Concept of Culture according to Mathew Arnold

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· Name: Abulhasan H. Aabedi

             

· Roll no: 01

· Topic: What is the concept of culture according to Mathew Arnold

· Paper no.6: The Victorian Age

· Class: Semester 02

· Enrollment no.:2069108420180001

· Batch: 2017~19

· Submitted to Department of English MK Bhavnagar University

·         Introduction: 

                                       MathewArnold (1822-88) was one of the 19^th-century England’s most prominent poets and social commentators. He was for many years and inspector of school, later becoming professor of poetry at Oxford University. Among his books, perhaps the best known is ‘culture and Anarchy’(1869), in which he argues for the role of reading ‘The best that has been thought and said’ as an antidote to anarchy of materialism, industrialism and individualistic self-interest. Arnold mounts a case in support of building and teaching a canonical body of knowledge. ‘Culture and Anarchy’ is a controversial philosophical work written by the celebrated Victorian Poet and Critic Mathew Arnold. Composed during a time of unprecedented social and political change, the essay argues for a restructuring of England’s social ideology. It reflects Arnold’s passionate conviction that the uneducated English masses could be molded into conscientious individuals who strive for human perfection through the harmonious cultivation of all of their skills and talent.

There are six chapters in Arnold’s Essay ‘Culture and Anarchy’ as,

1.       Sweetness and Light

2.       Doing as one likes

3.       Barbarians,Philistines, Populace

4.       Hebraism and Hellenism

5.       Porro Unum est Necessarium(but one thing is necessary)

6.       Our Liberal Practitioners

To understand the essay culture and anarchy one has to know about the concept of culture given by Arnold, so we will see what is the concept of culture according to Mathew Arnold in details.

·         What is the concept according to Mathew Arnold:

Mathew Arnold in this essay on ‘Culture and Anarchy’, sets out to vindicate the true ‘culture’

 By refutin liberal practitioners like Mr. Bright, Mr. Edward White, Mr. Federic Harrison etc and news papers like daily Telegraph & Times. On doing so he resort to Bishop Wilson’s Maxism of piety and Christianity, Meditation of Marcus Aurelius, M. Renan etc. In the ‘introduction’ to his essay, Arnold clearly mentions that:

“The whole scope of the essay is to recommend Culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; Culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, “the best which has been thought and said in the world”;  and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock nations and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imaging that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically.

This, and this alone, is the scop of the following essay. And the culture we recommend is, above all, an inward operation. To show the importance of culture Arnold has given an example of American culture. The then news daily Times had praised the advancement of America as “America, without religious establishments, seems to get ahead of us all, even in light and the things of mind.” But by not laying the foundation of culture, America “have created intellectual mediocrity, their vulgarity of manners, their superficial spirit, their lack of general intelligence.

Arnold- a believer in culture- proposes to try and enquire, in the simple unsystematic way, “what culture really is, what good it can do, what is our own special need of it; and he shall seeks to find some plain grounds on which a faith in culture, both his own faith in it and the faith of others, may rest securely.”

·         Culture: as a study in perfection:

                                                                           CULTURE, which is the study of perfection, leads us, as Arnold in the essay have shown, “to conceived to true human perfection as harmonious perfection, developing all sides of our humanity; and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society. For if one member suffers, the other members must suffer with it; and the fewer there is that follow the true way of salvation, the harder that way is to find.” Culture is considered not merely as the endeavour to see and learn this, but as the endeavour , also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest.

Religion says: The Kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner. Places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality. ‘It is in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its power, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of the human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is an indispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture. ‘Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it; and here, too,  it coincides with religion.

Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The individual is required, under pain of being stunted(underdevelopment) and enfeebled in his own development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his march towards perfection.

If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances, it is clear that culture, instead of being the frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic Harrison , and many other liberals are apt to call it, has a very important function to fulfill for mankind.

