Eliot's claims about poetry and criticism in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," how might Arnold's notions be a source for Eliot's ideas? (824-25)

12. What two standards must be met for a poetic representation to be considered "interesting" or worthwhile? When is a representation not interesting? (1505)

13. What are the "external objects of poetry"? How does a poet recognize an "excellent action" (1506)?

14. What, according to Arnold, is the "radical difference" between the poetical theory of the Greeks and the poetical theory of the modern age? Why is poetry based on Aristotlelian poetic theory superior to modern poetry even in the subordinate area of rendering thought and character? (1507)

15. What is the false aim for poetry that the "modern critic," according to Arnold, "absolutely prescribes"? In explaining why he disagrees with modern critics, how does Arnold reject romantic self-consciousness and romantic poetics, at least insofar as he might describe them? (1509)

16. A "young writer having recourse to Shakespeare as his model" runs what "great risk"? Why exactly, according to Arnold, is Shakespeare the great poet he is, and why is he nonetheless not a good model of excellence for young Victorian writers? (1509-10)

17. What moral and intellectual effects does the study of the ancient writers have upon "those who constantly practice it"? Why are those effects important both to individual students/writers and the societies within which they live? (1512)

18. What threat, implied or directly stated, has Arnold written his "Preface" to counteract? In other words, what is driving him to promote Classical poetics and the values he attaches to those poetics? (General question.)

(The "Preface" is not in the assigned anthology; the page numbers refer to the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2, 7th. edition.)

Poetry (CSU Fullerton, 2003: E212 British Lit. since 1760)

"Dover Beach"

1. Describe “Dover Beach” as a Greater Romantic Lyric -- characterize the three stages as they occur specifically in Arnold's poem. Do you find the affective resolution convincing? Why or why not?

2. Explore Arnold's treatment of religion: What is the "Sea of Faith"? How does the phrase “bright girdle furled” involve Carlyle's metaphor of clothes? What “social prophecy” does Arnold make about the consequences of Europe's loss of Christian faith?

3. How does the speaker's lament that “the world . . . / Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain” amount to a rejection of Wordsworth's “religion of nature”?

4. At what point does Arnold's mimetic description of nature turn into an investigation of emotional and spiritual matters? Why does he enlist the classical Greek tragedian Sophocles -- not the Romantic Wordsworth -- as his authority for doing so? How does Arnold reject Wordsworthian individualism?

"The Buried Life"

1. How can this poem be compared to Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality"? What is the speaker searching for that might compare to the object sought in "Intimations"?

2. What is the "buried life"? Is it ever accessible, either in part or in full? What obstacles hinder us when we try to gain access to it?

3. What accusation does the speaker make against language? What is the relationship between language and emotional expression? What, if anything, does the speaker's treatment of language suggest about Arnold's view of poetry's therapeutic value?

4. What solution does the poem offer for alleviating the individual's isolation and inability to render the world morally intelligible? Do you find that solution convincing? Why or why not?

"Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse"

1. To what extent does this poem follow the pattern of a Greater Romantic Lyric? If it doesn't follow out all three stages, what stage does it partly or entirely lack?

2. What does Arnold's speaker go to the Grande Chartreuse to find or recover? What problem does the poem articulate? Is the problem solely a matter of the speaker having lost religious faith, or something in addition to that?

3. Matthew Arnold’s speaker describes himself as “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, / The other powerless to be born” (85-86). What might Carlyle offer as the antidote to this feeling of paralysis? What attitudes does this poem's speaker share with Carlyle? Still, why wouldn't a Carlyle-type solution be acceptable to Arnold?

"Preface to 1853 Poems" (CSU Fullerton, 2003)

1. What two standards must be met for a poetic representation to be considered "interesting" or worthwhile (1505)? When is a representation not interesting?

2. What are the "external objects of poetry"? How does a poet recognize an "excellent action" (1506)?

3. What, according to Arnold, is the "radical difference" between the poetical theory of the Greeks and the poetical theory of the modern age? (1507) Why is poetry based on Aristotlelian poetic theory superior to modern poetry even in the subordinate area of rendering thought and character?

4. What is the false aim for poetry that the "modern critic," according to Arnold, "absolutely prescribes" (1509)? In explaining why he disagrees with modern critics, how does Arnold reject romantic self-consciousness and romantic poetics, at least insofar as he might describe them?

