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The Study of Poetry

By Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

Key information

Published date: The essay was first published in the 1880s as the general introduction to the
anthology “The English Poets” edited by T. H. Ward. In 1888, the essay was published in the

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second series of the essay “Essays on Criticism”.

Division of the essay: The essay is divided into two parts:

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i. The nature and function of poetry
ii. Evaluation of English poets from Chaucer onwards

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Summary-

Arnold has started his essay with a declaration that the future of poetry is immense since

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religion has been materialistic. With the passage of time, people will realize that poetry will
satisfy them and give shelter in time of crisis. Besides poetry interprets ব্যাখ্যা life properly.
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Science will be incomplete without poetry because poetry is the soul of all branches of
knowledge. Arnold shows logic referring William Wordsworth that basically poetry is the spirit
of all branches of knowledge.
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Arnold relates that all branches of knowledge have been charlatan. Theology is charlatan
because people feel doubt as to the doctrine of theology that is why there is a conflict between
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religion and science. Philosophy is also charlatan because philosophy is unable to answer all
the questions. Arnold does not declare directly that politics is charlatan but he does give
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designation politics as the art of governing mankind not best art of governing mankind.

Then Arnold asserts that the high position of poetry cannot be preserved without maintaining
three basic rules.
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i. There must have criticism of life in poetry

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ii. To write poetry, a poet must follow the rule of poetic truth and beauty
iii. And maintenance of grand style

Here in this essay, Arnold means to say that by reading poetry the audience can identify their
faults and mistakes for the purpose of rectification and they must apply the powerful ideas
picked up through reading poetry. By the term poetic truth, Arnold is similar to Aristotle who
defines poetic truth “Poetic truth how something should happen or will happen”. This
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definition of poetic truth asserts that poets never tell lie that means there is no place of
charlatanism in poetry and the message of poetry will last for generation after generation.

By grand style, Arnold gives a guideline that for composing poetry a poet has to adhere to মেনে
চলা meter and figurative language which provide delight to the readers while reading poetry.

Now Arnold talks about the judgement of poetry for the purpose of fixing classic and

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non-classic poets through his inventive and scientific touchstone method. For the proper
judgment of poet Arnold provides directions based on three estimates অনুমান.

i. Personal estimate and

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ii. Historical estimate

iii. Real estimate

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Personal estimate

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Personal estimate of a piece of poetry means giving importance to a poet because of personal
affinities and likings. It is usually done in the cases of contemporary poets. It leads to wrong
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judgement as the reader is blinded by his personal attachment.

Historical estimate
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The historical estimate or judgement is made from the point of view of the poet's importance in
the course of literary history. The historical importance may make us rate the work as higher
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than it really deserves.

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Real Estimate
The real estimate is made by the reader without being influenced in any other way. He should
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judge the work by its inherent qualities. If it belongs to the genuine work of poetry, he should
place it as the best.
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Arnold believes in real estimate for the judgement of poetry properly and completely because
real estimate of poetic evaluation focuses on the criticism of life and high seriousness of poetry.
Personal and historical estimate without the presence of real estimate create overrate and
exaggeration অতিরিক্ত এবং অতিরঁজন.
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Then Arnold evaluates all the poets of English literature from Chaucer onwards whether they
are classic or not. He emphases that a single line of poets can make them classic if there is
criticism of life and high seriousness that means grand style.

Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Milton have been given the prestige of classical poet because
their poetry deserves the universal criticism of life and high seriousness. But the matter of
sorrow is that Chaucer has been called non-classic poet though Arnold has provided a long and

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praiseworthy evaluation on Chaucer as the father of English poetry and having liquid diction
like Milton, Keats, Wordsworth and Byron but Chaucer’s poetry does not possess high
seriousness, grand style.

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John Dryden and Alexander Pope are also not classic poets. Dryden has been considered to be
the puissant গৌরবময় and glorious founder of prose writing and Pope is the priest of prose

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composition. Overall, they are the classic of prose not poetry.

Arnold discovers in his essay that the complete modernism of English literature started in the

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Romantic period of English literature. Therefore, the romantics are the first modern poets. All
the romantics except Shelley are considered to classic poets because of Arnold’s less
possession on lyricism.
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Real Burns who is an influential Scottish poet has been evaluated like Chaucer. Finally, Arnold
asserts that the readers who can apply touchstone method properly can read classical poems.
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1. Critically analyze Arnold’s assessment of the poetry written in the 17th and 18th
centuries in England.
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Or, how does Arnold evaluate Dryden, Pope, Gray and Burns? Do you agree with him?
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Introduction: “The Study of Poetry” by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) deals with poetry from
Chaucer onward. The purpose of this essay is to define the classics and non-classics by
applying ‘touchstone method’. As a pure lover of poetry, Arnold has long discussed the poets
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of 17th and 18th century and he is reluctant to recognize them as classical poets without Gray.
Group of 17th and 18th century poets
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Before starting the detail discussion of this group of poets, Arnold has made it transparent that
Shakespeare and Milton are undoubtedly classics. Arnold has limned in detail about Dryden,
Pope, Gray and Burns as the group of 17th and 18th century poets. He has focused on these
poets and recognized them at the same time. By this group of poets, he means to say the poets
of “Neo-classical Age” (1660-1785).
John Dryden (1631-1700) and Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
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Though Dryden and Pope are ever accepted as the prominent poets in the history of English
literature, Arnold is reluctant to recognize them as poets, let alone classical poets. According to
him, they are the puissant or influential and glorious founder and priest of prose. It is in
Arnold’s tongue:
“We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as the splendid high
priest,

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of our age of prose and reason, of our excellent and indispensable eighteenth century”.
Arnold further argues that if he is asked about the verse of Dryden and Pope, he will admirably
answer that they are the inaugurator and priest of prose and reason because of lacking of

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inseparable manner of adequate poetic criticism. Their poetry has been considered to be the
builders of an age of prose and reason although they may be in certain sense the masters of the

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art of versification.
” Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry,
they are classics of our prose.”

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Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
Gray has a singular position in poetry form the perspective of independent criticism of life in
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conformity with Arnold. He studies the Greek classical poets and has not only been to catch
their poetic manner but also to apply them in times. Arnold asserts though Gray has not
composed a lot of volumes of poetry, he is classic in our poetry.
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“He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is classic.”
Thus, Arnold has presented Gray as the only classical poet among the founder and priest of an
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age of prose and reason.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)
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Robert Burns is an illustrious Scottish poet who in general belongs to the eighteenth century.
Arnold has made a long discussion on Burns but started declaring that Burns has little
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importance for English poetry. Arnold boldly says that Burns’ poetry permanently deals with
Scotch drink, religion and manners which are often harsh and sordid or nasty that is why he has
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told that Burns has not even followed the proper seriousness of ‘bacchanalian poetry’.
Arnold further argues that the admirers of Burns’ poetry may assert that he has high
seriousness of life but Arnold does not agree to this. He has compared him with Chaucer who
has short of the high seriousness of the great classics. So, Burns is not included in the group of
classics by Arnold as well.
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Conclusion: Arnold’s appreciation about the poets of 17 and 18 poets has possessed a strong
platform since Neo-Classical Age is considered to be the age of prose and reason in the history
of English literature.

2. Discuss poetry is the criticism of life.

Or, evaluate Arnold’s theory or definition of poetry.

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Introduction: One of the most prestigious forms of writing is poetry. It is an art that is
embedded in the soul and spirit of the people. The ‘first modern critic’ Matthew Arnold
(1822-1888) shows high conception on poetry in his literary criticism “The Study of Poetry”

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which is his attempt to establish the standard of what poetry should be. He asserts that the best
poetry is the “criticism of life by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty”.

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Arnold’s concept on poetry

According to Matthew Arnold, “poetry is simply the most delightful and perfect form of

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utterance that human words can reach; it is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for
such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty”.
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The “Criticism of Life”

The phrase “Criticism of life” means proper interpretation of life. Poetry accurately explains
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life. Here we discover and analyze how poetry is the criticism of life.

Integrity between poetry and human life

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Arnold defines poetry as a critique of life. To put it differently, poetry must concern itself with
life and the problems of life. The idea, the subject-matter and the theme of poetry should be
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relevant to people's lives. It should not be remote in a way that does not directly connect to our
lives. The phrase "criticism of life" is further explained by Arnold as "noble and profound
application of ideas." The greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of
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ideas to life. Here we can cite from Shakespeare:

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“We are such stuff

As dreams are made of and our little life
Is round with sleep”

Source of ingredients of life

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By the phrase “Criticism of Life” Arnold means to say that the readers can identify their faults
and mistakes for the purpose of rectification by going through poems. They must apply the
powerful ideas which they pick up through reading poetry. The poetry of Homer, Shakespeare,
Milton and Dante is filled with noble and profound ideas. Matthew Arnold’s own poems such
as “Dover Beach, The Scholar Gipsy, Thyrsis, To Marguerite, Resignation and A Southern
Night” are packed with the “Criticism of Life” to a great extent. In a nutshell, poetry is the

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catalyst for the readers. Again, we can quote from Shakespeare:

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

…………. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

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Signifying nothing.”
This profound idea makes us aware of not adopting illegal way to achieve our ambition

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because unfair means creates havoc.

The ways of leading life

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Arnold claims that poetry teaches us how lead life since it is filled with moral ideas. By
emphasizing the moral system, Arnold does not mean the composing of moral or didactic
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poems. Rather, according to Arnold, it is the question how to live and whatever comes under it,
that is moral. Arnold quotes Milton:
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“Nor love thy life nor hate; but what thou liv’st
Live well; how long or short, permit to heaven”
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In these lines, the moral idea is easily perceived. It teaches us to lead a life with full force
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whatever situation prevails in our life must be made the best of times not the worst of times.

Shelter and consolation in crisis

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According to Arnold, poetry has high destinations as a criticism of life. His claim is that poetry
is superior to philosophy, science and religion. Philosophy depends on reason which is a false
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display of knowledge. Science is soulless and artificial. It is incomplete without poetry.

