Priyam 1

Anoushka Priyam

Dr. Prerna Malhotra

Criticism and Theory 1

27.06.2023

Touchstone method in contemporary literary criticism

Matthew Arnold ends his essay, “The study of poetry”, written in 1888 and published in

the second series of his “Essays in Criticism”, by reiterating that good literature shall never loose

supremacy and currency among humanity. However, the different ages have developed their own

metrics of judging what good poetry or prose is. The status of classics also falls to question, as a

newer age finds either relevance or obsoleteness and problems with literature of the older eras.

Known as the critic’s critic, Arnold set out to find the real estimate of poetic greatness, since he

believed in the role of a literary critic as a social benefactor. In his search for objectivity, Arnold

devised the Touchstone method of criticism, whereby a poem is to be judged by comparing it

with a passage or even a line from the great classics. He believed this method to be more

illustrative due to its use of concrete proof, in stead of other criticisms where the critic abstractly

discusses the qualities of excellent poetry. In this essay, I intend to discuss the limitations of the

Touchstone method.

As a classicist, Arnold places great value on the masters of the past like Homer,

Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. However, in his pursuit of constructing an ideal from the

classics, the beauty of diversity is lost when any poem is appraised in comparison to a different

standard of work. For instance, in his essay, Arnold picks up mostly Milton’s passages. He,

admittantly, sees the difficulty of newer authors to gain traction and hence, suggests this

comparative method to quickly assess their worth. But with such a classicist attitude, critics
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could likely bcome the enemy of newer talents, rather than aiding them to gain readership.

While, it is important for poets to recognize the past for its foundational knowledge of poetry, a

set standard based on the past masters could also be severly restrictive in terms of flourishing

style, matter, movement and diction.

It also calls to question the merits of comparing different subject matters with the

assumption that poetic diction and high seriousness are universal standards. For instance, Arnold

denies Chaucer, the accorded “father of English poetry” as one of the classics due to his lack of

high seriousness. The same criteria is used against Robert Burns too. Although Arnold declares

both as not classics, he still doesn’t clearly establish an objective way of determining how any

literature falls short. For instance, when comparing Villon’s historically motivated, high regard

for Chanson de Roland and Homer’s Iliad, he uses a derisive rhetoric besides their passages. By

plucking out a few lines or a passage from the pieces being compared, one cannot judge the

whole body of work. Even the metrics of “high poetic truth” and “high seriousness”, which he

derived largely from Aristotle, are still vague and debatable for some masters to embody and for

others to not, supported by his self-admission that ‘grand style” is “indefinable”. For instance,

the passages he uses do not clearly demonstrate how Chaucer is a less serious and authentic of a

writer than Milton is.

Furthermore, the worthiness of a piece of literature cannot be decided solely on the four

qualities that Arnold underlines – diction, style, movement and high seriousness. T.S Eliot, for

instance, argued that the subject matter of a poem was a significant factor. Arnold himself has

written that the sole force behind poetry is an “idea”, unlike other areas that wouldn’t suffice

humankind in the future, such as religion that bases on unfounded facts or history that depends

on events. However, in his essay, he downplays the role of subject matter, in favour of style. A
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poem that served to address issues of its contemporary times, is significant due to its social and

cultural role. However, by touchstone method, such a piece is likely to be rejected due to its lack

of a “ truly human point of view”, exemplified by how Arnold deemed French Romance poetry

inferior to Chaucer’s.

Bias against modernity is a recurring problem in Arnold’s criticism. Being a high

Victorian moralist, Arnold pays greater attention to morality than innovation. He regarded the

ancient masters superior because of their treatment of the whole in their poetry, and the

modernist’s interest in the parts. Ironically, Touchstone method uses comparison of few passages

from both works, which does not demonstrate the holistic perspectives of both the works. As he

advocates for greater valuation of poetry in the beginning of the essay, such a cause can only be

aided if critics valued historical literature and how they helped shape its corresponding culture. If

the purpose of poetry is to “console,sustain and give us stay in life”, it must come through

various voices, in various forms that do not necessarily qualify for consideration by students of

literature as touchstone method dictates.

The conflict between Arnold’s Victorianism and modernism, can be understood in light

of T.S Eliot’s position on the former. Eliot’s earlier works on criticism takes multiple jibes at

Arnold as an inferior poet and famously termed comparative criticisms, such as the likes of the

Touchstone method, as lemon squeezer school of criticism. Eliot suggested that Arnold’s

functionalism for poetry as a substitute of religion, stemmed from the late Victorian era’s lack of

faith on religion at the advent of industrialization. Eliot argued that people non-belief in religion

did not require a substitute faith on poetry. Secondly, both clashed on the issue of poetry’s use.

While Arnold saw a clear use of poetry to understand and demystify life, hence replacing

religion and philosophy, Eliot believed that its function is un-definable. Eliot also believed that a
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poem could have multifarious significance, without being aware of it, in alliance with his theory

of impersonality. This kind of open-endedness is not allowed by Arnold who sought out the great

masters, along with their personalities and relentlessly pursued a universal and objective criterion

to great poetry.

Finally, for Arnold, literary criticism served the important role of developing culture and

societal standards. He even saw history as divided into periods of greater and lesser creativity.

While, lauding the Greeks for their literary achievements, he filled the void of important ideas in

the Victorian era by emphasizing on the need for better critics to dig out true, great poetry. His

stance as a cultural critic who viewed the literary epochs individually, prevented him from

appreciating an established tradition of English literature.

As a successor to Romanticism that viewed the art of criticism as inferior to the art of

poetic creation, Arnold established a strong manifesto for criticism to see things as they are.

However, his touchstone method couldn’t achieve the universality that he had hoped for. Today,

especially, when the English canon has included postcolonial writers from various Anglophone

countries, the merits of these writers couldn’t be estimated using the touchstone method, which

afterall, is only a product of its time. However, we can certainly appraise Arnold as one of the

important representative figures of the Victorian age, who sought to advocate for the art form of

criticism, elevate it from its ordinary sense of fault finding and establish it as a beacon of

objectivity and excellence.

References:

1. Matthew Arnold, The study of poetry

3.Lewisohn, Ludwig. “A Study of Matthew Arnold. III. Arnold’s Critical Method.” The Sewanee
Review, vol. 10, no. 3, 1902, pp. 302–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27530499. Ac-
cessed 27 July 2023.