Matthew Arnolds Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems | Page 4

he found his ideal standards, and
here he brought for comparison all questions that engrossed his

thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood
congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles,
"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom
he called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and
consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy
appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other
poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets
have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well
satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious sense."
More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of measure,
proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity, and high
seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the substance
of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his art, he says: "In
the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the bewildering
confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic art, I seem, to
myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among the
ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in Art, and we do
not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and not hostile
criticism." And again: "The radical difference between the poetic
theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them, the poetical
character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, was the first
consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the value of
separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of an action.
They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems which
seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages, and not
for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who
seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the
language about the action, not the action itself. I verily believe that the
majority of them do not believe that there is such a thing as a total
impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a
poet. They will permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to
suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with
occasional bursts of fine writing, and with a show of isolated thoughts
and images; that is, they permit him to leave their poetic sense
ungratified, provided that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their
curiosity."

Arnold has illustrated, with remarkable success, his ideas of that unity
which gratifies the poetical sense, and has approached very close to his
Greek models in numerous instances; most notably so in his great epic
or narrative poem, Sohrab and Rustum, which is dealt with elsewhere
in this introduction. Perhaps we could not do better than to quote for
our consideration at this time, a fine synthesis of Mr. Arthur Galton. He
says: "In Matthew Arnold's style and in his manner, he seems to me to
recall the great masters, and this in a striking and in an abiding way....
To recall them at all is a rare gift, but to recall them naturally, and with
no strained sense nor jarring note of imitation, is a gift so exceedingly
rare that it is almost enough in itself to place a writer among the great
masters; to proclaim that he is one of them. To recall them at all is a
rare gift, though not a unique gift; a few other modern poets recall them
too; but with these, with every one of them, it is the exception when
they resemble the great masters. They have their own styles, which
abide with them; it is only now and then, by a flash of genius, that they
break through their own styles, and attain the one immortal style. Just
the contrary of this is true of Matthew Arnold. It is his own, his usual,
and his most natural style which recalls the great masters; and only
when he does not write like himself, does he cease to resemble them....
No man who attains to this great style can fail to have a distinguished
function; and Matthew Arnold, like Milton, will be 'a leaven and a
power,' because he, too, has made the great style current in English.
With his desire for culture and for perfection, there is no destiny he
would prefer to this, for which his nature, his training, and his
sympathies, all prepared him. To convey the message of those ancients
whom he loved so well, in that English tongue which he was taught by
them to use