Religion combines its emotions with ideas that are indescribable or infallible. It provides a
great representation of life and concepts without trying to falsify the truths. Therefore, Arnold
is of the view that poetry can be our sustenance. The best poetry has the power to create,
sustain, and delight us that nothing else can. Over time, mankind will discover that they have to
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go back to poetry to interpret their lives, and to comfort and sustain themselves because
science, religion and philosophy will eventually prove to be fragile and unstable.

Conclusion: To sum up, we can say that poetry is the criticism of life. It is the responsibility of
the reviewer to examine both poetry and life at the same time. Arnold performs his duty as a
father of modern criticism, although his theory of poetry has extended the hornet's nest or
numerous reactions.

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3. Discuss the characteristic features of good poetry.

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What, according to Arnold, are the Funtions of Poetry? How far they acceptable?

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Introduction: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) is a prominent English poet and critic of the
twentieth century. He has brought a revolution to the world of English literature with his
critical essays, prose and poetry. As poetry is a high-quality literary work that shows deep

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feelings with beauty and elegance, it should be written following a number of organized
requirements.
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Features of good poetry

According to Arnold, the high-quality poetry contains the following features.

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i. Criticism of life
ii. The poetic truth and poetic beauty
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iii. And maintenance of grand style or high seriousness.

The criticism of life

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A poetry cannot be good without having the criticism of life since Matthew Arnold has
declared the high position of poetry. The term "criticism of life" means the proper
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interpretation of life. Poetry accurately explains life. Arnold defines poetry as a critique of life.
To put it differently, poetry must concern itself with life and the problems of life. Ideas, topics
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and themes of poetry should be relevant to people's lives. It should not be remote in a way that
does not directly connect to our lives. Therefore, Arnold asserts:

“….to take specimens of the poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and to say:
the characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed there.”
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Thus, Arnold provides guideline like Aristotle that if the topics, ideas and themes of poetry are
not relevant to live, “Criticism of Life" will be completely absent. The criticism of life is
further explained by Arnold as “noble and profound application of ideas." The greatness of a
poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life.

Poetic truth and poetic beauty

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Poetic truth and poetic beauty are the soul of poetry. They are so vital that a poet cannot
imagine his poetical success without them.

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“But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful application of ideas
to life;

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it must be an application under the conditions fixed, by the laws of poetic beauty and
poetic truth.”

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By poetic truth, Arnold means the representation of life in the true way, and by poetic beauty
he refers to the manner and style of poetry. The subject-matter of the best poem is
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characterized by truth, and seriously to a certain degree. The manner is characterized by
superiority of diction and of movement. So, the matter and style must have the accent of high
beauty. Arnold does not, however, determine what this accent is. He says that we will feel it for
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ourselves. By such expression, Arnold suggests that if a poet wants to be a classic, he has to be
creative by the application of his own diction and movement.
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Arnold states that the qualities of truth and seriousness that elevate poetry are inseparable from
the excellence of diction and movement. If the matter of a poet has truth and high seriousness,
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the manner and diction also achieve superior accent.

High seriousness
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The laws of the poetic truth and poetic beauty insist on the condition of “high seriousness” in
poetry. This is the quality that gives poetry its power and strength. It comes from absolute
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sincerity that the poet feels for his subject. A poet’s sincerity consists in his speaking because
when the readers can feel the sincerity of the poet about his subject-matter, it is sure that he
speaks from his very inmost soul. The quality of high seriousness is found in the poetry of
Dante, Homer, and Milton. It is the power of sincerity that gives poets the power to interpret
life properly.
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Conclusion: To sum up, we can say that truth, high seriousness, a powerful application of
ideas to life, absolute sincerity, excellence of diction and movement in the matter of style, these
are the essential requirements of great poetry. And we also understand that Matthew Arnold
had a broad idea about criticism and poetry.

4. What does Arnold expect from a classic? Examine Arnold's assessment of

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Chaucer. Do you agree with his evaluation of Chaucer?

Introduction
A classic is a writer of the highest order. His conception of life is far from the ordinary. What

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he writes undoubtedly belongs the best. The term, 'classic' means to be, according to Arnold
and others too, the very best So, a classic writer is one who writes taking the most elegant

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things in his mind Nothing can interfere with his elegant tone and he sustains this pure and
perfect order throughout.

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Arnold’s evaluation on Chaucer
In “The Study of Poetry” Matthew Arnold refers to Chaucer and seeks to establish real
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estimate of his poetry. He says that the poetical importance of Chaucer does not need the
assistance of the historic estimate. He is a genuine source of joy. He admits that the language of
Chaucer is a cause of difficulty for us but he believes that it is a difficulty to be unhesitatingly
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accepted and overcome.

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Evaluation through Arnold’s Method

Matthew Arnold holds that poetry is the criticism of life The laws of poetic truth and poetic
beauty condition this criticism of life. The poet can proceed with the application of his ideas to
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man, human life and behaviour. The more profound this application of ideas is, the criticism
becomes more perfect and the theme and the content of the poem become nobler. Arnold
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expects that the poet of the highest merit and genius should provide the reader the answer to
the question, "How to live"?
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Treatment of Subject Matter

A classic writer or poet always maintains the qualities in two distinct ways-(1) Matter or
substance and (ii) the manner or style Aristotle' believes that the superiority of poetry over
history lies in its possessing of a higher truth and higher seriousness. So, a great poetry of the
classical merit must possess high seriousness' in its treatment of the subject matter. As regards
the manner and style of a classical poet must excel in diction and movement. A classic poet in
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anyway must not give way to charlatanism. He warns that a charlatan poet can never reach the
position of a classic poet.

Role of Chaucer in English poetry

In assessing the place and role of Chaucer in English poetry, he has applied his theory. Arnold

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praises the sterling qualities of Chaucer's poetry, yet he refuses to call him one of the great
classics of English poetry. He admits frankly that Chaucer's poetry is superior to the French
Romance poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Without any hesitation, he calls him the
father of splendid modern English poetry. He says that Chaucer is the well of English

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undefiled.

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The Simplicity of Arnold’s Poetry
Arnold agrees that Chaucer makes use of a free, simple, clear and sympathetic view of human
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life. As regards style and manner. Chaucer's diction has a divine liquidness. He finds a "divine
fluidity of movement in Chaucer's poetry. His diction, Arnold says, may I justifiably described
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as "gold dew-drops of speech".

Lack of Chaucer’s Poetry

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In spite of showering a heap of praises upon Chaucer, he does not recognise him to be one of
great classics of English poetry. Because, Arnold thinks of poetry as almost a religion. Poetry
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to be the guide of life in future must have the qualities of the highest order, otherwise, Arnold
feels, it will fail to do justice to its role in human life. So, he does not assign an elevated place
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to Chaucer because he lacks high seriousness, which Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton had.
In Arnold’s own tongue:
“Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends and effaces,
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easily and without effort,………”

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But Arnold's evaluation of Chaucer has given rise to protests from critics like T.S. Eliot and
others.
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Conclusion
In termination, we can say that Arnold expects from classics that their literary work must be
contained criticism of life, high seriousness and poetic truth, and poetic beauty. However,
Arnold may be forgiven for his remark about Chaucer, because Arnold cannot forget that our
race "will find an ever surer and surer stay" in poetry in the future.
5. Discuss the term dissociation of Sensibility.

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Introduction: The term dissociation of sensibility was first used by Thomas Stearns Eliot
(1888-1865) in his famous essay “The Metaphysical Poets”. It refers to the way in which
intellectual thought was separated from the experience of feeling in the seventeenth century.

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Basic concept on dissociation of sensibility: The term dissociation of sensibility comprises of
two words which are dissociation and sensibility. The meaning of the word dissociation is

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separation or detachment and sensibility is sensation or feeling. So, this term stands for
detachment of thought from sensation in case of poetry writing.

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Clear concept on unification of sensibility: Before elaborating the dissociation of sensibility,
the unification of sensibility should be clarified so that we can appreciate the intellectual or
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metaphysical poets very well and conspicuously. The term “unification of sensibility” means
fusion of thought and feeling by the early Jacobean poets, specially by John Donne first. By
this term, Eliot links between the modern poets and metaphysical poets.
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Difference between intellectual and reflective poets: Eliot points out that the term
dissociation of sensibility has made the difference between the intellectual poets, that means
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the metaphysical poets, and the reflective poets. The intellectual poets unified thought and
feeling together but the reflective poets separated the feeling or sensibility from thought.
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According to Eliot, Tennyson and Browning are great poets but they are devoid of fidelity of
thought and feeling simultaneously like Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

“Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as
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immediately as the odour of a rose.”

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Thus, Eliot argues that dissociation of sensibility is not better than unification of sensibility to
produce a good poetry. “A Valediction Forbidding Morning” is a superb example of unification
of sensibility in which the poet compares two lovers to a pair of compasses.

Natural development of poetry: According to Eliot, the dissociation of sensibility was the
result of the natural development of poetry after the metaphysical. Eliot asserts that
dissociation of sensibility was established by the influence of two powerful poets of late
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seventeenth century – Milton and Dryden and we have never recovered. In fact, Eliot means to
say that the poetic functions of Milton and Dryden were so magnificently well that the
magnitude or expansion of their poetic effects concealed or covered the other poets’ merits.
The critic says that their use of language was so refined but there was huge lack of feeling in
their writings that is why Eliot has preferred the unification of sensibility which means simply
fusion of feeling and thought together to the dissociation of sensibility.

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Distinguishing between language and feelings: Eliot goes on telling that the other poets such
as Collins, Gray, Johnson and Goldsmith who followed this term perfectly satisfy our
fastidious demands better than that of Donne, Marvell or King. Their language also becomes
more refined but the feeling is cruder. He cites an example from Gray’s poem “Country

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Churchyard” because the feeling or sensibility expressed in the poem is cruder than that in
“Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell who is one of the excellent metaphysical poets in

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accordance with Eliot. Thus, he evaluates the intellectual or metaphysical poets from a very
different angle which is really praiseworthy.

