The Function of Criticism at the Present time

It is, in his essay on The Function of Criticism at the Present time prefixed to the first series of his Essays in Criticism that Arnold defines criticism, elaborates his functions, and also lays down the essentials of a competent critic. His view of criticism must b assessed in the context of the degenerate and chaotic state of contemporary criticism. He found “cultural anarchy”, everywhere, and his avowed mission was to bring about cultural regeneration.

The importance of the critic and criticism—Definition:

            In the very beginning of the essay, Arnold admits that the critical faculty is lower than the creative one, but it is critical activity which makes creation possible. Successful creation requires a current of best and noble ideas, but such a current is not always available, and in such uncongenial times creative activities suffer. Thus Gray, who had a soul of a poet, happened to be born in congenial times, and so his poetic production is meager and scant. Arnold agrees with Tiane that, for successful creation both ‘the power of the man’ and the ‘power of the moment’, must concur, and the power of the moment, i.e., stir and growth of noble ideas is made possible by criticism. Criticism is not merely, “judgment in literature”; its function is much more noble, exalted and catholic.

            Arnold defines criticism as, “A disintegrated endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true ideas.” Thus the task of the critic is threefold in character. First, there is the critic’s duty to learn and understand__ he must, “see things as they really are”. Thus equipped, his second task is to hand on his idea to others, to convert the world, to “make the best ideas prevail”. His work in this respect is that of a missionary. But, thirdly, he is also preparing an atmosphere favourable for the creative genius of the future by promoting “a current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative power.” Says R.A. Scott James, “the function of Arnold’s critic in the broadest sense of the term is to promote culture; his function as literary critic is to promote that part of culture which depends upon knowledge of letters.” The critic is as much concerned with making the truth prevail as in seeing and learning it. He aims at “getting acceptance for his ideas”, in “carrying others along with him in his march towards perfection.”

            Thus there is an element of the propagandist in Arnold’s conception of the role of the critic and criticism. That is why he has been criticized as a salesman. The critic must propagate noble ideas, he must repeatedly stress them, for only then he can make them prevail. It is only in this way that culture can be promoted; it is only in this way that a current of noble ideas can be established and successful creation made possible.

The Critic: His disinterestedness:

            Further, Arnold’s use of the word, ‘disinterested’, has been the subject of much hot controversy. What does he exactly mean by saying that the critic must be ‘disinterested’? says R.A. Scott James, “The interests from which he would have us be free are those which militate against intellectual and prejudices of the “Barbarian”, the aristocrat who has “spirit and politeness”, but it is a “little inaccessible to ideas and light”. Still less must it be swayed by the blind impulses of the “Populace” which Arnold chooses to speak of in terms of, “bowling, hustling, smashing and beer”. Most of all shall it shun that falsification of ideas which marks the Philistines, the complacent middle classes who like fanaticism, business, money-making, deputations, comfort, tea meetings. Culture will always work to disentangle itself from untruths and half-truths, from values which are attached to the machinery of life rather than the spiritual life which machinery should sub serve; it will distinguish means from end; and the end it will set before itself is that of perfection, spiritual growth governed by ‘sweetness and light’. It must shun provincialism, which may take the forms of excess, ignorance, or bathos, and endeavour to be “in contact with the main stream of human life”. The critic must be disinterested in the sense that he should pursue only the ends of cultural perfection, and should remain uninfluenced by the coarser appeals of the Philistine.

            In analyzing the pernicious influences which beset the critic Arnold has made a great advance, and has rendered a service to criticism. He has put before hi for his guidance a majestic ideal of intellectual and spiritual excellence, in accord with the best that has been known and thought in the world. “But let us frankly face his position. He has urged that the critic should to certain other interests; but in doing so he has asked for his subjection to certain other interests which may be the more subtly beguiling because they are noble. He has emancipated him from certain intellectually unworthy determined, however sweetly and reasonably, by the moral and social passion for doing good.” Disinterestedness implies that the critic or the artist must be concerned with nothing else but his subject matter. But Arnold ties the critic to pre conceived notions of moral perfection which are likely to colour his judgment and make him over praise some and be unfair to others. “in this way does the apostle of moral perfection become the prophet of moral perfection” (Scott James). He frees the critic from certain interests, ulterior political, practical considerations, but he ties him up to other interests.

