take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil?
Io sonfatta da Dio, sua merce, tale, Che la rostra miseria non mi tange, Ne fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale ... 5
take the simple, but perfect, single line?
In la sua volontade e nostra pace.6
Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation with sleep?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge .. . 7
1. 'So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms return the body of his son Hector, whom the Greek were reposing, /There, in their own dear land, their warrior had killed. fatherland, Lacedaemon.' Iliad 3.243-44 (trans-4. 'I wailed not, so of stone I grew within; they1 lated by Dr. Hawtrey) [Arnold's note], wailed.' Inferno 33.49?50 [Arnold's note], 2. 'Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King 5. 'Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, Peleus, to a mortal? but ye are without old age, and made me, that your misery toucheth me not, neiimmortal. Was it that with men born to misery ye ther doth the flame of this fire strike me.' Inferno might have sorrow?' Iliad 17.443?45 [Arnold's 2.91?93 [Arnold's note]. The Roman poet Virgil is note). Dante's guide. 3. 'Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days 6. 'In His will is our peace.' Paradiso 3.85 wast, as we hear, happy.' Iliad 24.543 [Arnold's [Arnold's note]. note). Priam, king of Troy, has begged Achilles to 7. 2 Henry IV 3.1.18-20.
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140 8 / MATTHEW ARNOLD
and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio?
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story ... 8
Take of Milton that Miltonic passage?
Darkened so, yet shone Above them all the archangel; but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek .. . 9
add two such lines as?
And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome .. . 1
and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss
. . . which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world.2
These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate.
The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labour to draw out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples?to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed there. They are far better recognized by being felt in the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and style. Both of these, the substance and matter on the one hand, the style and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by the substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of that poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality.
Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation that the superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness {(j)i?ioao<pd)TEpov Kal ojzovdaiOTEpov).3 Let us add, therefore, to what we have
8. Hamlet 5.2.288-91. dess of grain, searched for her daughter Proser9. Paradise Lost 1.599-602. pina, not knowing that she had been abducted by 1. Paradise Lost 1.108-9. Pluto, the god of the underworld. 2. Paradise Lost 4.271?72. Ceres, the Roman god-3. Aristotle's Poetics 9.
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said, this: that the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And though we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of superiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the other. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet's matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. In proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absent from a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetic truth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter.
So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither will my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some significance in them, and of establishing an important principle more firmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, follow rapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with them in my view.