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Criticism: Though Eliot is unanimously accepted for his term “dissociation of sensibility”, he
has to face a very critical question that the very term was originated because of English civil
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war. He does not agree or disagree to this question and he also tell us that it is very perilous to
reject Johnson’s arguments as to metaphysical poets and poetry.
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Conclusion: From the light of the above discussion it can be said that Eliot is not only a genius
critic but also a founder of intellectual poets in the mind of the readers forever by the dint of
his two terms which are dissociation of sensibility and unification of sensibility.
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6. Question: How does Eliot refute Johnson’s remark on the poet whom he classified as
metaphysicals?
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Introduction: T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) is a celebrated poet critic and philosopher of 20th

century who has never been criticized as a critic in his lifetime and after his death even till
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now. He is a discoverer and defender in English literary criticism as he has defended and
classified the so-called metaphysical poets.
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Origin of crude criticism against metaphysical poets

The term “metaphysical poets” has been criticized by the critics from time to time in the
history of English literature. This term was first rebuked by Dryden in 1692 and later by
Samuel Johnson. The remark or observation of Dryden and Johnson on Donne is:

“Metaphysics as a pretense Donne boasted his erudition or wisdom.

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Even with syllables and rime not poet but mere technician.”

In modern period, Professor Grierson’s book “Metaphysical lyrics and Poems of the
Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler (1921) is a piece of criticism and a provocation of
criticism for metaphysical poets. But for the first time, T. S. Eliot comes forward to defend and
recognize the so-called metaphysical poets.

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Objections of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Before going to present Eliot’s defending arguments, the objections of Johnson against
metaphysical poets should be learnt. The objections are:

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I. Metaphysical poetry has long done duty as a term of abuse, or as the label of
quaint and pleasant taste.

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II. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together, or divers in
character or content.
III. Inventive use of conceit.
IV.
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Loose structure of poetry.
Protecting logics of T.S. Eliot
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It is true that Eliot has pointed out some arguments against Johnson and also refuted him not to
censure but only to defend metaphysical poets or nothing else. Eliot’s logics are here.
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Extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry

Eliot’s first and foremost defending argument is that it is extremely crux to define metaphysical
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poetry and decide what poets practise it. The poetry of Donne and Marvell is very close to late
Elizabethan poet and translator Chapman in respect of feeling. Romantic and devotional verses
of Cristiana Rossetti and mystic verses Francis Thompson, both belonged to Victorian period,
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are really similar to the devotional verse of Vaughan, Herbert and Crashaw. Thus, Eliot opines
that metaphysical concept in writing poetry is fundamental one.
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Use of figure of speech

Johnson criticizes metaphysical poets for their use of so-called inventive conceit. Eliot opines
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that it is difficult to find any precise or particular use of simile, metaphor or other conceit
because use of figure of speech is common to all poets and at the same time important enough
as an element of style. Therefore, it is exactly futile to isolate metaphysical poets as a loose
group based on only the use of conceit.
The most heterogeneous ideas yoked by violence together
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Eliot confesses that it is a fact that often the ideas are yoked and not united in metaphysical
poetry. But he asserts that it is a matter of omnipresent in poetry. He cites the example of
French poet to justify this and also relates that Johnson himself is not free from this fault. “The
Vanity of Human Wishes” is a poem by Johnson is the best example of heterogeneous ideas
yoked violently together. Eliot presents four lines of the poem of Johnson as an evidence:
“His fate was destined to barren strand,

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A petty fortress, and dubious hand;
He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale,”
Defense of miscellaneous objections

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Beside these objections, Eliot has refuted other objections of Johnson as to metaphysical poets.
He strongly says that Johnson’s general observation on the metaphysical poets in his essay

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“The Life of Cowley” is often fit but the language of the prescribed poets is simple, clear and
elegant and their thought and feeling are unified very close to the modern poets.
Johnson objects that metaphysical poets’ attempts were always analytic but Eliot would not
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agree with Johnson because the dramatist of late Elizabethan period was extremely analytical.
Here Eliot especially mentions Cristopher Marlowe who was man of superb erudition like
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metaphysical poets from analytic perspective. Thus, Eliot shows that metaphysical poets were
the successor of Elizabethan dramatists.
Conclusion: Now, it may be said that Johnson failed to define metaphysical poetry by its faults
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but Eliot also asserts that we must not reject the criticism of Johnson who is a dangerous
person to disagree with.
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7. How does Donne combine emotion and intellect in his poems?

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or, why does Eliot praise Donne’s ability to unify the intellectual thoughts and sensation
of feeling?
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Introduction: Sensuous apprehension of thought which is called the unification of sensibility.

To put it differently, unified sensibility means the combination of emotion and thought. For the
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union of thought and feeling, the power of John Donne (1572-1631) depends on the variety of
mood, images, conceits and certainly intellectualism.

The Variety of mood

Donne’s love poetry is chiefly remarkable for the range and variety of mood and attitude. By
dint of the variety of mood, he has been able to blend thought and emotion in a bizarre way.
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His mood of poetry can be divided into three segments which carry the blend of passion and
thinking.

The simplest level: At the lowest level or simplest level, there is the expression of the sensual
aspect of love. Here there is a celebration of the physical appetite. If love is only considered to
be physical feeling, it will be nothing more than lust that is subject to change and loss. Such
fusion of feeling and ratiocination is notably presented in his Elegies.

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The intermediate level: In this level, the poems deal with mutually enjoyed love between man
and woman. In this case, there is a joy and contentment, expressed in poems such as The Sun
Rising, The Good-Morrow or The Anniversary.

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The highest level: On the highest level, the poems present love as holy passion which

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sanctifies the lovers. Examples are The Ecstasy, The Canonization and The Undertaking.

Intellectualism and logical quality

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Each of Donne's love poems gets born from a particular sensation but he interprets that feeling
with the help of his intellect and logics. His readers can share a passion, enjoying a joke,
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feeling and thinking simultaneously. In “The Canonization”, the mingling of passion and
thought is seen. The supreme feeling of satisfaction in love is expressed. However, the poem
offers an intellectual tone with complex conceits and logic. In the poem “A Valediction
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Forbidding Mourning”, he moves from thought to thought with a measured and weighty music.
Here there is a series of reasoned comparisons.
ur

“If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;
ab

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the other do.”
ih

Passion is conveyed in images which are strange, logical and of an intellectual nature. The
intellectual images arise from an emotional situation that is related to complex thought, as
sh

expressed at the very outset of “The Good Morrow”:

“I wonder by my troth what thou, and I

Did, till we loved?”
 16
One cannot deny the passion in the poem, but the passion is Inevitably fused into thought. The
poem is a long argument to prove the greatness of the experience of love. The conceits are used
to illustrate his argument and persuade. The lovers can never die because of their intensity of
love.

Using imagery and conceits

om
Donne’s poems arise from an emotional situation. Then the poet argues to make his attitude
acceptable and, in this process, the conceits are used as instruments. His originality is reflected
when he uses images and conceits from various sources and fields. In “The Sun Rising”, we
find a successful union of passion and thought, feeling and ratiocination. In an emotional

.c
mood, the poet takes shelter to a wit or conceit which sometimes seems to be highly fantastic
and exaggerated. How well the fusion of feeling and thought is expressed at the beginning of

an
the final stanza:

m “She’s all states, and all princes I

Nothing else is.”
ha
The world of love and the outside world are kept side by side, and the little world of the lovers
is called the small world or microcosm of the outside world. So, the function of his image and
ra

conceit is multifarious.

Conclusion: Donne achieves unification of sensibility very successfully and artificially. His
ur

poetry gives the impression that the thought and arguments are arising immediately out of
passionate feeling. It is the part of the dramatic realism of his style. He could combine
ab

disparate experiences and build something new by a variety of subjects.

8. How does Eliot distinguish between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet?
ih

How does Eliot justify that the Elizabethan and the Jacobean poets were intelligent and
the later poets were reflective?
sh

Eliot distinguishes between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet in his famous critical
essay “The Metaphysical Poets”. Then he gives reasons for preferring intellectual poets.

Eliot holds a comparison between the so-called metaphysical poets, and the poets of the later
periods-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-especially Tennyson and Browning, the two most
famous poets of the Victorian period. Through the comparison, Eliot proves that the
metaphysical poets were intellectual, and the poets of the later ages were reflective.
 17
The dramatic verse of the later Elizabethan and early Jacobean dramatists expresses a degree of
development of sensibility. In Chapman, for instance, we observe a direct sensuous
apprehension of thought or recreation of thought into feeling. This is found in the metaphysical
poets who were successors of the above dramatists. They possessed a mechanism of sensibility
which could devour any kind of experience. They are simple, artificial, difficult, or fantastic as
their predecessors were.

om
After the metaphysical, dissociation of sensibility set in which was aggravated by Milton and
Dryden, two of the greatest poets of the seventeenth century. As a result, the language went on
and, in some respects, improved. The best verse of Collins, Gray, and so on satisfies some of
our fastidious demands better than the of Donne or Marvell, or King.

.c
But while the language became more refined, the feeling became cruder. For instance, the

an
feeling and the sensibility expressed in Gray’s Elegy are cruder than that in Marvell’s “To His
Coy Mistress”. Things went on and in the most famous of the Victorian poets – Tennyson and
Browning- the difference because more prominent. It was the difference between intellectual

m
and reflective poets.

A comparison between the Ode of Lord Herbert and a poem of Tennyson shows that the former
ha
poet was intellectual and the latter reflective. Tennyson and Browning thought but they did not
feel their thought as immediately as the ‘odor of a rose. But to Donne, thought was an
ra

experience; it modified his sensibility. A metaphysical poet constantly amalgamated disparate

experiences.
ur

Eliot prefers intellectual poets for various reasons. The possible interests of a poet are
unlimited. The more intelligent or intellectual he is, the more he will have interests. We want
that he turns them into poetry, not merely meditate on them. The intellectual poets are quite up
ab

to our expectations.

They might have had some faults, but they were at least engaged in the task of trying to find
ih

the verbal equivalent for states of mind and feeling. They were more mature and more enduring
than the reflective poets who were certainly of not less literary ability.
sh

Moreover, the critic prefers the intellectuals because they fulfill the demands of the present
civilization better. The poets of the present civilization must be difficult. They must become
more, and more comprehensive, more allusive, and more indirect in order to force their
language into meaning. They must be, in other words, like the metaphysical poets, the
intellectual poets. Their method must be like the conceit of the intellectual poets.
 18
9. What method does Eliot suggest for the assessment of the poets wrongly called the
metaphysical by Johnson? What would such a method lead to?

