Discuss Matthew Arnold's Touchstone Method of Criticism.

( 20 marks)

Matthew Arnold's Touchstone Method of Criticism was really a comparative

system of criticism. Arnold was basically a classicist. He admired the ancient
Greek, Roman and French authors as the models to be followed by the modern
English authors. The old English like Shakespeare, Spenser or Milton were also to
be taken as models. Arnold took selected passages from the modern authors and
compared them with selected passages from the ancient authors and thus
decided their merits. This method was called Arnold's Touchstone Method.

What are the false and good estimations according to Mathew

Arnold?

The question that now arises is how is the critic to discover what is best and
noble. Arnold says that the critic must possess tact which is the unfailing guide to
the excellent. And next, he should free himself from false standards of judgment,
namely the personal and historical standards. By personal standard, Arnold
means the critics own likes and dislikes intruding in his judgment of literature. A
real estimate of 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. By regarding
a poets work as a stage in the course of the development of a nations language,
thought and poetry, we may end up overrating a poet, and fail to see the value of
his poetry as it is in itself