Touchstone Method by Matthew Arnold

Poetry is something which sustains, console and interprets life for us. Arnold had given a very high position to poetry that it is a substitute for religion. Arnold says "The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry". At this point, Arnold offers his theory of Touchstone Method.

Arnold’s touchstone method is a comparative method of criticism. According to this method, in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. If the other work moves us in the same way as these lines and expressions do, then it is really a great work, otherwise not. We are to make a comparison with any master in order to justify its validity

Arnold wants us to avoid the false evaluation of the historic estimate and the personal estimate, and to attain to a real estimate by learning to feel and enjoy the best work of the real classic, and thus to appreciate the wide difference between it and all lesser work. If you want to know whether any poetic work is of a high quality, we should compare it with specimens of the poetry of the highest quality. According to him the most useful method of discovering the worth of poetry is "to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry". The real classics can serve as the touchstone by which the merit of contemporary poetic work can be tested. This is the central idea of Arnold’s Touchstone Method.

Arnold was basically a classicist. He admired the ancient Greek, Roman and French authors as the models to be followed by 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. He quoted the two lines from Milton;

"And courage never to submit or yield

And what is else not to be overcome"

It has been said that the sentiment or the moral here is noble, but that the diction and movement are faulty. Perhaps, in offering these two lines as a specimen of the highest poetry, Arnold just tripped.

However, this system of judgment has its own limitations. Arnold would probably have agreed that his method of comparing passage with a passage is not a sufficient test for determining the value of a work as a whole. Arnold himself insisted that we must judge a poem by the 'total impression' and not by its fragments. But we can further extend this method of comparison from passages to the poems as whole units. The comparative method is an invaluable aid to the appreciation of any kind of art. 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, and so on.

Arnold seems to go too far insisting all the time on work of the highest excellence in literature. It is not fair to demand that "all hills should be the Alps". There may be an excellence in some minor poetry worthwhile on its own account. Arnold expresses the view that good literature will never lose its currency. There might be some vulgarization and cheapening of literary values, as a result of the increase in numbers of the common sort of readers, but the currency of good literature is ensured by, "the instinct of self-preservation in humanity." So strong is Arnold’s faith in the value of poetry of the highest kind. Arnold declared that it would be much better to disregard the mass of current literature. By this method, we can set apart the alive, the vital, and the sincere from the shoddy, the showy and the insincere.

He declared, "In poetry, it is the glory, the eternal honor

that charlatanism shall find no entrance".

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What Shortcomings does Arnold find in Chaucer as Poetical Classics?

Arnold’s “The study of Poetry” can be taken as a kind of legislative criticism where he puts up his belief as a literary critic. He proclaims that Chaucer and Burn are not the great classics. Now, the question comes why does Arnold put Chaucer outside the domain of classic writers? To solve this riddle, we should first know his idea of a classic and touchstone method.

According to Arnold, poetry is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Great poetry alone possess the power to sustain, console, delight and to interpret life to us. He thus sets a high standard for great poetry. In order to be a classic, the poet must be able to fill us with such strength and joy that will guide us in our life. He suggests a practical method for finding a true classic. It is his famous “Touchstone Method.” One has to take a specimen of the poetry of the high quality and apply them to the poetry under judgment. When we judge a contemporary piece of poetry by such touchstone we can determine whether it can be justifiably turned as the product of a genuine classic. So it can be said that when poetry can fulfill all the criteria said in touchstone method can only be able to regard as a classic poetry.

Accordingly, the best poetry is characterized by truth and seriousness. As regards the manner and style, the best poetry is characterized by the superiority of diction and of movement. Thus according to Arnold, a poet is to be regarded as a classic if he fulfills the conditions stated above.

Arnold is of the opinion that many writers are considered to be classics but actually, they are false classics because their poetry does not live up to the high standard of poetic art attained by such great masters as Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare.

Comparison with Chaucer and Dante Arnold at first applies his Touchstone Method on Chaucer. He quotes a few lines from Chaucer and then compares them with a line from Dante and comes to the conclusion that the poetry of Chaucer does not have the account of the classics. At first, Arnold praises on Chaucer’s poetical performance and poetical achievement. But he denies to Chaucer the status of a poetical classic. In his opinion, Chaucer does not possess high poetic seriousness.

Chaucer appreciation and lacking: Arnold has high praise for Chaucer’s poetical performance. The poetry of Chaucer is far superior to the French romance poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Chaucer’s power of fascination is enduring. The substance of Chaucer’s poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, and kindliness. His poetry is the criticism of life and it has the truth of substance or matter. Chaucer is a perpetual source of good sense. Yet he does not have that high seriousness which Homer had, which his successor like Shakespeare, Milton etc had.

Lack of moral lessons in Chaucer’s writing: Chaucer does not pose himself as a stern moralist, as a social reformer. Chaucer has a genial humor devoid of spite and cynicism. Chaucer endeavored to picture life truthfully without either exalting unduly or demeaning unnecessarily any of his characters.

By such means,

we can derive the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to enjoy the best, the truly classic in poetry.

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