Ans. According to Eliot, Johnson was wrong in his method of assessing the poets whom he
called metaphysics. Eliot suggests a different method of assessing the same poets. If that
method was followed, the poets in question would not be considered metaphysical, but poets in

om
the tradition of English poetry.

In Eliot's opinion, Johnson, though he was a very shrewd চতু র and sensitive critic, failed to
define metaphysical poetry because he followed the wrong method: defining metaphysical

.c
poetry by its faults. In that context, Eliot suggests a different method, which is opposite to that
of Johnson. This is to assume অনুমান that those poets (metaphysical so-called) were the direct

an
and normal development of the preceding পূর্ববর্তী age and to consider whether their virtue was
not something permanently valuable.

m
The so-called metaphysical possessed a virtue: a mechanism of ability that could devour any
kind of experience. This virtue is something permanently and ought not to have disappeared
ha
অদৃশ্য. But regrettably দুঃখজনকভাবে, it disappeared, and dissociation of sensibility set in
immediately after the metaphysical. Milton and Dryden aggravated it. The language went on
and in some aspects improved. The verse of Collins, Gray, Johnson, and even Goldsmith
ra

satisfies some of our particular demands better than that of Donne or Marvell, or King. But
While the language became more refined feeling became cruder. For example, the feeling, the
ur

sensibility expressed in the Country Churchyard is cruder than that in Marvell's Coy Mistress.
ab

Another effect of the influence of Milton and Dryden, that is, the influence of dissociation of
sensibility intensified by them was sentimentalism in literature. It is observed in Romantic
poetry. The Romantic poets revolted against the ratiocinative অনুপাতমূলক, the descriptive, that was
ih

the vogue প্রচলিত with the poets of the dissociation of sensibility, and thought and felt by fits,
unbalanced. In Shelley's Triumph of Life, and in Keats's Hyperion there are traces of a struggle
sh

toward the unification of sensibility. After the death of Shelley and Keats, Tennyson and
Browning ruminated-they reverted fully to dissociation of sensibility.

All these happened because the current of poetry did not descend আক্রমণ করা in a direct line from
the metaphysical. The metaphysical would certainly not have been classified as metaphysical if
it had. The poets after them would have been more intelligent than poets should really be. The
possible interests of a poet are unlimited, and the more intelligent a poet is the more likely it is
 19
that he will have more interests. We want only that he turn these interests into poetry, not
merely meditate on them poetically. We do not want that poets should be philosophical-that is,
we do not want that they should merely ruminate on their poetic topics.

Modern civilization demands that poets should be difficult. This civilization comprehends great
variety and subtlety and complexity. Playing upon a refined sensibility, they must produce

om
various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more
allusive, and more indirect in order to force, to dislocate, language into meaning. In that case,
we will get something that looks very much like the conceit, a method curiously similar to that
of the 'metaphysical poets.

.c
Eliot concludes that by following this method of assessment of the poets in question, the

an
metaphysical poets--Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Herbert, Marvell, King and Cowley etc-are in
the direct current of English poetry. Johnson's method led to the wrong conclusion; it was from
a narrow point of view. Eliot claims that his method is the correct one and will lead to a true
conclusion.
m
ha
10. A Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Metaphysical Poets’

In his 1921 essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, T. S. Eliot made several of his most famous and
ra

important statements about poetry – including, by implication, his own poetry. It is in this essay
that Eliot puts forward his well-known idea of the ‘dissociation of sensibility’, among other
ur

theories.

By 1921, T. S. Eliot has established himself as one of the leading new poets writing in English:
ab

his two collections of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) and Poems (1920), had
heralded the arrival in London literary society of someone who had, in his friend and fellow
modernist poet Ezra Pound’s words, ‘modernised himself on his own’. Eliot had read widely, in
ih

medieval Italian religious poetry (Dante’s Divine Comedy), Renaissance verse drama
(Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, John Webster, and their contemporaries), and nineteenth-century
sh

French Symbolist poets (such as Baudelaire and Laforgue).

But Eliot had also studied the canon of great English poetry, and his essay on the metaphysical
poets shows that he identified his own approach to poetry with these poets from the
seventeenth century. This is somewhat strange, when we analyse it more closely (as we will do
in a moment), but first, here’s a brief rundown of what Eliot argues in ‘The Metaphysical
Poets’.
 20
Summary

Eliot’s article on the metaphysical poets is actually a review of a new anthology, Herbert J. C.
Grierson’s Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century. Eliot uses his review of
Grierson’s anthology, however, as an opportunity to consider the value and significance of the
metaphysical poets in the development of English poetry.

om
Although the metaphysical poets were a distinctly English ‘movement’ or ‘school. Eliot also
draws some interesting parallels between the seventeenth-century English metaphysical poets
and nineteenth-century French Symbolist poets like Jules Laforgue, whose work Eliot much
admired.

.c
Eliot begins by reminding us that it’s difficult to define metaphysical poetry, since there is a

an
considerable difference in style and technique between those poets who are often labelled
‘metaphysical’. We have explored the issue of defining metaphysical poetry in a separate post,
but the key frame of reference, for us as for Eliot, was Samuel Johnson’s influential

m
denunciation of the metaphysical poets in the eighteenth century.

Eliot quotes Johnson’s line about metaphysical poetry that ‘the most heterogeneous ideas are
ha
yoked by violence together’. Eliot’s response to Johnson’s censure, however, is to point out
that all kinds of poets – not just the metaphysicals – unite heterogeneous or different materials
together in their poetry. Indeed, Eliot quotes from Johnson’s own poem, The Vanity of Human
ra

Wishes:

His fate was destined to a barren strand,

ur

A petty fortress and a dubious hand;

ab

He left a name at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral or adorn a tale.

ih

Eliot argues that, whilst such lines as these are different in degree from what the metaphysical
poets did in their own work, the principle is in fact the same. Johnson is ‘guilty’ of that which
sh

he chastised Abraham Cowley, John Cleveland, and other metaphysical poets for doing in their
work.

Eliot then goes on to consider the style of numerous metaphysical poets. He points out that,
whilst someone like George Herbert wrote in simple and elegant language, his syntax, or
sentence structure, was often more complex and demanding. Key to Herbert’s method is ‘a
 21
fidelity to thought and feeling’, and it is the union of thought and feeling in metaphysical
poetry which will form the predominant theme of the remainder of Eliot’s essay.

Eliot next considers what led to the development of metaphysical poetry: reminding us that
John Donne, the first metaphysical poet, was an Elizabethan (Donne wrote many of his greatest
love poems in the 1590s, when he was in his early twenties), Eliot compares Donne’s ‘analytic’
mode with many of his contemporaries, such as William Shakespeare and George Chapman,

om
who wrote verse drama for the Elizabethan stage.

These playwrights were all influenced by the French writer Montaigne, who had effectively
invented the modern essay form in his prose writings. (We can arguably see the influence of

.c
Montaigne, with his essays arguing and considering the various aspects of a topic, on the
development of the Shakespearean soliloquy, where we often find a character arguing with

an
themselves about a course of action: Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be’ is perhaps the most famous
example.) The key thing, for Eliot, is that in such dramatic speeches – the one he cites is from
George Chapman’s drama – there is a ‘direct sensuous apprehension of thought’, i.e. reason

m
and feeling are intrinsically linked, and thought is a sensory, rather than a merely rational,
experience.
ha
This is where we come to his thesis concerning the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ which occurred
in the seventeenth century.
ra

‘Dissociation of sensibility’
ur

The idea of the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ is one of T. S. Eliot’s most famous critical theories.
ab

The key statement made by Eliot in relation to the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ is arguably the
following: ‘A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.’ Or, as he had
just said, prior to this, of the nineteenth-century poets Tennyson and Browning: ‘they do not
ih

feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose.’

In other words, whereas poets like Donne, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century,
sh

felt their thoughts with the immediacy we usually associate with smelling a sweet flower, later
poets were unable to feel their thought in the same way. The change – the ‘dissociation of
sensibility’, i.e. the moment at which thought and feeling became separated – occurred, for
Eliot, in the mid-seventeenth century, after the heyday of metaphysical poetry when Donne,
Herbert, and (to an extent) Marvell were writing.
 22
This watershed moment, this shift in poetry, is represented, for Eliot, by two major poets of the
later seventeenth century: John Milton and John Dryden. Both poets did something
consummately, but what they did was different. Dryden’s style was far more rational and
neoclassical; Milton’s was more focused on sensation and feeling. (It is worth noting, although
Eliot doesn’t make this point, that the Romantics – whose work rejected the cold, orderly
rationalism of neoclassical poets like Alexander Pope and, before him, John Dryden –

om
embraced Milton, and especially his Paradise Lost. Wordsworth references Milton in several of
his sonnets, while Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is steeped in Milton.)

Eliot concludes ‘The Metaphysical Poets’ by drawing some comparisons between the
metaphysical mode and nineteenth-century French Symbolists, to demonstrate further that the

.c
‘metaphysical’ was not some entirely distinct variety of poetry but that it shares some core
affinities with other schools of poetry. He then returns to Johnson’s criticism of the

an
metaphysical poets’ techniques and metre, and argues that, whilst we should take Johnson’s
critique seriously, we should nevertheless value the metaphysical poets and look beyond poets

m
like Cowley and Cleveland (who are Johnson’s chief focus).

