Matthew Arnold: The Critical Heritage Volume 2 The Poetry (The Collected Critical Heritage : Victorian Thinkers)

396 Pages·1996·1.85 MB·English

by  Carl Dawson

MATTHEW ARNOLD: THE CRITICAL
HERITAGE
VOLUME 2, THE POETRY
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES
General Editor: B.C.Southam
The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major
figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a
particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes
to the writer’s work and its place within a literary tradition.
The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of
criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary
material, such as letters and diaries.
Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to
demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
VOLUME 2, THE POETRY
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE
Edited by
CARL DAWSON
London and New York
First Published in 1973
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1973 Carl Dawson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
ISBN 0-203-97708-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-13473-0 (Print Edition)
For Cecil and Lorna Dawson
General Editor’s Preface
The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near-contemporaries is
evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a
great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the
development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time,
through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight
upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence
of this kind helps us to understand the writer’s historical situation, the nature of
his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures.
The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this
early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed
nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, there exists an enormous body of
material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most
important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their
representative quality—perhaps even registering incomprehension!
For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much
scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the
writer’s lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views
which were initially slow to appear.
In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the
material assembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what
we have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make
available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is
hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed
understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged.
B.C.S.
Contents
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION 1
NOTE ON THE TEXT 33
The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1849)
1 CHARLES KINGSLEY, review in Fraser’s Magazine, May 1849 34
2 W.E.AYTOUN, review in Blackwood’s Magazine, September 1849 39
3 W.M.ROSSETTI, review in Germ, February 1850 46
Empedocles on Etna (1852)
4 G.D.BOYLE, review in North British Review, May 1853 56
5 A.H.CLOUGH, review in North American Review, July 1853 59
Poems (1853, 1854, 1855)
6 G.H.LEWES, review in Leader, November-December 1853 65
7 J.A.FROUDE, review in Westminster Review, January 1854 72
8 J.D.COLERIDGE, review in Christian Remembrancer, April 1854 81
9 COVENTRY PATMORE, review in North British Review, August 95
1854
10 Arnold in response to critics of his preface, 1854 103
11 GEORGE ELIOT, review in Westminster Review, July 1855 106
12 Other comments on the early volumes 108
(a) Notice in English Review, March 1850 108
(b) J.C.SHAIRP to Clough, April 1853 109
(c) Arnold to Clough, November 1853 109
(d) HARRIET MARTINEAU, review in Daily News, December 1853 110
viii
(e) W.R.ROSCOE, review in Prospective Review, February 1854 112
(f) CHARLES KINGSLEY, review in Fraser’s Magazine, February 113
1854
(g) D.G.ROSSETTI, letter to William Allingham, 1855 114
Merope (1857, dated 1858)
13 JOHN CONINGTON, review in Fraser’s Magazine, June 1858 115
14 Other comments on Merope 124
(a) Notice in Saturday Review, January 1858 124
(b) GEORGE LEWES, notice in Leader, January 1858 125
(c) W.R.ROSCOE, notice in National Review, April 1858 126
(d) JOHN NICHOLS in Undergraduate Papers, 1858 127
New Poems (1867) and Poems (1869)
15 LESLIE STEPHEN, review in Saturday Review, September 1867 129
16 A.C.SWINBURNE, review in Fortnightly Review, October 1867 133
17 I.G.ASCHER, review in St. James’s Magazine, February 1868 153
18 H.B.FORMAN, review in Tinsley’s Magazine, September 1868 157
19 ALFRED AUSTIN, review in Temple Bar, August 1869 166
20 Other comments from the 1860s 172
(a) Notice in Spectator, September 1867 172
(b) JOHN SKELTON, notice in Fraser’s Magazine, November 1869 173
The 1870s
21 R.H.HUTTON, review in British Quarterly Review, April 1872 175
22 H.G.HEWLETT, review in Contemporary Review, September 1874 193
23 Notice in Saturday Review, September 1877 212
24 J.B.BROWN in Ethics and Aesthetics of Modern Poetry, 1878 218
25 More views from the 1870s 220
(a) WILLIAM LeSUEUR, notice in Canadian Monthly, March 1872 220
(b) WILLIAM ADAMS, notice in Gentleman’s Magazine, April 221
1875
(c) EDMUND STEDMAN in Victorian Poets, 1876 221
ix
(d) Notice in Spectator, July 1877 222
(e) Notice in Contemporary Review, January 1878 223
(f) Anonymous essay in Church Quarterly, April 1878 224
(g) OSCAR WILDE, letter to Helena Sickert, October 1879 224
The 1880s
26 WALT WHITMAN, essay in Critic (New York), November 1883 225
27 HENRY JAMES, review in English Illustrated Magazine, January 228
1884
28 W.E.HENLEY, review in Athenaeum, August 1885 237
29 EDWARD CLODD, review in Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1886 240
30 JOSEPH JACOBS, obituary in Athenaeum, April 1888 252
31 FREDERIC MYERS, obituary in Fortnightly Review, May 1888 255
32 H.D.TRAILL, obituary in Contemporary Review, June 1888 260
33 MOWBRAY MORRIS, essay in Quarterly Review, October 1888 268
34 ROWLAND PROTHERO, essay in Edinburgh Review, October 279
1888
35 EDWARD DOWDEN, essay in Atlanta, September 1889 306
36 More comments from the 1880s 313
(a) C.E.TYRER in Manchester Quarterly, January 1883 313
(b) Notice in London Quarterly Review, April 1885 314
(c) Notice in Spectator, July 1885 315
(d) RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, commemorative poem in 316
Academy, April 1888
(e) VIDA SCUDDER, Andover Review, September 1888 317
(f) AUGUSTINE BIRRELL in Scribner’s Magazine, November 318
1888
(g) CHARLES ELIOT NORTON in Proceedings of the American 318
Academy of Arts and Sciences
The 1890s
37 LIONEL JOHNSON, review in Academy, January 1891 319
38 MRS OLIPHANT in The Victorian Age of English Literature, 1892 324