Books Reviews

Poetry is one of the most beautiful literary artwork that man has ever made. Aside from its rhyme and rhythm, it has also figurative languages and idiomatic expressions. It also portrays sensory images which the writer tries to reveal through his wonderful and colorful words. Because of these characteristics, poetry does not only entertain but also provokes critical and creative thinking among readers.

To better appreciate poetry one must know what poetry is. Poetry is defined in various authors. One of the most notable definitions of poetry is the definition of Aristotle which says that poetry is an imitation of arts. To explain it further, Aristotle explained that there are three different ways of imitation which are the medium, object and the manner of imitation. There are various medium of imitation such as voice, color, rhythmic movement and so on. Another way of imitating is through a specific object. In Aristotle's point of view, the object of imitation is the man in action and this is either from the lower type or the higher type. In this context Aristotle is referring to the characters in tragedy and comedy whereby in tragedy man is portrayed to be good while in comedy man is portrayed to be bad. The last is the manner of imitation. For Aristotle this is by narrating whereby the narrator takes the second person in which he acts on the shoes of others. Other than that, he can also take the first person in which he doesn't change himself. Lastly, narrator can also present his actors living the audience. Another known poet is William Wordsworth who "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science." This only means that poetry manifests knowledge and that poetry reading is worthwhile.

On the other hand, poets are very much admired because of their powerful minds that they can perceive things in a various ways. For instance, they perceive the tree like human beings that prays to its creator with its leaves upward as its arms. In this example, it is very much evident that poets go beyond what an ordinary mind can reach. That is why they are sometimes referred to as the minds of the gods.

Another thing that makes them admirable is their choice of words and that made poetry different from prose. In poetry, the poet must choose the appropriate words in order for him to portray the sensory images that he wants his readers to hear, see, touch, feel and taste. Aside from that, poets should be intelligent enough in the use of figurative languages to convey his intellectual ideas. He can also make use of allusions to convey historical images.

As a matter of fact, there is an argument whether a writer or a poet is born or made. For many people they would argue that writers are born because of their unique ability to weave their words. Unlike other people, they can touch ones life and provoke ones thinking through their powerful words.

On the other viewpoint, some would claim that writers are made. For the reason that in their early childhood, they are not that good in writing and they are not even interested in writing. But as they grow up, they are motivated to write due to some reasons. At first, they are not that effective but as the years passed, they are gradually becoming at ease in writing and more effective as the others do.

From all these views, it can then be concluded that whether or not the writers are born, it is the role of education to bring out that unique potentials within and among our people.

Literary Criticism is, as Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the Victorian poet and critic points out, a "disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate" the best that is known and thought in the world. And he strove hard to fulfill this aim in his critical writings. Attaching paramount importance to poetry in his essay "The Study of Poetry", he regards the poet as seer. Without poetry, science is incomplete, and much of religion and philosophy would in future be replaced by poetry. Such, in his estimate, are the high destinies of poetry.

Arnold asserts that literature, and especially poetry, is "Criticism of Life". In poetry, this criticism of life must conform to the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Truth and seriousness of matter, felicity and perfection of diction and manner, as are exhibited in the best poets, are what constitutes a criticism of life.

Poetry, says Arnold, interprets life in two ways: "Poetry is interpretative by having natural magic in it, and moral profundity". And to achieve this the poet must aim at high and excellent seriousness in all that he writes.This demand has two essential qualities. The first is the choice of excellent actions. The poet must choose those which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human feelings which subsist permanently in the race. The second essential is what Arnold calls the Grand Style - the perfection of form, choice of words, drawing its force directly from the pregnancy of matter which it conveys.

This, then, is Arnold's conception of the nature and mission of true poetry. And by his general principles - the" Touchstone Method" - introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual poets. Thus, Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, and Shelley fall short of the best, because they lack "high seriousness". Even Shakespeare thinks too much of expression and too little of conception. Arnold's ideal poets are Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world, Dante and Milton, and among moderns, Goethe and Wordsworth. Arnold puts Wordsworth in the front rank not for his poetry but for his "criticism of life". It is curious that Byron is placed above Shelley. Arnold's inordinate love of classicism made him blind to the beauty of lyricism, and we cannot accept Arnold's view that Shelley's poetry is less satisfactory than his prose writings.

Arnold's criticism of life is often marred by his naive moralizing, by his inadequate perception of the relation between art and morality, and by his uncritical admiration of what he regarded as the golden sanity of the ancient Greeks. For all his championing of disinterestedness, Arnold was unable to practise disinterestedness in all his essays. In his essay on Shelley particularly, he displayed a lamentable lack of disinterestedness. Shelley's moral views were too much for the Victorian Arnold. In his essay on Keats too Arnold failed to be disinterested. The sentimental letters of Keats to Fanny Brawne were too much for him. But Arnold's insistence on the standards and his concern over the relation between poetry and life make him one of the great modern critics.