In conclusion, Eliot’s essay was important in raising the profile of the metaphysical poets
ha
among his own readers: people who looked to Eliot for discerning critical judgement and
viewed him as a touchstone of literary taste were inclined to go and reread the metaphysicals.
This led to a tendency among critics of Eliot’s work to identify him as a latter-day
ra

metaphysical poet, a view which, as the poet-critic William Empson pointed out, isn’t borne
out by reading Eliot’s work. Prufrock, the speakers of The Waste Land, and the Hollow Men
ur

don’t really speak to us in the same way as Donne or Marvell do: there aren’t really any
elaborate and extended poetic conceits (central to the metaphysical method) in Eliot’s work.
ab

So, this connection between Eliot’s own work and the work of Donne, Herbert, and others has
been overplayed. (Empson was well-placed to point this out: his own poetry clearly bears the
influence of Donne in particular, and Empson is rightly called a modern metaphysical poet for
ih

this reason.) However, Eliot himself encourages such a parallel at one point in ‘The
Metaphysical Poets’, when he writes that poets writing in modern European civilization must
sh

be difficult because the civilization is itself complex and various, and so the poet, to do justice
to this complexity and variety, must become ‘more comprehensive, more allusive, more
indirect, in order to force, to dislocate, if necessary, language into his meaning’. Certainly, this
statement is equally applicable to Andrew Marvell and T. S. Eliot.

About T. S. Eliot
 23
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) is regarded as one of the most important and influential
poets of the twentieth century, with poems like ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (1915),
The Waste Land (1922), and ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925) assuring him a place in the ‘canon’ of
modernist poetry.

Modernist poets often embraced free verse, but Eliot had a more guarded view, believing that
all good poetry had the ‘ghost’ of a metre behind the lines. Even in his most famous poems we

om
can often detect the rhythms of iambic pentameter – that quintessentially English verse line –
and in other respects, such as his respect for the literary tradition, Eliot is a more ‘conservative’
poet than a radical.

.c
Nevertheless, his poetry changed the landscape of Anglophone poetry for good. Born in St
Louis, Missouri in 1888, Eliot studied at Harvard and Oxford before abandoning his

an
postgraduate studies at Oxford because he preferred the exciting literary society of London. He
met a fellow American expatriate, Ezra Pound, who had already published several volumes of
poetry, and Pound helped to get Eliot’s work into print. Although his first collection, Prufrock

m
and Other Observations (1917), sold modestly (its print run of 500 copies would take five years
to sell out), the publication of The Waste Land in 1922, with its picture of a post-war Europe in
ha
spiritual crisis, established him as one of the most important literary figures of his day.

He never returned to America (except to visit as a lecturer), but became an official British
ra

citizen in 1927, the same year he was confirmed into the Church of England. His last major
achievement as a poet was Four Quartets (1935-42), which reflect his turn to Anglicanism. In
his later years he attempted to reform English verse drama with plays like Murder in the
ur

Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He died in London in 1965.

11. Summary of Culture and Imperialism

ab

Introduction
ih

In his introduction, Edward Said lays out his approach to the key linkage explored in this book:
the connections between culture and imperialism. He states he will focus on three empires in
sh

relatively recent times (1700 to 1990): Britain, France, and the United States. "Culture and
Imperialism" has been planned as a sequel to but also an extension of the author's prior work
Orientalism (1978). Said introduces the concept of "contrapuntal"(বিরোধী) analysis and
interpretation, which will constitute a major focus throughout the book. With this approach, the
perspectives of both the colonizer and the colonized are considered and texts are read with an
awareness of their historical context.
 24
Chapter 1: Overlapping Territories, Intertwined Histories

In Chapter 1, which consists of five parts, Said discusses the influences of geography on the
empire. He points out the rapid growth of imperialism on the part of the European nations.
They controlled 35% of the world's surface in 1800. By 1914, this figure had grown to 85%.
The colonizers were typically outnumbered greatly by the colonized. Said acknowledges that
the urge to dominate is universal, but influence and alteration are a two-way street. He stresses

om
the "hybridity" of all cultures, which never exist in isolation or in a pure form but depends on
borrowings. In an analysis of Joseph Conrad's short novel Heart of Darkness (1899), Said
distinguishes two visions, the first pessimistic and the second somewhat more optimistic.
Commenting on narratives from the 1820s about Napoleon's conquest of Egypt (1798), Said

.c
remarks on "discrepant" experiences of the past, depending on perspective. Here he points out
that people have different experiences depending on their social circumstances, including the

an
perspective of both the colonizers and the colonized. Finally, he reemphasizes the value of a
contrapuntal approach that addresses both the perspective of the imperialists and those who
resist them.
m
Chapter 2: Consolidated Vision
ha
Chapter 2 consists of eight parts and forms the core of Said's book. At the beginning of this
chapter, he stresses the centrality of the novel as an expression of culture. This literary form
ra

rose to popularity at the same time as the flourishing of British and French imperialism. Said
devotes one part of this chapter to a detailed analysis of the role of overseas imperialism in
Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park (1814). Said devotes two more parts in this chapter to a
ur

discussion of Rudyard Kipling's most important long work, the novel Kim (1901). He also
discusses the complex relationships revealed by the French novelist Albert Camus in two of his
ab

leading works, L'Étranger (The Stranger) (1942) and La Peste (The Plague) (1947).

Said also includes other cultural expressions than the novel in this chapter. He discusses
ih

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida (1871) in considerable detail, pointing out the influence of the
French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette on the opera's libretto and storyline.
sh

Chapter 3: Resistance and Opposition

In this five-part chapter Said trains his focus on the complex interrelationships between
imperialists and the imperialized. He highlights the radical change of the global map in the
second half of the 20th century. For example, 49 new African states came into being between
1945 and 1990. Said proceeds to consider some of the outstanding themes of resistance culture.
In a lengthy analysis, he focuses on the nationalism and resistance of the great Irish poet
 25
William Butler Years (1865–1939). He notes a number of resistance texts pertaining to the
Caribbean region, the Middle East, India, and Malaysia. He also considers the issue of
collaboration of the colonized with the colonizers.

Chapter 4: Freedom from Domination in the Future

The focus of the book's final chapter, which consists of three parts, is the United States. In

om
Said's view, the world domination that the United States achieved in 1945 has been marred by
imperialist ventures such as the Gulf War (1990–91). Said exhorts his American readers to
reach out globally and to learn more about the world. He concludes the book by
re-emphasizing the hybridity of all cultures and by stressing the usefulness of a contrapuntal

.c
approach to the issues raised. Both colonizers and colonized peoples reinvent cultural identities
based upon the effects of imperialism.

an
12. Discuss the role of the English novel in perpetuating imperial rule.

Introduction: The English novels scrutinized by Edward Wadie Said (1935-2003) for the first
m
time in the history of English literature have duality. He blazons that the primary purpose of
novels is to learn the cultural forms pleasurably and lucratively. Second, they have played a
ha
gigantic role in the formation of sustainable imperial attitudes, references, and experiences.
Divers role of English novels:
ra

Mr. Said alludes sundry role of English novels in his international essay “Introduction to
Culture and Imperialism”, 1993, which is illustrated here by pointing out sufficient references
from the essay.
ur

Exploration of strange regions:

ab

As it is known that the main battle of imperialism is over land and overlapping the land. The
English novelists, side-by-side explorers, say about strange regions of the world and also
represent the cultural habit of people of that very land so that imperialism functions well after
ih

trespassing. For this, Said has referred to the prototypical modern novel “Robinson Crusoe.”
Thus, English novels are inevitable for colonial expansion and perpetuation in accordance with
Edward Said.
sh

Psychological study:
No other branches of knowledge do well as narrative fiction does in discovering xenophobia.
The word xenophobia refers to the dislike of foreigners or racial intolerance. By discussing this
term, English novels inform imperialists to be conscious. Such discovery is helpful for the
newly appointed inexperienced imperialists to understand natives amply. Such diverse
psychological studies are found in English novels that assist imperialism to hold down. David
 26
Copperfield (1840s) by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), that it has been shown is quoted by Said
in the following way:
“A sort of free system where the laborers could do well
on their own, if allowed to do so.”
Britain’s imperial intercourse through trade and travel:

om
The British novelists are so cunning that by writing novels they prove that presently
imperialism is free from criticism and will remain free from flaws and criticism because the
purpose of imperialism was not to dominate but to trade and travel. For a short space of time,
Said only examines two novels, “Great Expectations” by Dickens and “Nostromo” by Joseph

.c
Conrad, which are the token of colonial purification and packed with the procedures of
establishing a penal colony in Australia and a powerful and corrupted one in the South

an
American Republic. Hence English novels advocate for the eternality of imperialism.
La mission civilisatrice or civilizing mission:

m
The civilizing mission was inaugurated by Portugal and France in the 15th century and
flourished by Great Britain. According to Edward Said, Joseph Conrad is the precursor of the
ha
western views of the third world. Conrad’s novel “Nostromo” published in 1904 embodies the
paternalistic arrogance of imperialism. The term paternalistic arrogance concerns the
imperialists that dominate the natives as an intruder providing all kinds of necessities without
giving rights and it is noticed that such kind of bloody political thinking is pertinent in the third
ra

world even nowadays. He, Joseph Conrad, seems to be saying in the subtle going into of Said.
“We westerners will decide who is a good native or bad,
ur

because all natives have sufficient existence by virtue of our recognition.”

ab

So, the English novels have been able to understand and realize the imperialists that the other
name of “la mission civilisatrice” is eternal domination and looting in a non-violent way.
ih

Anti-imperialistic view:
sh

Now it must be a question of how an anti-imperialistic view can be an issue of expanding and
eternalizing imperialism. It is fascinating to note that Mr. Said has blazoned his mastery to
figure out this. In conformity with Said, Conrad’s vilification of imperialism better concerned
the imperialists as to the following facts.
I. Comprehension of foreign cultures.
II. Political willingness as an alternative to imperialism etc.
 27
That is why Said tells the world:
“To the extent that we see Conrad both criticizing
and reproducing the imperial ideology of his time”
conclusion: In termination, it can be simultaneously related that if there is no English novel,
there is no perpetuation of imperialism and there is no imperialism, there is no progress in the

om
English novel as Dickens is the prolific master of narrative fiction.
13. How does Edward W. Said show culture as an instrument of imperialism?

Or, Discuss the two-fold meaning of culture.