Function of Criticism: Arnold’s exalted conception:

            Arnold has a high conception of the vocation of a critic and the function of criticism. The critic is himself cultured—he knows the bent that has been thought and known—he helps others to become cultured, and he also makes literary activity possible by establishing a current of noble ideas when such a current in wanting. R.A Scott-James criticizes Arnold, for over-emphasizing ideas, he who propagates them, and nothing remains for the literary genius but to walk in and undertake the grand work of, “synthesis and exposition”. No doubt the powerful critic plays his part in fertilizing the soil and in watering the young plant. “And if it be true, as I have suggested, that the critic himself is an artist whose chosen subject matter lies in the life of literature, then he, too, must play his part in the tossing to and fro of ideas between artist than one of the many voices which fill the air and set the echoes ringing, stirring the creative impulse of the potential poets in our midst.” This art impulse does not necessarily spring from formally correct ideas—it is started by notions of any and every kind hurtling from side to side. It is not released only by the force of culture, though culture will keep it in the strait and narrow path.

The critic performs another important function as well. He rouses men out of their self-satisfaction and complacency, for such complacency is vulgarizing and retarding. By shaking complacency of men, he makes their mind dwell upon what is excellent in itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. He raises them above practical consideration by making them contemplate the ideally perfect. Practical considerations are vulgarizing, they make men incapable of perceiving fine distinctions. Arnold refers to such incapacity as philistinism, and it is criticism, in the true sense of the world, that can save us from it. The critic must rise above practical considerations, for such considerations impoverise the soul; he must always have ideal perfection as his aim, for it is only then that he can make others rise to it.

            Indeed, Arnold makes too exacting a demand on the critic. He must know the best that is know and thought in the world: “in the world” and not merely in his own country or in one or two countries. And he must know the best not in literature alone, but in other subjects as well. He must be a man of stupendous knowledge and understanding, one who rises above the personal considerations and with missionary zeal, tries to make the best ideas prevail. It is only through such catholicity of reading that the critic can combat the sins of parochialism and provincialism. Then again he must have tact enough to see things as they are in themselves, and to apply to life the noble ideas he has discovered.

False Standards of Judgment—personal and historical:

            But then how is the critic to find out, how is he to discover, what is the best and the noblest, and how is he to perform his mission? First, as already pointed out above, he must have ‘tact’ which is unfailing to guide to the excellent. Secondly, he must free himself from certain false standards of judgments, which come in the way of a real estimate. Such false standards are the personal and the historical. By the former he means an intrusion of the critic’s own likes and dislikes in his judgment of literature. “Our personal affinities, liking, and circumstances”, he says, “have great power to sway out estimate of this or that poet’s work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry rises above personal predilections and prejudices”. Personal estimates result in the hysterical, eruptive, and the aggressive manner in literature.

            The historic estimate is equally fallacious and misleading. A poem may be valuable historically, but it may not of much value, “as it is in itself”. He writes, “The course of the development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself Is really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in criticizing it; in short, to overrate it. So arises in our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimates which we may call historic.” However, Arnold agrees with Taine that a knowledge of the life of poet, a knowledge of his character and circumstances, as well as of his social milieu, is essential for correct misunderstanding.

The Right Method— the Touchstone:

            In order to guide the critic in the performance of his task, he prescribes his well-known Touchstone method. Arnold  points out that it is useless to lay down for the purpose abstract characteristics of the high quality of a poem. “it is much better simply to have recourse, to concrete example; -- 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.” He bids us to shun the false valuations of “historic estimate” and the “personal estimate” and attain to a “real estimate” by learning to feel and enjoy the best work of the real classic, and appreciate the wide difference between it and all lesser works. “if we ask how we are to know this best when we see it, he answers that it is enough, in general, to acclaim it—it is there, and there”. But if that is not enough, he adds that the high qualities lie both in the matter and an accent, of high beauty, worth and power”; the substance and matter will possess, in an eminent degree, “truth and seriousness”, and this character is “inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement” which marks the style and manner. He says, “there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can, therefore, do us most good, than to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of the great masters and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any fact we shall find them, when we have lodged absence of high poetic quality, and also degree of this quality, in all other passages from Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, he points out how they all impress by their poetical quality. So they all, ‘belong to the class of the truly excellent.’

            The Touchstone method has obvious limitations. Lines, even passages, when taken out of context are often misleading. Moreover, the true worth of a work can be judged by its ‘total expression’ and not by single lines or brief passages. Earlier, Arnold himself had stressed the value of, “the total impression”, here he contradicts his own earlier pronouncements. But there is no reason why we should not extend his comparative method, not resting content with detached judgments from isolated passages, but comparing the whole impression we have in our mind of one work with the whole impression that has been stamped upon our minds by a masterpiece. The comparative method is an invaluable aid to appreciation in approaching any kind of art. This is just as true of function as of poetry, of painting, as of literature. “And it is helpful not merely thus to compare the masterpiece and the lesser work, but the good with the not so good, the sincere with the not quite sincere, the clever with the too clever by half.”

            Arnold has provided us with an excellent example of how to use the comparative method, and he has enabled us to see that if it may b fruitful in the highest degree when employed by a critic of exceptional “tact”.