5. A "young writer having recourse to Shakespeare as his model" runs what "great risk" (1509-10)? Why exactly, according to Arnold, is Shakespeare the great poet he is, and why is he nonetheless not a good model of excellence for young Victorian writers?

6. What moral and intellectual effects does the study of the ancient writers have upon "those who constantly practice it" (1512)? Why are those effects important both to individual students/writers and the societies within which they live?

7. What threat, implied or directly stated, has Arnold written his "Preface" to counteract? In other words, what is driving him to promote Classical poetics and the values he attaches to those poetics?

*Edition: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2. 7th. edition. Ed. Meyer Abrams et al. New York: Norton, 2000.

"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (CSU Fullerton, 2003)

1. What is the nature of the "critical effort" (1514), and what, according to Arnold, is the "highest function of man" (1515)? How do we know this to be so? Can criticism fulfil this highest function, or is it the case that only art can do so?

2. What are the elements with which literary genius works? What precisely is the "grand work" of literary genius? What is it not? To what extent is literary genius therefore dependent upon the age in which it works? (Cf. 1516)

3. What is the relationship between the "critical power" and the "creative power" (1516)? Why can't there be a truly great period of literary creation without criticism? What, for instance, was the problem with the romantics' exercise of their creative genius? (1517-18)

4. How does Arnold analyze the French Revolution from pages 1517-18? What was the Revolution's greatest strength, and what was its "greatest error"? How does this analysis of the Revolution relate to Arnold's claims about "the function of criticism at the present time"?

5. How is Edmund Burke's career, which Arnold refers to from 1518-19, an example of "living by ideas" and therefore a counterbalance to the errors of the French Revolutionaries? How does Arnold explain his phrase "living by ideas" (1520)?

6. What notion "hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts" (1521)? How is this missing notion essential to criticism? How does Arnold define criticism and its goals on 1521-22? For example, what one word sums up the rule criticism ought to follow?

7. What forces in current British life, according to Arnold, are getting in the way of intellectual progress? (1523-25)? What is his complaint about the newspaper headline "Wragg is in custody"?

8. What objections does Arnold anticipate from 1525 onwards against his view of British society's need for critical activity? What social vision is he offering -- who or what will be the agent of change, and when will that change come about?

9. How does Arnold finally define criticism? (1527)

10. How does Arnold compare to John Stuart Mill in the objects of his criticism? In what might he differ from Mill?

11. On 1527, Arnold describes his notions of the modern nation and the individual's place within it. How might those notions, for those who have read T.S. Eliot's claims about poetry and criticism in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," be a source for the later author's ideas?

*Edition: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2. 7th. edition. Ed. Meyer Abrams et al. New York: Norton, 2000.

Other Questions on "Preface to Poems, 1853" (UC Irvine C19 Survey)

1. Why may every "representation . . . consistently drawn . . . be supposed to be interesting"? When is a representation not interesting?

2. What must be true of a "poetical work" for it to "justified"? What does Schiller say about the purpose of art?

3. What are the "external objects of poetry"? How does a poet recognize an "excellent action"?

4. What, according to Arnold, is the "radical difference" between the poetical theory of the Greeks and the poetical theory of the modern age?

5. What is the false aim for poetry that the "modern critic," according to Arnold, "absolutely prescribes"?

6. A "young writer having recourse to Shakespeare as his model" runs what "great risk"? Why exactly, according to Arnold, is Shakespeare the great poet he is?

7. What effects does the study of the ancient writers have upon "those who constantly practice it"? What do such people especially want?

Other Questions on "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (UC Irvine C19 Survey)

1. What is the nature of the "critical effort"?

2. What, according to Arnold, is the "highest function of man"? How do we know this to be so?

3. What are the elements with which literary genius works? What precisely is the "grand work" of literary genius? What is it not? How is literary genius therefore somewhat dependent upon the age in which it works?

4. What is the relationship between the "critical power" and the "creative power"? Why can't there be a truly great period of literary creation without criticism?

5. What is "living by ideas," according to Arnold?

6. What notion "hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts"?

7. What is the "instinct" real criticism always obeys? What does real criticism disregard? What one word therefore sums up the rule criticism ought to follow? What should criticism always refuse to do?