.c
Introduction: Edward W. Said (1935-2003) is considered to be one of the illustrious critics

an
and philosophers of the late 20th century who has expounded the most critical concept in his
collection of essays “Introduction to Culture and Imperialism” published in 1993 that there is
a very subtle relationship between culture and imperialism. He looks into the relationship

m
between culture and imperialism from a different angle as he has got different instruments of
culture for imperialism.
ha
ভূ মিকা: Edward W. Said (1935-2003) বিশ শতকের শেষের দিকের অন্যতম বিশিষ্ট সমালোচক এবং দার্শনিক হিসাবে পরিচিত
যিনি ১৯৯৩ সালে প্রকাশিত তাঁর রচনামূলক সংকলন “Introduction to Culture and Imperialism”-এ সবচেয়ে সমালোচনামূলক
ধারণাটি ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন যেটি হলো সংস্কৃ তি এবং সাম্রাজ্যবাদের মধ্যে একটি খুব সূক্ষ্ম সম্পর্ক রয়েছে । তিনি সাম্রাজ্যবাদের জন্য
সংস্কৃ তির বিভিন্ন ইনস্ট্রু মেন্ট পেয়েছেন বলে সংস্কৃ তি এবং সাম্রাজ্যবাদের মধ্যকার সম্পর্ক কে একটি ভিন্ন দৃষ্টিকোণ থেকে দেখেন ।
ra

Fundamental concepts of culture

For well understanding “culture as an instrument of imperialism”, is needed to go into deeply.
ur

First of all, the aspects of culture should be clarified. According to Edward Said, culture
means two things in particular. It primarily means practices of arts and aesthetic forms.
ab

Secondly, culture is a concept of refining and elevating elements and reservoirs of the best in
accordance with Matthew Arnold. This fundamental concept of culture provides information
that the natives of India, Africa, America, and so on could not preserve their arts and aesthetic
ih

forms that’s why the imperialists could be able to be aggressive and search for so-called
civilization.
sh

সংস্কৃ তি সম্পর্কে মৌলিক ধারণা

সংস্কৃ তিকে সাম্রাজ্যবাদের একটি ইনস্ট্রু মেন্ট হিসাবে ভালো করে বোঝার জন্য, এর গভীরে যাওয়া প্রয়োজন । প্রথমত, সংস্কৃ তির দিকগুলো
জানা উচিত। Edward Said-এর মতে, সংস্কৃ তির অর্থ বলতে বিশেষত দুইটি জিনিস বোঝায় । প্রধানত এর অর্থ হলো চারুকলা এবং
নান্দনিক বিন্যাসের অনুশীলন । দ্বিতীয়ত, ১৮৬০-এর দশকে Matthew Arnold যেমন বলেছিলেন যে সংস্কৃ তি হলো বিশোধন এবং
উন্নত উপাদান এবং সর্বোত্তম আধারের ধারণা । সংস্কৃ তির এই মৌলিক ধারণাটি এমন তথ্য সরবরাহ করে যে ভারত, আফ্রিকা,
আমেরিকা ইত্যাদি স্থানীয় নাগরিকরা তাদের শিল্পকলা এবং নান্দনিক বিন্যাসগুলোর সংরক্ষণ করতে পারেনি যার কারণে সাম্রাজ্যবাদীরা
তথাকথিত সভ্যতার জন্য আক্রমণাত্মক হতে এবং অনুসন্ধান করতে সক্ষম হয়েছিল ।
 28
Fragile culture of the natives
At the very outset of the essay, Said says that the culture of the third world is very fragile
which was the strength of the imperialists. The imperialists always left a contest among the
natives. Said considers that supine or inert natives were the main strength of the imperialists.
“These two factors-a general worldwide pattern of the imperial culture

om
and a historical experience of resistance against empire”
“
Besides, the critic mentions that the people of third world are mean minded and conservative.

.c
On the other hand, the imperialists are so conceived and concerned. Thus, culture of the
overseas colonies became instrument for the imperialists.

an
স্থানীয়দের দুর্বল সংস্কৃ তি

প্রবন্ধের একেবারে শুরুতে Said বলেছেন যে তৃ তীয় বিশ্বের সংস্কৃ তি অত্যন্ত নাজুক যা ছিল সাম্রাজ্যবাদীদের শক্তি । সাম্রাজ্যবাদীরা সর্বদা
স্থানীয়দের মধ্যে প্রতিযোগিতা সৃষ্টি করতো । Said বলেছেন যে সুপাইন বা জড় দেশীয়রা ছিল সাম্রাজ্যবাদীদের প্রধান শক্তি.

m এই দুটি কারণ- সাম্রাজ্য সংস্কৃ তির এক বিশ্বব্যাপী প্যাটার্ন

এবং সাম্রাজ্যের বিরুদ্ধে প্রতিরোধের একটি ঐতিহাসিক অভিজ্ঞতা”

ha
পাশাপাশি, সমালোচকরা উল্লেখ করেছেন যে তৃ তীয় বিশ্বের মানুষরা নীচমনা এবং রক্ষণশীল ছিল । অন্যদিকে, সাম্রাজ্যবাদীরা খুবই
সুদর
ূ প্রসারী এবং উদ্বিগ্ন ছিল । এইভাবে, বিদেশী উপনিবেশগুলির সংস্কৃ তি সাম্রাজ্যবাদীদের হাতিয়ারে পরিণত হয়েছিল ।

Ethical power of culture

ra

The imperialists of Britain and France were so-called light bearers and makers of civilization.
They went to spread the light of education and religion that was not only so-called but also
ur

namely to make the people of overseas colonies fool. In Said’s analysis, the search for trade
and commerce and civilizing missions in India and Africa provided an ethical power to the
ab

colonialists but they went to the countries for looting and dominating. Despite this, they were
unquestionable to the international community for almost two centuries due to their surface
motives of civilizing and trade and commerce. Hence Said suggests checking culture before
ih

the entrance.
“Culture conceived in this way can become a protective enclosure:
sh

check your politics at the door before you enter it.”

সংস্কৃ তির নৈতিক শক্তি

ব্রিটেন এবং ফ্রান্সের সাম্রাজ্যবাদীদের তথাকথিত আলোক বহনকারী এবং সভ্যতার নির্মাতা বলা হতো । তারা শিক্ষা এবং ধর্মের আলো
ছড়িয়ে দিতে গিয়েছিল যা কেবল তথাকথিতই ছিল না বরং বিদেশী উপনিবেশের জনগণকে বোকা বানানোর উদ্দেশ্য সৃষ্টি করেছিল ।
Said-এর বিশ্লেষণে, ভারত ও আফ্রিকার ট্রেড, কমার্স এবং সভ্যতার অনুসন্ধানগুলো উপনিবেশবাদীদের নৈতিক শক্তি প্রদান করেছিল
কিন্তু তারা লুটপাট এবং আধিপত্যের জন্য দেশগুলোতে গিয়েছিল । তা সত্ত্বেও, সভ্যতা, ট্রেড ও কমার্সের উদ্দেশ্যগুলোর কারণে তারা প্রায়
দুই শতাব্দী ধরে আন্তর্জ াতিক সম্প্রদায়ের কাছে সন্দেহাতীত ছিল । তাই Said সংস্কৃ তিতে প্রবেশের আগে তা যাচাই করার পরামর্শ দেন।
 29
“এইভাবে কল্পনা করা সংস্কৃ তি একটি প্রতিরক্ষামূলক ঘেরে পরিণত হতে পারে:

আপনার রাজনীতিতে প্রবেশের আগে তা যাচাই করে দেখুন ।”

Literature as an institution of culture

It is universally accepted that literature is the mirror of society. Said opines through poetry,
fiction, and philosophy teach how to practice and venerate culture, they discourse colonialism
in an indirectly deep way. As a result, most professional humanists have been unable to

om
connect between the prolonged practice of imperialism and the culture of literature. Here in
this essay, Said especially talks about narrative fiction, and novels, which play a vital role in
the expansion of imperialism in the camouflage of culture.

.c
“In thinking of Carlyle or Ruskin, or even Dickens and Thackeray, critics have often,
I believe, relegated these writers’ ideas about colonial expansion,”

an
He gives evidence by mentioning and illustrating sundry novels such as “Great Expectations”
(1861) by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) which is primarily a novel of self-delusion or

m
misconception about oneself but deeply it is a rogue one of practicing penal colony in
Australia. “Nostromo” published in 1904 by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) regarding the
proliferation and malformation of imperialism in the South American Republic allows the
ha
readers to see that imperialism is a system. Therefore, literary culture is an instrument of
imperialism.
ra

সংস্কৃ তির একটি প্রতিষ্ঠান হিসাবে সাহিত্য

এটা সর্বজনস্বীকৃ ত যে সাহিত্যই সমাজের আয়না । Said বলেছেন, যদিও কবিতা, কল্পকাহিনী এবং দর্শন সংস্কৃ তি-চর্চ া ও সংস্কৃ তিকে শ্রদ্ধা
করতে শেখায়, তারা উপনিবেশবাদকে পরোক্ষভাবে গভীর উপায়ে আলোচনা করে । ফলস্বরূপ, বেশিরভাগ পেশাদার মানবতাবাদীরা
ur

দীর্ঘকাল সাম্রাজ্যবাদের চর্চ া এবং সাহিত্যের সংস্কৃ তির মধ্যে সংযোগ স্থাপন করতে অক্ষম হয়েছে । এখানে এই প্রবন্ধে, Said বিশেষত
বর্ণনামূলক কল্পকাহিনী, উপন্যাস সম্পর্কে কথা বলেছেন যেগুলো সংস্কৃ তির ছদ্মবেশে সাম্রাজ্যবাদের প্রসারের জন্য গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূ মিকা পালন
করে ।
ab

“Carlyle বা Ruskin, এমনকি Dickens এবং Thackerayর কথা ভেবে সমালোচকরা প্রায়শই,

আমি বিশ্বাস করি, এই লেখকদের ধারণাকে উপনিবেশিক প্রসারের উপর ন্যস্ত করেছেন,”
ih

তিনি Charles Dickens (1812-1870) রচিত “Great Expectations” (1861) -এর মতো স্বতন্ত্র উপন্যাসগুলো উল্লেখ এবং
বিশ্লেষণ করে প্রমাণ দিয়েছেন যা মূলত নিজের সম্পর্কে বিভ্রান্তি বা ভু ল ধারণার একটি উপন্যাস তবে গভীরভাবে এটি অস্ট্রেলিয়ায় পেনাল
sh

কলোনী অনুশীলনকারীদের মধ্যে অন্যতম প্রতারক । ১৯০৪ সালে প্রকাশিত Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)-এর “Nostromo”
দক্ষিণ আমেরিকা প্রজাতন্ত্রের সাম্রাজ্যবাদের বিস্তার ও বিকৃ তি সম্পর্কে পাঠকদের কাছে তু লে ধরে যে সাম্রাজ্যবাদ একটি ব্যবস্থা। এইজন্য
সাহিত্য সংস্কৃ তি সাম্রাজ্যবাদের একটি উপকরণ ।

Immigrating culture
 30
Immigrating culture is an instrument of post-colonial capitalism. Edward Said relates that
imperialism exists even in the 20th century but not in the shape of the 18th and 19th centuries
because in a fine of the essay he asserts:

“This is a book about past and present, about us and them.”