Arnold mentions that the only purpose of culture is in keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in view, and not assigning to his perfection, as religion or  utilitarianism assign to it, a special and limited character, this point of view, according to him, of culture is best given by these words of Epictetus:- ‘It is a sign of aphuia(without natural talents, dull)’ says he, that is, of a nature not finely tempered, to give yourselves up to things which relate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking,  a great fuss about walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be done merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character must be our real concern.’ This is admirable; and indeed, the Greek words aphuis, euphuis(well-grown, shapely, goodly:  graceful; of good natural parts: clever, witty; also ‘of good disposition; a finely tempered nature), gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceives it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites ‘the two noblest of things,’ as swift, most happily calls them in his Battle of the two Books, ‘the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.’

·         Culture: Sweetness & Light:

                                                                 For Arnold, culture is connected with the idea of Sweetness and Light. He tries to explain this idea with the help of Greek words aphuia & euphuia. The euphyes is the man who tends towards sweetness and  Light;  the aphyes, on the other hand, is our Phillistine The immense spirituals significance of the Greeks is due to having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection; and Mr. Bright’s misconception of culture, as a smattering of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry.

Culture, however, show its single-minded love of perfection, its desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it insists that it is machinery. The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

·         What is greatness? :-

                                                     Culture makes us ask- “What is Greatness?” Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excites love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea tomorrow, which of the two, a hundred years hence, would  most excite the love, interest, and admiration mankind, would most, therefore, show the evidence of having possessed greatness, the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but when our coal, and our industrial operation depending on coal, were very little developed? The people, who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistine. Culture says: ‘Consider these people, then, their voices; look at them attentively  observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth  be worth having with the condition that one was  to become just like these people by having it? And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in stemming the common tide of men’s thought in a wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present.

·         Conclusion:

                                    Thus, to conclude we may say that the men of culture are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time, who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, difficult, abstract, professional; to humanize it, to make it efficient  outside the circle of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the best knowledge and thought of the time, and a true sources, therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Ablerard in the middle Ages, such were Lessing and Herder in Germany- generations will pass, and literary monuments will accumulate, and works far more perfect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in Germany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a German with enthusiasm.

·         Sources from Reading materials

·         Pages- 5

·         Words-1,836

                        

John Keats as a Poet of Sensuousness

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· Name: Abulhasan H. Aabedi

             

· Roll no: 01

· Topic: John Keats as a Poet of Sensuousness

· Paper no.6: Romantic Age

· Class: Semester 02

· Enrollment no.:2069108420180001

· Batch: 2017~19

· Submitted to Department of English MK Bhavnagar University.

John Keats as a poet of Sensuousness:-

·         Introduction:

                                       John Keats(31 October 1795-23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death at 25 in the year 1821.

Although his poem were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19^th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats’ work was the most significant literary experience of his life.

·         John Keats as a sensuous poet or sensuousness in Keats’ poetry:

The poetry of Keats is characterized by ‘sensuous’ uses of language. The sensuousness of Keats is a striking characteristic of his entire poetry. All his poems including his great odes contain rich sensuous appeal. The odes, which represent the highest poetic achievement of Keats, are replete with sensuous pictures. Now, we will discuss his sensuousness with examples of his various Odes and poems in detail.

·         ‘Ode to Nightingale’:

                                      “Ode to Nightingale” is one of the most remarkable poems of sensuousness. In the second stanza of this ode, there is a description of the gustatory sensation of drinking wine. There are references to the visual and auditory senses too. The poet also paints the picture of a drunken whose mouth is purple stained because of the red wine he has drunk:

                                       “ With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

                                          And purple-stained mouth,”

The descriptions of the wine are so sensuous that we see the bubbling wine, we also hear the dance and sun-burnt mirth; we also get an inkling of the taste of the long cooled wine. In the 5^th stanza the poet gives a highly sensuous description of the Nightingale world.

                                              “ I cannot see what flowers are at my feet;

                                              Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

                                              The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

                                              The murmurous haunt of flies onsummereve

The description of the nature alludes to the sense of sight or its absence(one cannot see); the sense of touch and of smell(soft incense) and by the end of the verse, with the evocation of “the coming musk-rose, full of dew wine”, the sense of taste and hearing have also been incorporated.