8. How does Arnold finally define criticism?

Culture and Anarchy (UC Irvine C19 Survey)

"Doing as One Likes" from Culture and Anarchy

1. Compare and contrast Arnold's description of Britain's social ills with that of Carlyle.

2. Do the two authors seem, at times, to be addressing different audiences?

3. What is Arnold's proposed solution to the problems he describes? Here, you must try to explain and relate Arnold's key concepts: sweetness and light; disinteredness; culture; the best self; reason; the state.

"Literature and Science" (UC Irvine C19 Survey)

1. What does Arnold say is Huxley's definition of literature? Why, as Arnold recounts things for Huxley, does the latter think that literature so defined is inadequate for a modern industrial society?

2. Explain Arnold's definition of science. Does this definition have affinities with Newman's ideas about science? If yes, how so?

3. What does Arnold say is the aim of culture? Can the study of literature help people achieve this aim? How so? In what way, therefore, is the study of literature, if rightly done, scientific?

4. How does Arnold define human nature?

5. Why does literature satisfy human nature far more effectively than science can? In what sense is Arnold's argument romanticist? (Recall what was said about romanticism during the talks on Carlyle.)

6. Why is Leonardo da Vinci's line, "The antique symmetry was the one thing wanting to me" (1440) important to Arnold?

7. Why is the line from the Iliad, "for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of men" (1438, 1439) significant to Arnold?

8. Do you think that Arnold makes a good case for the primacy of literary study over the physical sciences? Why or why not? Do you think that his argument is still valid today? If so, to what extent?

Arnold's Poetry and Prose, Questions (Wlecke/Drake, UCI. E101, 1997)

1. Describe Arnold's "Dover Beach" as a "Greater Romantic Lyric." Characterize the three stages as they occur specifically in Arnold's poem.

2. Matthew Arnold was a poet early in his career, but then he turned to social criticism. How does his decision exemplify the Victorian rejection of or withdrawal from Romantic claims about the power of poets and poetry?

3. Explore Arnold's treatment of religion in "Dover Beach." What is the "sea of faith"? How does the phrase "bright girdle furled" involve Carlyle's metaphor of clothes? What "social prophecy" does Arnold make about the consequences of Europe's loss of Christian faith?

4. In Arnold's "Dover Beach," how does the speaker's lament that "the world . . ./ Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,/ Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain" amount to a rejection of Wordsworth's "religion of nature"?

5. At what point in "Dover Beach" does Arnold's mimetic description of nature turn into an investigation of "spiritual facts"? Why does he enlist the classical Greek tragedian Sophocles--not the Romantic Wordsworth--as his authority for doing so? How does Arnold's examination of "spiritual facts" reject Wordsworthian individualism?

6. In "Preface to Poems (1853)," what is Arnold's principal objection to modern literature's supposed purpose or subject matter? What are the grounds of his objection? What therapeutic benefits does Arnold attribute to the study of classical literature?

7. How can Arnold's "The Buried Life" be compared to Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality"?

8. In "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse," Matthew Arnold's speaker describes himself as "Wandering between two worlds, one dead,/ The other powerless to be born" (Norton 1369, lines 85-86). What might Carlyle (see "Characteristics") offer as the antidote to this feeling of paralysis and "in-betweenness"?

9. How much of Aristotle can you find in Arnold's "Preface"? Is there anything un-Aristotelian about Arnold's apparent belief that a poet can present an accurate and therefore interesting representation, but still not give enjoyment to his audience?

10. Is there anything curiously Wordsworthian in Arnold's notions of how a poet might recognize a truly "excellent action"?

11. How might some of Arnold's ideas in the "Preface" be characterized as "anti-expressive"?

12. Compare Arnold's notion of Shakespeare's major defect with Johnson's notions on the subject. How do their differences in this one matter reflect the broader differences in their overall literary theories?

13. Is the ideal of criticism espoused by Arnold in "The Function of Criticism" an impossible ideal? Is it nevertheless a necessary ideal?

14. What do you think Arnold means when he says that "the touch of truth is the touch of life"?

15. Does creative activity always depend, in your opinion, on a "current" or "atmosphere" of good and true ideas?