It has changed its fervidity and character through capitalism and globalization process. The

om
people of third world are immigrating to the capitalists’ countries in search of better fortunes
that is also a strong token of subservience and separation.
সংস্কৃ তির অভিবাসন

.c
উপনিবেশিক পুজিঁ বাদের একটি উপকরণ হলো ইমিগ্র্যাটিং সংস্কৃ তি। Edward Said বর্ণনা করেছেন যে সাম্রাজ্যবাদ বিংশ শতাব্দীতেও
বিদ্যমান তবে ১৮ এবং ১৯ শতকের মতো নয় কারণ তিনি রচনাটিতে বলেছেন:

an
“এটি আমাদের এবং তাদের অতীত ও বর্ত মান সম্পর্কে একটি বই ।”

এটি পুজি
ঁ বাদ এবং বিশ্বায়ন প্রক্রিয়াটির মাধ্যমে তার বেহায়াপনা ও চরিত্রকে পরিবর্ত ন করেছে । তৃ তীয় বিশ্বের লোকেরা আরও বেশি
ভাগ্যের সন্ধানে পুজি
ঁ পতিদের দেশগুলিতে অভিবাসিত হচ্ছে যা আজ্ঞাবহতা ও বিচ্ছিন্নতার দৃঢ়তম প্রতীক ।

m
Conclusion: To sum up, Edward Said is such a genius who reveals the secret of improved
culture as the instrument of imperialism and capitalism in a convincing and fabulous way so
ha
that the countries of this universe can enjoy freedom and sovereignty by being aware of the
culture.
ra

14. What nature of Western Imperialism is highlighted by Edward Said in his

"Introduction to Culture and Imperialism"?
ur

Introduction: In his "Introduction to Culture and Imperialism" Edward Said attempts to

ab

highlight the nature of Western imperialism. In his view, the power and pervasiveness of
imperialism cannot be understood without understanding the importance of culture, because it
is through a culture that the assumption of the "divine right" of imperial powers to rule is
ih

vigorously and authoritatively supported.

sh

According to Said, imperialism's institutional, political and economic operations are helpless
without the power of the culture that maintains them. It is the power that changes a colonized
people's view of the world without the colonizer needing to resort to military control. It is a
culture that provides ethical power, namely, the search for civilizing missions that are
organized in a way, not simple greed of loot and leave, which enabled the British to become the
unquestionable ruler of India for nearly two hundred years.
 31
Imperialism backed British high culture:
The significance of imperialism appears subtly in the texts under the imperial regime, a
structure of attitude and reference to which these texts do not necessarily refer directly. When
read carefully, the reader responding In the texts from the point of view of the colonized, this
structure of attitude and reference may be exposed to show that imperialism was a critical
condition for the very existence of British high culture. In order to introduce the reader to the

om
nature of western imperialism, Said has referred to certain authoritative texts and their writers
such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, Joseph
Conrad's Nostromo, Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore, Paul Carter's The Road to Botany Bay,
and several other.

.c
an
The British fiction indirectly encouraged imperialism:
Said finds Dickens's Great Expectations as a novel of self-delusion and it reveals to him a vast

m
history of colonial exploitation in Australia a white colony. In this novel, the prohibition
imposed on Magwitch's return is not only penal but also imperial. It means subjects can be
transported to exotic places but cannot be allowed a "return" to a metropolitan city, Robinson
ha
Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe is about a European who creates a domain of a feudal lord for himself
on a distant non-European island and thus it clearly indicates imperialistic tendency.
ra

In Nostromo, Conrad appears both as an anti-imperialist and imperialist at the same time. In
this fiction set in an independent, not a colonized central American republic, ruled by a foreign
ur

power he predicts the unstoppable unrest and misrule of the Latin American republics, and at
the same time he unmasks much of the technique of the post-Cold-War American notion of
ab

"New World Order". Conrad is anti-imperialist when he highlights the corruption of overseas
domination, and he is imperialist when he fails to concede to the fact that Africa or South
America could ever have an independent history or culture.
ih

Conclusion: To sum up, Said's view is that within the metropoles themselves, imperial
sh

ideology and rhetoric remained unchallenged by socially reformist movements, such as the
liberal movement, working-class movement, or the feminist movement. "They were all
imperialist by and large," says Said. His argument is that imperial culture was built upon
assumptions so deep that they never entered into a discussion of social reform and justice.

15. Question: What do you know about the background of writing “Culture and
Imperialism” and its contents? Discuss with reference to the “Introduction”.
 32
Or, discuss the circumstances that encourage to write “Culture and Imperialism”.
Or, what are the reasons for which Said has written “Culture and Imperialism”?

Introduction: “Culture and Imperialism” published in 1993 is a collection of essays by

Edward Said (1935-2003). This was followed by his highly influential “Orientalism”,
published in 1978. In his series of essays, the author attempts to identify the connection
between imperialism and culture in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. In the "Introduction", Mr.

om
Said himself describes the reasons and resources for which he is going to write his
internationally acclaimed book.

Limitation of “Orientalism”

.c
In his internationally acclaimed book Orientalism, Edward Said suggests that a general essay

an
on the relationship between culture and empire has not yet been written. He composes "Culture
and Imperialism" as an attempt to expand the "logic" of orientalism in order to describe a more
general pattern of relationship between the western imperialists and their overseas territories.

m
In “Orientalism”, he only focuses on the societies and people of Asia, North Africa, and the
Middle East. So, about five years after the publication of "Orientalism," he began to gather his
ha
arguments for a decisive judgment of the relationship between culture and imperialism. Then
between the years 1985 and 1986, he began to deliver a series of lectures on the topic at several
universities in the USA and Canada. These lectures formed the basic content of the book
ra

“Culture and Imperialism” which appeared in the year 1993.

To expose the hidden meaning of culture

ur

In order to point out the furtive two-fold facets of culture, Said writes "Culture and
Imperialism". According to him, culture means two things from the surface and inner
ab

perspectives. It primarily means practices of arts and aesthetic forms. Second, Culture is the
idea of refined and improved materials and the best reservoir. By referring to Matthew Arnold
in his “Introduction”, Said asserts that if culture is not equal for all citizens of a country, it
ih

will suffer. This fundamental concept of culture provides information that the natives of India,
Africa, America, and so on could not preserve their arts and aesthetic forms which is why
sh

imperialists became able to be aggressive toward the above-mentioned nations in the name of
spreading so-called civilization.

The secret strength of the imperialists

It is surprising and praiseworthy that Edward Said is the first mammoth critic who discovers
the power of literature to sustain imperialism. Since literature is the mirror of society, he
 33
th th
critically focuses on the French and English literature of the 19 and 20 which displayed the
imperial experiences throughout the world but especially in Africa, India, Australia, the
Caribbean, Ireland, and Latin America.

As a result of his critical evaluation, he has been capable enough to illustrate English novels
that are powerful weapons of imperialism. English Fiction helped their oppressed rulers by
providing the following information:

om
i. Exploration of strange regions
ii. Psychological study
iii. Britain’s imperial intercourse through trade and travel

.c
iv. La mission civilisatrice or civilizing mission
v. Anti-imperialistic view

an
Now it seems to be awkward and questionable how English novelists are the imperialists in
disguise, despite illustrating an anti-imperialistic view. It is exciting to note that Mr. Said has
blazoned his mastery to figure out this. In conformity with Said, Conrad’s vilification of
m
imperialism has better concerned the imperialists as to the following facts.
ha
i. Comprehension of foreign cultures.
ii. Political willingness as an alternative to imperialism etc.
That is why Said tells the world:
ra

“To the extent that we see Conrad both criticizing

and reproducing the imperial ideology of his time”
ur

Therefore, it is obvious that literature forced Mr. Said to compose his last major work
“Culture and Imperialism”.
ab

Ethical point of view

Being a humanitarian, Mr. Said was forced to formulate “Culture and Imperialism”. He focuses
ih

on the challenges of imperialism and confidently declares that imperialism must always
encounter resistance which creates conflict and destruction. So, it is better to refrain than reign.
sh

And the people of the third world have to be well-conceived and united to establish peace and
progress.

Conclusion: In termination, it can be asserted though it is difficult to accept Edward Said

starkly, it is undoubted that his critical power has brought about a revolution in the field of
criticism. And one can get a vast vista of the secret sources of imperialism by reading his
“Culture and Imperialism”.
 34
16. Question: Discuss how Eagleton links the rise of English to the crisis in modern
civilization.

Introduction: Terry Eagleton is a British literary theorist, critic and public intellectual. “The
Rise of English” is one of his critical essays in which he has depicted the significance of
literature because of the crisis of modern civilization. From the very outset of the modern sense
of literature, modern civilization started to suffer from different types of crisis.

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The failure of religion
The first and foremost crisis of modern civilization we get in the essay “The Rise of English” is
the failure of religion in the mid-Victorian period. Religion and science became rivals for each

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other and the twin impacts of science and social change made religion unreliable at the bottom.
The Victorian ruling class was worried because it is universally accepted that religion is an

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effective form for ideological control. Like all successful ideologies, it works much less by
explicit concepts than by image, symbol, habit, ritual and mythology. To save the nation from
this crisis English literature came forward and showed its success too.

