Humanist criticism. Matthew Arnold

1. Humanist Criticism: Matthew Arnold

2.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my
loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the
tip of the tongue taking a trip of three
steps down the palate to tap, at three,
on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning,
standing four feet ten in one sock.
She was Lola in slacks. She was
Dolly at school. She was Dolores on
the dotted line. But in my arms she
was always Lolita.
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

3. Oscar Wilde / Matthew Arnold

4. Assumptions shared by Humanists and Aesthetes: 1. The imagination is a vital, perhaps the best, part of our humanity; 2. The artist is a unique, perhaps the ideal, human type; 3. Art plays a crucial role to play in making human life richer, more meaningfu

Assumptions shared by Humanists and
Aesthetes:
1. The imagination is a vital, perhaps the best,
part of our humanity;
2. The artist is a unique, perhaps the ideal,
human type;
3. Art plays a crucial role to play in making

5. Origin of the Species (1859) By Charles Darwin

6.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and
round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle
furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing
roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast
edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
- Matthew Arnold, third stanza of
“Dover Beach” (1851)

7. [Matthew Arnold’s understanding of] Culture

8. Curiosity—a desire after the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing them as they are…. [which] implies a balance and regulation of mind. - “Sweetness and Light”

9. There is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion and diminishing human misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world better and happi

There is a view in which all the love of our
neighbor, the impulses towards action, help,
and beneficence, the desire for removing
human error, clearing human confusion and
diminishing human misery, the noble
aspiration to leave the world better and
happier than we found it—motives eminently
such as are called social—come in as part of

10. [Culture] is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing good. - “Sweetness and Light”

11. “Sweetness and light”

12. Religion says: The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an internal condition. - “Sweetness and Light”

13. [Culture’s] function is particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become more so…. The idea of pe

[Culture’s] function is particularly important
in our modern world, of which the whole
civilization is, to a much greater degree than
the civilization of Greece and Rome,
mechanical and external, and tends constantly
to become more so…. The idea of perfection as
an inward condition of the mind and the spirit
is at variance with the mechanical and

14. Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is s

Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by
means of its spiritual standard of perfection,
to regard wealth as but machinery, and not
only to say as a matter of words that we regard
wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive
and feel that it is so. (Emphases added)
“Sweetness and Light”

15. In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry. - “Sweetness and Light”

16. It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life; that the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,—to the question: How to live. - “Wordsworth”

It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this:
that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life; that
the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and
beautiful application of ideas to life,—to the
question: How to live.
“Wordsworth”

17. The question, how to live, is itself a moral idea; and it is the question which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be given to the term moral. Whatever bears upon the q

The question, how to live, is itself a moral idea;
and it is the question which most interests
every man, and with which, in some way or
other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense
is of course to be given to the term moral.
Whatever bears upon the question, "how to
live," comes under it.
“Wordsworth”

18. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life; a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards life. - “Wordsworth”

19. [Wordsworth] deals with more of life than they do; he deals with life as a whole, more powerfully. - “Wordsworth”

20. Opening lines of F.R. Leavis’ The Great Tradition (1948) “The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad.”

21. Literary canon

22. Great literature [for Leavis and his post-Arnoldian circle] was a literature reverently open to Life, and what Life was could be demonstrated by great literature. The case was circular, intuitive, and proof against all argument. - Terry Eagleton, Literary

Great literature [for Leavis and his postArnoldian circle] was a literature reverently
open to Life, and what Life was could be
demonstrated by great literature. The case
was circular, intuitive, and proof against all
argument.
- Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory, 42.

23. [The] rock of defence of human nature. - Wordsworth, the “Preface”

24. Sometimes people who are together, if not hostile to one another, are at least estranged in mood and feelings, till perhaps a story, a performance, a picture, or even a building, but oftenest of all music, unites them all as by an electric flash, and in p

Sometimes people who are together, if not hostile to one
another, are at least estranged in mood and feelings, till
perhaps a story, a performance, a picture, or even a building,
but oftenest of all music, unites them all as by an electric flash,
and in place of their former isolation or even enmity they are
conscious of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another
feels what he feels; glad of the communion established not only
between him and all present, but also with all now living who
will yet share the same impression; and, more than that, he
feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which, reaching
beyond the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have

25. [Criticism is] a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world. - Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (1864)