·         “Ode to Autumn":

                        “Ode to autumn” is considered to be the perfect embodiment of concrete sensuous experience. The poem gives a graphic description of the season with all its variety and richness. The whole atmosphere and the mood of the season are presented through sensuous imagery and descriptions:

                                “with fruits the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

                                 To bend with apples and moss’d cottage-trees,

                                 And fill all fruits with ripeness to the core.”

·         “Ode on Melancholy”:-

                                   “Ode on Melancholy” again, we have several sensuous pictures. There is the rain failing from a loud above and reviving the drooping flowers below and covering the green hill in an “April”. There is the morning rose, there are the colors produced by the sunlight playing on wet sand; and there is the wealth of “globed peonies”. And then there is another exquisitely sensuous picture:

                                    “Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows’

                                     Imprison her soft hand and let her rave

                                    And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes”

Keats saw that life is full of suffering and he himself was a prey to disease and pain. Where is then, beauty in life.? He takes up this question in his “Ode On Melancholy”. He finds melancholy even in the sweetest things of life; even when a man loves most fondly,  when he bursts : joy’s grasp against his palate fine”, veiled melancholy comes and disillusions him. Melancholy dwells with beauty, pain and suffering are not to be divorced from joy for they together make up life like just day and night together make up time.

·         Ode on a Grecian Urn:

                                    The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” contains a series of sensuous picture-passionate men and Gods chasing  reluctant maidens, the fair youth trying to kiss his beloved, the happy branches of the tree enjoying an everlasting spring, etc. The ecstasy of the passion of love and of youth is beautifully depicted in the following lines:

                       More happy love! More happy happy love!

                       Fore ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

                       For ever painting, and for ever young.

·         “Ode to Psyche”:-

                          The odes, which represent the highest poetic achievement of Keats, are replete with sensuous pictures. The ode to Psyche contains a lovely picture of Cupid and Psyche lying in an embrace in the deep grass, in the midst of flowers of varied colors:

         “Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed.”

The lovers lie with lips that touched not but which have not at the same time bidden farewell. We have more sensuous imagery when Keats describes the superior beauty of Psyche as compared with Venus and Vesper. Venus and Vesper are themselves described in sensuous phrases:

                                       “Phebe’s sapphire region’d star,

                                        Vesper, amorous glowworm of the sky”

A little later in the poem we are given pictures of a forest, mountains, stream, birds, breezes and Dryads lulled to sleep on the moss. One of the most exquisitely sensuous pictures comes at the end where we see a bright torch burning in the casement to make it possible for cupid to enter the temple in order to make love to Psyche.

                                    A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

                                    To let the warm love in!

·         “The Eve of St. Agnes”:-

                                       In “The Eve of St. Agnes”, the description of the Gothic window is famous for its rich sensuous appeal. Keats describes the rich colors of the window-panes of ‘quaint device”, on which were “ stains and splendid dyes as the tiger-mouth’s deep damask’d wing”. The reference to the music of the instrument in the same poem appeals to our sense of hearing:

            “ The boisterous, mid-night, festive clarion,

               The kettle-drum, and far heard clarionet.”

Again, the description of the feast arranged by prophyro is highly sensuous:

                       “While he from forth the closet brought a heap,

                        Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and fourd;

                        With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

                        And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

The apple, quince, plum, gourd, jellies and dates make our mouths water. This passage of the spread feast of dainties is, indeed, sumptuous and inviting.

Our senses of sight and smell are also gratified when the poet described the wintry moon throwing its light on madeline’s fair breast and the rose-bloom falling on her hands. We have a delightful combination of colors in these lines, as in the stanza describing the Gothic window:

  “Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

 And threw warm gules on madeline’s fair breast,

 As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;

 Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

 And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

 And on her hair a glory , like a saint.”