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The wasteland
Terry Eagleton has cited that modern “England is sick” that was commented by George
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Gordon, who was an early professor of English Literature at oxford, in his inaugural lecture.
The churches were failed and social remedies were slow. English literature has now triple
function to delight, instruct and save us. Thus, English is constructed as a subject to carry away
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the burden from the Victorian period onwards. According to Eagleton, Matthew Arnold is here
the key figure because he recognizes the urgent social need.
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“It is of itself a serious calamity for a nation that its tone of feeling and grandeur of spirit
should be lowered or dulled”
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Political bigotry and ideological extremism

Another traceable crisis of modern civilization is political bigotry and ideological extremism.
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Getting rid of the crisis, literature is the potent antidote as we know that it deals with universal
human values rather than the historical civil wars, oppression of women or the dispossession of
the English peasantry. And, certainly literature helps to promote sympathy and fellow feeling
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among all classes.

Bourgeois or conservative civilization
Bourgeois or conservative civilization is acute in the habits of thought and feeling of modern
civilization. People are very much self-centered and not at all cooperative to each other. They
pursue knowledge for their moral riches but their educational pursuit must be called a scanty
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education. According to a study of English Literature written in 1891, people need political
culture and instruction so that they can perform their duties as citizens.
Lack of light, knowledge and morality
According to Eagleton, literature from Arnold onwards is enemy of ideological dogma that
seems irrelevant when we read the writing of Dante, Milton and Pope and of course
Shakespeare. He also suggests that if anyone wants to get ideas about the evil of imperialism,

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he needs to travel Africa but his demand can be fulfilled without going to Africa if he reads
Conrad or Kipling. Thus, literature is the preacher of light, knowledge and morality.

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Conclusion
In termination, it is transparent that The Rise of English that means the development of English

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literature has been smooth because of the acute problem of modern civilization as it meets the
demand of the time in time of crisis.

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17. Questions: With reference to Terry Eagleton's "The Rise of English" discuss the
evolution from 18th century to the present. [JNU. 2004)
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Or, Assess the value of the interventions of social and political history in the area of
literary theory from your reading of "The Rise of English". [DU. 2012]
Or, How does Eagleton draw the historiographical lines of the rise of English? [DU. 1998]
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Introduction: As stated in his essay, "The Rise of English", Terry Eagleton first gives a
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historically inquisitive look into the concept of literature in eighteenth-century England. He

says that in the eighteenth-century, the concept of literature was not confined as it is today to
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just 'creative' or 'imaginative' writing. It included the whole body of valued writing in society
such as philosophy, history, essays, letters and poems. Of course the form of the novel emerged
in the 18th century but it was a question whether novel could be regarded as literature or not.
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At that time, the criteria for calling a piece of work literature was completely ideological:
writings which embodied the values and 'tastes' of the upper classes in society.
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Literature brought unity among classes:

There were, of course, reasons for such values and tastes of the upper classes. After the bloody
civil war which continued for several years in the seventeenth century literature in England
took the role of bringing the middle classes into unity with the upper classes. The disrupted
social order, the consequences of Civil War needed to be reconsolidated and reconstructed. To
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that end the neo-classical writers of the eighteenth century adopted the ideas of reason, order,
commonsense, sanity propriety and nature (human nature) in their creations of art such as
poetry.

The rise of modern aesthetics

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During the Romantic period the types of literature like poetry no longer were simply a
technical way of writing as in the Augustan or the neo-classic age, they had significant social,
political and philosophical implications. Literature began to refer to only imaginative works.
The Romantic period marks the rise of modern 'aesthetics' or the philosophy of art. Literature

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was not only a medium of instruction, it also served the purpose of delight as it is evident from
the works of Coleridge, Hegel and others.

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Moral purpose of literature:
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By the mid-Victorian period religion was ceasing to be the unifying and pacifying form it had
been owing the adverse effects of scientific discoveries. English literature was seen as
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something that could "heal the state". Matthew Arnold saw the middle class as harsh and
unintelligent and unable to lead and educate the working class in order to prevent anarchy.
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They needed to be shown "the best culture of their nation".

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English became the most important subject in the universities:

Eagleton points to the historical event of the First World War after which English studies
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assumed a profound dignity. English literature was transformed at Cambridge under F.R.
Leavis, QR. Leavis and LA. Richards as the offspring of the provincial petty bourgeoisie
entered universities for the first time Leavises launched Scrutiny, a quarterly periodical of
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literary criticism in 1932, andEnglish literature became the most important subject in the
universities as we find today.
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Conclusion: To sum up, Eagleton finds Leavisians developing a creed of education in the form
of English studies. But according to him Scrutiny did not seek to change society in any way,
rather its goal was to withstand it. Eagleton remarks that the Scrutiny project was absurd. The
'organic society' desired by Scrutiny was unobtainable. Later on we find T.S. Eliot's theory of
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the "Tradition' or the "European mind" which was largely an arbitrary notion and no solution to
the crisis of European society.

18. Question: Discuss how “The Rise of English” relates to the growth and consolidation
of imperialism?

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Introduction: In his essay “The Rise of English” Terry Eagleton has shown how the growth
and consolidation of imperialism was simultaneously with the development of English
literature and language in England from the 18th century onwards. In Eagleton’s view the
growth of English studies in the late nineteenth century was caused by the failure of religion. It

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was something very simple yet a powerful form of ideology that was something very pacifying
influence. Apparently, English literature worked as a suitable substitute. English became a

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subject used to cultivate middle classes and infuse them with some values of the leftover
aristocracy. Thus, English literature became the new way to pacify the working and middle
classes under imperial culture. English became the new vehicle for transferring the moral law

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which was no longer taken from religion.
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In his essay "The Rise of English", Terry Eagleton shows how the development and integration
of imperialism has been with the development of English literature and language in England
since the eighteenth century. In his view, the development of English studies in the late
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nineteenth century was due to religious failure. Though religious ideology was a powerful form
of ideology that had a very calming effect, English literature served as a suitable alternative to
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it. In the middle class, English became something that gave them the values of the elite. Thus,
under the imperial culture, English literature became the new way to pacify the working class
and the middle class. English became the new vehicle for the transfer of moral law that was no
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longer taken from religion.

Romantic poetry in contradiction with the bourgeois regimes
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Historically the nineteenth century was a period of revolution. In America and France, the old
colonialist of feudalist regimes was overthrown by the revolution of the middle classes, while
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England its economic development because of its enormous profits it had earned from the
eighteenth-century slave trade and its imperial control of the seas. Thus, England became the
worlds’ first industrial capitalist nation. But the visionary hopes and the revolutionary thoughts
of the Romantic poetry were in contradiction with the harsh realities of the new bourgeois
regimes. The Romantic poetry was significant as a concept of human creativity which was
radically at odds with the utilitarian and early industrial capitalism dominant in England. The
callous rules of the early industrial capitalism uprooted the whole communities, converted
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human life into wage – slavery, enforced an arbitrary labor-process on the working class and
turned everything into a commodity on the open market. While the rulers across the channel
were haunted by the revolution of the working class, the English state reacted sharply to
working class’s protests with brutal political repressiveness and converted England into a
police state.
Romantic poetry in conflict with the bourgeoisie system

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Historically, the nineteenth century was a period of revolution. The old colonialism of the
feudal governing system of America and France was abolished by the middle-class revolution
and the economic development of England resulted from the eighteenth-century slave trade and
control of the sea empire. Thus, England became the world's first industrial capitalist country.

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However, the hope of the dreamer and the revolutionary ideas of romantic poetry opposed the
harsh realities of the new bourgeois rule. Romantic poetry was instrumental in the notion of

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human creativity, which was largely at odds with the usefulness of England and the domination
of early industrial capitalism. The relentless rule of early industrial capitalism overthrew the
entire population, transformed human life into wage-slavery, imposed a voluntary labor process
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on the working class and turned everything into an open market. Rulers across the Channel
were suffering from the working-class revolution, and the English state turned English into a
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police state, responding to the brutal political repression of the working-class protests.
Therefore, Romantic poetry got its path for development because of industrial capitalism.
Literature became an alternative ideology
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In the face of such a situation the creative imagination of the romantics was nothing but an idle
escapism. The literary work was seen as spontaneous and creative unlike society and poetry
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then was no longer a technical mode of writing; it had significant social, political and
philosophical implications. Literature became a whole alternative ideology, and the
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imagination itself, as with Blake and Shelley became a political force. The task of the poets
was to transform society in the name of those values which are embodied.
Literature became an alternative ideology
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Even in such circumstances the creative imagination of the Romantics was nothing but lazy
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escapism. At that time literary work was seen as transparently spontaneous and creative than no
longer a technical method because of its significant social, political and philosophical
implications. Literature turned into a completely alternative ideology, and imagination became
a political force by the powerful hands of Blake and Shelley. The poets' task was to transform
society in the name of ideological values.
English as a university policy
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In Eagleton’s view literature gradually assumed the shape of an ideology to replace religion,
which had no longer a strong hold on the masses owing to a university discipline. Eagleton
found the beginning of this development as parallel to the gradual, grudging admission of
women to the institution of higher education. Since English literature was by then inseparable
from its softening, moralizing, effects, it assumed an effeminate look and was thought very
suitable for the growing number of women in the universities to study.

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English as a university policy
According to Eagleton, since literature gradually became the norm for the replacement of
religion, English literature was started to teach in universities. He saw the beginning of this
development as being gradual and permanent in higher education institutions as the admission

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of women was truly remarkable in the institutions of higher study. Since English literature
became very soft and ethical, it had taken a powerful form for female students.

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Conclusion: However, as the century drew on, English took on more of a masculine aspect.
Eagleton ironically accredits English discipline’s gaining of masculinity with the high-flown

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imperialism as it produced in the imperialist British people, a nostalgic organic community.
Thus, by promoting the sense of organic national tradition and identity the imperialists could
promote in the colonies overseas a means to display their cultural superiority.
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However, with the turn of the century, English took on a number of other myths.
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