The Function of Criticism at the Present Time |
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The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (Classic Reprint) Matthew Arnold No preview available - 2015 |
The Function of Criticism at the Present Time Matthew 1822-1888 Arnold,Walter 1839-1894 Pater No preview available - 2022 |
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66 FIFTH AVENUE 75 cents absolute beauty Bishop Colenso's British College century charm Cicero cism Cloth College of Health colour creative activity creative power critical effort dithyramb Edition elementary particles England English literature epoch of concentration erature excellent existing expression Flaubert force free play French Revolution function genius Goethe GOLDWIN SMITH Hygeia intellectual intelligence kind known and thought language Les Misérables liberal literary art literary artist living Livy Lycidas MACMILLAN Madame X matter ment movement nature order of ideas ornament perhaps Philistines phrase Pindar play of mind poetry politics and practice prac present Protestantism pursuit of truth reader religion religious Renan's right is ready scholar sense of fact sentence sincere sion Sophocles soul speak sphere spirit style tence thing tical tion ture uncon unrivalled happi verse whole word Wordsworth Wragg writer
Popular passages
Page 32 - If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.
Page 152 - ... be devoted further to the increase of men's happiness, to the redemption of the oppressed, or the enlargement of our sympathies with each other, or to such presentment of new or old truth about ourselves and our relation to the world as may ennoble and fortify us in our sojourn here, or immediately, as with Dante, to the glory of God...
Page 116 - For in truth all art does but consist in the removal of surplusage, from the last finish of the gem-engraver blowing away the last particle of invisible dust, back to the earliest divination of the finished work to be, lying somewhere, according to Michelangelo's fancy, in the rough-hewn block of stone.
Page 119 - ... that architectural conception of work, which foresees the end in the beginning and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished vigor, unfold and justify the first...
Page 40 - For what is at present the bane of criticism in this country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifle it. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with them those practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind the second; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution of those practical ends is all that is wanted.
Page 40 - ... sufficiently, but which criticism has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability ; but its business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of practical consequences and applications, questions which will never fail to have due prominence given to them.
Page 48 - Is not property safe ? Is not every man able to say what he likes ? Can you not walk from one end of England to the other in perfect security 1 I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there is anything like it ? Nothing. I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last...
Page 83 - Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries out this programme. And what is that but saying that we too,...
Page 83 - Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is "to know the best that has been thought and said in the world." It is the criticism of life contained in literature. That criticism regards " Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working -to a common result...
Page 18 - Shakspeare, the poet lived in a current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the creative power; society was, in the c fullest measure, permeated by fresh thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the true basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it finds its data, its materials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the world are only valuable as they are helps to this.