Even more sensuous is the picture of Madeline undressing herself. As Madeline removes the pearls from her hair, unclaps the jewels one by one, and loosen her fragrant bodice, she looks like a mermaid in sea-weed, and porphyro thinks himself to be in paradise. The phrases “Warmed jewels”, “Fragrant bodice”, and “rich attire” are particularly noteworthy here. The stanza on which the poet describes the passionate love-making of porphyro and Madeline, again, has a richly sensuous appeal. Porphyro is represented as “beyond a mortal man impassioned far”; he is like “a throbbing star seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose:; and the rose blends its odour with the violet- “solution sweet”.

·         “La Bella Dame Sans Merci”:-

                                               The short masterpiece, “La Bella Dam Sans Merci”, has its own sensuous appeal. The lady is described as “full beautiful, a fairy’s child”, with long hair, light foot, and wild eyes. The knight makes “a garland for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone”. She finds him roots of sweet relish, wild honey, and manna dew.

     “She took me to her elfin grot,

      And there she wept and sigh’d full sore, 

     And there I shut her wild wild eyes with kiss four”.

·         “Ode to fancy”:-

                         In the ‘Ode to fancy”, we have a series of pictures which please our senses. The fruits of autumn, buds and bells of may, the sweet singing of the birds, the various flowers, the daisy, the marigold, the lily, the primrose are a kind of feast which we enjoy as we go through the poem.

The poet give the impressions receive by their eyes only. Wordsworth’s imagination is stirred by what he sees and hears in nature. Milton is no less sensitive to the beauty of nature, of the flowers in “Paradise Lost” in a sensuous manner. But keats’ poetry appeals to our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch and sense of hot and cold. He exclaims in one of his letters “O for a life of sensation than of thoughts”. He is a pure poet in sense of seeking not sensual but sensuous delight.

·         Five types of sense in Keats’ poetry:-

1.      Sense of sight

2.      Sense of Hearing

3.      Sense of Taste

4.      Sense of Touch

5.      Sense of Smell

·  Sense of Sight:- 

                    Keats is painter of words. In a few words he presents a  concrete and solid picture of sensuous beauty.

          “Her hair was long, her foot was light

           And her eyes were wild.”

      

 And in “Ode on Grecian Urn” again the sense of sight is active.

                    “O attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede,

                     Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

                     With forest branches and the trodden weed”;

· Sense of Hearing:-

                           The music of Nightingale produces pangs of pain in poet’s heart:

  “The voice I hear this passing night was heard,

    In ancient days, by emperor and clown:

    In “Ode on Grecian Urn” he says:

  “ Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard,

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

·  Sense of Touch:-

                           The opening lines of “La Bella Dame Sans Merci” describe extreme cold:

                             “ The sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing”

· Sense of Taste:- 

                              In “Ode to Nightingale”, Keats describes different kinds of wine and the ideas of their tastes in intoxication.

                          “O for a breaker full of the warm south,

                           Full of the true the blushful Hippocrene

· Sense of Smell:-

                            In “Ode to Nightingale”, the poet cannot see the flowers in darkness.    There is mingled perfume of many flowers.

                “I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

                  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

                 But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.”

·         Conclusion:-

                      Thus, Keats always selects the objects of his description and imagery with a keen eye on their sensuous appeal. This sensuousness is the principal charm of his poetry. A general recognition of this quality leads to the consensus that Keats’s poetry is particularly successful in depicting, representing or conveying ‘reality’ or experience that his poetic language displays a kind of ‘solidity’ or concreteness capable or convincing the reader of the reality of what it communicate and persuading him, almost, to imagine that he is literally perceiving the objects and the experience that the verse describe.

• Words-1,977

                

Bibliography

Gillani, S.N. Keats' sensuousness. 12 september 2008. 2 March 2018 <http://www.engliterarium.com/2008/09/keats-sensuousness.html>.

John Keats as sensuous writer. 2 March 2018 <http://www.academia.edu/10434043/john_keats_as_a_sensuous_writer>.

Keats as a poet of sensuousness. 2 march 2018 <http://www.josbd.com/discuss-keats-as-a-poet-of-sensuousness/>.