What is the function of poetry according to Arnold?

Arnold's views about poetry are elaborately stated in his "Study of Poetry",
which first appeared as an introduction to A.C. Ward's Selections from
English Poets. Arnold has a high conception of poetry. He is confident that
poetry has immense future. "It is in poetry, where it is worthy of its high
destinies, our race, as time goes on will find an ever surer and surer stay." It is
capable of higher uses, interpreting life for us, consoling us, and sustaining us;
that is, it will replace what we understand by religion and philosophy
dependent on reasonings, which are but false shows of knowledge. Poetry with
such a high destiny must be of the highest standard.

It is in poetry which is a criticism of life that the spirit of our race will find
its last source of consolation and stay. Arnold himself explains "criticism of
life" as the noble and profound application of ideas to life; and, laws of poetic
truth and poetic beauty as truth and seriousness to substance and matter, and
felicity and perfection of diction and manner. Arnold believes that poetry
does not present life as it is, rather the poet adds something to it
from his own noble nature, and this something contributes to his
criticism of life. Poetry makes men moral, better and nobler, but it
does so not through direct teaching, or by appealing to reason, like
science, but by appealing to the soul of man. The poet gives in his
poetry what he really and seriously believes in, he speaks from the depth of his
soul, and speaks it so beautifully, that he creates a thing of beauty, and so a
perennial source of joy. Such high poetry makes life richer, and has the power
of, "sustaining and delighting us, as nothing else can." It answers the
question, "How to live," but it does so indirectly, by conforming to the ideals
of truth and goodness and thus by uplifting and ennobling the soul. Arnold is
against direct moral teaching; he regards didactic poetry as the lowest
kind of poetry.
Poetry plays an eminent role in life. It is more important than religion.
Poetry is "a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for that criticism by
the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty." Poetry, therefore, should be a real
classic. Poetry of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton and the like is a serious
criticism of life, and therefore good poetry. Excellence of poetry lies both in its
matter or substance and in its manner of style. But matter and style must have
the accent of "high beauty, worth and power." If the matter of a poet has truth
and high seriousness, the manner and diction would also acquire the accent of
superiority. The two are vitally connected together.
Arnold was very much dissatisfied with the kind of poetry written in his
own time and he reacted against it. He felt that the poets paid more attention
to the form and expression of the poem than to its subject and that they tried
to attract readers by the purple patches in the poem and never paid attention
to the total impressions of the work. Arnold's own view is that poetic subject is
the first consideration with a great poet, and poetic expression comes only
afterwards. According to him, "human actions" are the best subject-matter of
poetry. The ancients to him were better poets than the moderns because 'they
regarded the whole; we regard the parts.' With them, the action predominated
over the expression; with us, the expression predominates over the action.
Nevertheless, poetry is to Arnold what it was to Wordsworth, 'the breath
and spirit of all knowledge.' the impassioned expression of what is in the
countenance of all science.' And "the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful
and beautiful application of ideas to life—to the question : How to live." Again
he says "In poetry, however, the criticism of life has to be made conformably
to the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Truth and seriousness of
substance and matter, felicity and perfection of diction and manner, as these
are exhibited in the best poets, are what constitute a criticism of life made in
conformity with the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty; and it is by
knowing and feeling the work of those poets that we learn to recognize the
fulfilment of such conditions." At another place he says, "Poetry interprets in
two ways : it interprets by expressing with magical felicity the physiognomy
and movement of the outer world, and it interprets by expressing with
inspired conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of man's moral
and spiritual nature. In other words, poetry is interpretative by having
natural music in it; and by having moral profundity "
According to Arnold, there is no difference between art and
morality. He says : "A poetry of revolt against moral idea is a poetry
of revolt against life : a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a
poetry of indifference towards life." When Arnold pleads for treating in poetry
moral ideas, he does not mean composing moral and didactic poems, but the
poems that give answers to the question—how to live well.

Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888):

Arnold's most significant literary thinking is contained in the
essays The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and The Study of Poetry.
Arnold says that criticism should be a means of learning the great values,
or the “dissemination of ideas, a disinterested endeavour to learn and
propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.” He considered
the most important criteria used to judge the value of a poem were “high
truth” and “high seriousness”.
 Arnold advocated scientific objectivity in the study of
literature. He sought for literary criticism to remain free of any external
considerations outside the work itself. The appreciation of a literary work
should be of “the object as in itself it really is." Psychological, historical and
sociological background are irrelevant.
Knowledge of the literature of the past is a valuable means of
measuring and assessing the literature of today. Arnold advises that we
should 'have always in mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and
apply them as a touchstone to other poetry'. He suggests that his touchstone
method should provide the basis for a 'real' rather than an 'historic' or
'personal' estimate of poetry.