the state of one's own mind, the highest problem of an art which imitates
actions! No assuredly, it is not, it never can be so: no great poetical work has
ever been produced with such an aim. Faust itself, in which something of the
kind is attempted, wonderful passages as it contains, and in spite of the unsur
passed beauty of the scenes which relate to Margaret, Faust itself, judged as
a whole, and judged strictly as a poetical work, is defective: its illustrious
author, the greatest poet of modern times, the greatest critic of all times, would
have been the first to acknowledge it; he only defended his work, indeed, by
asserting it to be 'something incommensurable.'2 The confusion of the present times is great, the multitude of voices coun
seling different things bewildering, the number of existing works capable of
attracting a young writer's attention and of becoming his models, immense.
What he wants is a hand to guide him through the confusion, a voice to
prescribe to him the aim which he should keep in view, and to explain to him
that the value of the literary works which offer themselves to his attention is
relative to their power of helping him forward on his road towards this aim.
Such a guide the English writer at the present day will nowhere find. Failing
this, all that can be looked for, all indeed that can be desired is, that his
attention should be fixed on excellent models; that he may reproduce, at any
rate, something of their excellence, by penetrating himself with their works
and by catching their spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what is excellent
independently. 1. North British Revieiv 19 (Aug. 1853): 180 (U.S. edition). Arnold seems not to have noticed that Goethe (a critic he revered) had been cited earlier eralization. 2. J. Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, ) an. 3, 1830. in the article as the authority for this critical gen
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138 0 / MATTHEW ARNOLD
Foremost among these models for the English writer stands Shakespeare: a
name the greatest perhaps of all poetical names; a name never to be mentioned
without reverence. I will venture, however, to express a doubt, whether the
influence of his works, excellent and fruitful for the readers of poetry, for the
great majority, has been of unmixed advantage to the writers of it. Shakespeare
indeed chose excellent subjects; the world could afford no better than Mac
beth, or Romeo and Juliet, or Othello: he had no theory respecting the neces
sity of choosing subjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching
to allegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knew well
what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he found such an
action, he took it; like them, too, he found his best in past times. Rut to these
general characteristics of all great poets he added a special one of his own; a
gift, namely, of happy, abundant, and ingenious expression, eminent and unri
valed: so eminent as irresistibly to strike the attention first in him, and even
to throw into comparative shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been
the mischief. These other excellences were his fundamental excellences as a
poet; what distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is
Architectonice in the highest sense;' that power of execution, which creates,
forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of single thoughts, not the rich
ness of imagery, not the abundance of illustration. Rut these attractive acces
sories of a poetical work being more easily seized than the spirit of the whole,
and these accessories being possessed by Shakespeare in an unequaled degree,
a young writer having recourse to Shakespeare as his model runs great risk of
being vanquished and absorbed by them, and, in consequence, of reproducing,
according to the measure of his power, these, and these alone.4 Of this pre
