Читать книгу Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems - Arnold Matthew - Страница 6

The following extracts on Arnold as a critic are quoted from well-known authorities.

"Arnold's prose has little trace of the wistful melancholy of his verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The classical bent of his mind[p.xxx] shows itself here, unmixed with the inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of its definite aim, and of the dry white light of intellect which suffuses it; but the doctrine which he spent his life in preaching is based upon a classical ideal, the ideal of symmetry, wholeness, or, as he daringly called it, perfection. … Wherever, in religion, politics, education, or literature, he saw his countrymen under the domination of narrow ideals, he came speaking the mystic word of deliverance, 'Culture.' Culture, acquaintance with the best which has been thought and done in the world, is his panacea for all ills. … In almost all of his prose writing he attacks some form of 'Philistinism,' by which word he characterized the narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction of the British middle class.

"Arnold's tone is admirably fitted to the peculiar task he had to perform. … In Culture and Anarchy and many successive works, he made his plea for the gospel of ideas with urbanity and playful grace, as befitted the Hellenic spirit, bringing 'sweetness and light' into the dark places of British prejudice. Sometimes, as in Literature and Dogma, where he pleads for a more liberal and literary reading of the Bible, his manner is quiet, suave, and gently persuasive. At other times, as in Friendship's Garland, he shoots the arrows of his sarcasm into the ranks of the Philistines with a delicate raillery and scorn, all the more exasperating to his foes, because it is veiled by a mock humility, and is scrupulously[p.xxxi] polite.

"Of Arnold's literary criticism, the most notable single piece is the famous essay On Translating Homer, which deserves careful study for the enlightenment it offers concerning many of the fundamental questions of style. The essays on Wordsworth and on Byron from Essays in Criticism, and that on Emerson, from Discourses in America, furnish good examples of Arnold's charm of manner and weight of matter in this province.

"The total impression which Arnold makes in his prose may be described as that of a spiritual man-of-the-world. In comparison with Carlyle, Buskin, and Newman, he is worldly. For the romantic passion and mystic vision of these men he substitutes an ideal of balanced cultivation, the ideal of the trained, sympathetic, cosmopolitan gentleman. He marks a return to the conventions of life after the storm and stress of the romantic age. Yet in his own way he also was a prophet and a preacher, striving whole-heartedly to release his countrymen from bondage to mean things, and pointing their gaze to that symmetry and balance of character which has seemed to many noble minds the true goal of human endeavor."—MOODY AND LOVETT, A History of English Literature.

"As a literary critic, his taste, his temper, his judgment were pretty nearly infallible. He combined a loyal and reasonable submission to literary authority, with a free and even daring use of private judgment. His admiration for the acknowledged masters of human utterance—Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe—[p.xxxii]was genuine and enthusiastic, and incomparably better informed than that of some more conventional critics. Yet this cordial submission to recognized authority, this honest loyalty to established reputation, did not blind him to defects; did not seduce him into indiscriminating praise; did not deter him from exposing the tendency to verbiage in Burke and Jeremy Taylor, the excess blankness of much of Wordsworth's blank verse, the undercurrent of mediocrity in Macaulay, the absurdities of Mr. Ruskin's etymology. And as in great matters, so in small. Whatever literary production was brought under Matthew Arnold's notice, his judgment was clear, sympathetic, and independent. He had the readiest appreciation of true excellence, a quick intolerance of turgidity and inflation—of what he called endeavors to render platitude endurable by making it pompous, and lively horror of affectation and unreality."—Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL.

"In his work as literary critic Arnold has occupied a high place among the foremost prose writers of the time. His style is in marked contrast to the dithyrambic eloquence of Carlyle, or to Ruskin's pure and radiant coloring. It is a quiet style, restrained, clear, discriminating, incisive, with little glow of ardor or passion. Notwithstanding its scrupulous assumption of urbanity, it is often a merciless style, indescribably irritating to an opponent by its undercurrent of sarcastic humor, and its calm air of assured superiority. By his insistence on a high standard of technical excellence, and by his[p.xxxiii] admirable presentation of certain principles of literary judgment, Arnold performed a great work for literature. On the other hand, we miss here, as in his poetry, the human element, the comprehensive sympathy that we recognize in the criticism of Carlyle. Yet Carlyle could not have written the essay On Translating Homer, with all its scholarly discrimination in style and technique, any more than Arnold could have produced Carlyle's large-hearted essay on Burns. Arnold's varied energy and highly trained intelligence have been felt in many different fields. He has won a peculiar and honorable place in the poetry of the century; he has excelled as literary critic, he has labored in the cause of education, and finally, in his Culture and Anarchy, he has set forth his scheme of social reform, and in certain later books has made His contribution to contemporary thought."—PANCOAST, Introduction to English Literature.