Essay: Essays in Criticism (First Series)

Overview
Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism (First Series), published in 1865, gathers a set of influential pieces that map out his vision of literary criticism as a cultural force. Arnold treats criticism not as hair-splitting pedantry but as a disciplined, public activity with the power to cultivate taste, refine judgment, and correct the prevailing intellectual tone of Victorian society. He positions the critic as a mediator between literature and the wider world, someone whose duty is to discern and communicate the best that literature can offer to a restless, rapidly changing age.
The collection addresses the aims and methods of criticism, the nature and function of poetry, and the responsibilities of critics toward national culture. Arnold writes against mere partisanship and the fashions of ephemeral praise, urging an impartial standard founded on moral seriousness and aesthetic exactitude. His voice is both prescriptive and reflective, combining close reading with a broader social commentary about the crisis of values in industrial England.

Principal Essays and Arguments
"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" sets out Arnold's central claim that criticism should be disinterested and informed by a pursuit of the "best that has been thought and said." Criticism's role is to act as a corrective to both popular complacency and narrow professionalism by cultivating taste and promoting standards that transcend partisan loyalties. He insists that criticism must be free from personal or institutional bias, serving public culture rather than private vanity.
"The Study of Poetry" argues for the deep social and moral value of poetry and develops Arnold's famous "touchstone" approach: by comparing striking lines from acknowledged masters to passages in other works, critics can detect genuine excellence. He defends the comparative, evaluative function of criticism and insists that poetry is a vehicle for truth about human experience. Other essays, such as "On Translating Homer" and "The Modern Element in Literature," explore technical questions of fidelity, style, and the tension between classical forms and contemporary sensibilities, always with an eye toward how literary practice shapes and reflects national character.

Critical Method and Style
Arnold's method mixes close textual attention with broad historical perspective. He privileges clarity, balance, and proportion in both literature and criticism, and he models an erudite yet accessible prose style: aphoristic, often epigrammatic, and aimed at readers beyond the academy. His "disinterestedness" means setting aside partisan taste to measure works against universal standards of human insight and artistic harmony. The "touchstone method" exemplifies his conviction that comparison and precise judgment are essential to discovering literary greatness.
At the same time, Arnold's approach reveals tensions: his appeals to moral and aesthetic universals can verge on prescriptivism, and his standards sometimes reflect an elite conception of culture. He frequently privileges classical harmony and restraint over romantic exuberance, though he also recognizes the vitality of modern innovation when it reaches genuine depth of perception.

Impact and Legacy
Essays in Criticism helped professionalize and moralize literary criticism in the English-speaking world. Arnold's insistence that criticism serves a civic purpose influenced later critics who saw literary judgment as integral to national self-understanding. His essays shaped the education of taste in Victorian Britain and provided tools, comparative evaluation, moral seriousness, stylistic precision, that modern literary criticism inherited and adapted.
Critics have not been unanimous in praise: some view Arnold as elitist and conservative, while others celebrate his clarity and ethical seriousness. His ideas about cultural authority and the critic's duty continued to inform debates about the public role of literature well into the twentieth century, leaving a legacy of rigorous, humane criticism that balances scholarly insight with a passion for culture's civilizing potential.