379

M/1

POEMS, WITH AN ESSAY ON MATTHEW

ARNOLD AND T. S. ELIOT

Thesis

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

by

Robert W. Chambers, Jr., B. A.

Denton, Texas

May, 1974

Chambers, Robert W., Poems, with an Essay on Matthew

Arnold and T. S. Eliot. Master of Arts (English), May, 1974,

58 pp., bibliography, 17 titles.

The thesis consists of a selection of original poems

and an essay on the literary relationship between Matthew

Arnold and T. S. Eliot. The poems are loosely related in

theme; they are the responses of the poet to the various

forces in his upbringing, such as literature, religion and

the American Southwest. The essay compares the literary

criticism of Arnold and Eliot, the foremost critics of their

respective periods, with special attention to Eliot's criti-

cism of Arnold. The conclusion is that despite this criti-

cism Eliot accepted Arnold's major critical precepts and

perpetuated in his own work Arnold's central concerns about

literature and culture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART I. POEMS . . . . . . .. S 9 . 9 . 9 . . . .. 9 0

Jackrabbit Poem . . . . . . ,

Working Without Nets . . . .

Wild Turkey . . . . . . . . . .

Capital - - -. . . . - - - -

T'ai (Peace) - - - , - * ..

Three Black Haikus . . . . .

Three Red Haikus . . . . . .

Upshit Creek . . . . . . . .

The Hero's Return . . . . . .

The Ship of Changes . . . . .

Practical Joke , . . . . . .

Treasures of the West . . .

Old Soldiers -.-. -, 99--

The Stars - - - . -- .. - .

The Poet and the Bulldozer . .

Models of the Universe . . .

Speculations of an Angular Man

The Tree of Porphyry . . . .

Ars Moriend - .. . . . .

Cities of Gold . . . r 9 9 9 9

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PART TI. AN ESSAY ON MATTHEW ARNOLD AND T. S.

ELIOT . - . - . . . * . . . . . . . " . 37

FOOTNOTES " "- - - -t . .t. .t . . ". . . . t. . t . 54

BIBLIOGRAPHY -M - - t- - "- ".t. t.A. . . . . 1. 0. " . 0. A. 0. 57

Iv

PART I

POEMS

2

Jackrabbit Poem

Ears above allfor hearing a hero's footfallsand eyes on the s ides of his head

for speed

Craftier than the coney-catcherbefore Shakespeare sharpened a pencil

having more elevation than MiltonChaucer and Pope?

poor pedestriansbeside the pace setter

That's why it's a jackrabbit poemit's hard to catch

known to some but seldom seenbeyond the greenof the cabbage patch

showing his arse poetica

Just a journal of jumpsto remind us in cornand blood of privations and delights

of summers and wintersof the Green Knight's progressof the advance of king and castleof the loom of seeming

and its simple acts

More than lies and the compassguide this race of jackrabbits

to the stars

3

Working Without Nets

The daring young man on the flying trapezefalls free in the rarified, dark altitude of a tentwithout a top, stretches up his arms to Orionon the crest and gleam of planetfall.

No wings on his shoulders, no mirrors, no wires,but horizons gape out of existence behind him.

Feel the muscular distance his pulse swells to fill,look below and about the gilded parabola, probe the impalpableweb of orbits where he flies. His eyes are blooms on the arrow,and he swings in flight from a million silver threads the aspects,converge, eclipse and transit.

Now there is no memory of the circus.

14

Wild Turkey

A clarityevas ive as the Red Queeneluding you, gone

sooner than ecstasy and suddenlybreaking through all the voices:a clarity charmed

and gratuitous and restful andrhythmed and measured and musical

after the ykeonand the ineffable secret

a charmed clarityin the forestwhere trees fall in silence

wild turkey walks over leafmeal acres and aphidswhere Thoreau learned tranquillity from Manitou,where Emerson found resolution in the rhodora

a clarity capturedin flashes of orange

and brown from Audubon's Indian paintbrush,a bird in the hand, a bird set freein the heart of the poor immigrant

escaping from the coloniesto the Frontier in search ofa familiar image, a guinea from Africa

Capitan

In Capitan we lived like hobbitsbehind a screen door in the riverbank.Astronomical the sky was, starrier than Texasit blazed cold and blue when I arrivedon the first of April. So bare the heart becomesin New Mexico as the heavens are bare,as my feet were bare on the cold, blue grass.

We dug our house into the hillside,rocked the walls and roofed ourselves over,put down a floor complete with linoleumand closed the door on America.

Adam and Adonis built the damwhile Eve and Aphrodite cooked dinner,and I was Silenus, seated in scrutinyon a bluff above them, twitchinga gray ear, scratching such maxims as"1 choose not to choose," and"Nothing will do except everything."

Snakes penetrated the walls,rats crept in under the beds, making our heavena house of devils; paradise waned and each becamea wandering tribe of one. Somewhereon the highway east of Santa Rosawe said our goodbyes.

6

T'ai (Peace)

It was a local grasshopper afternoonwhen in the course of human eventswe gazed on the eleventh hexagram.Clint stuck a pick in a fencepostand for a while nothing was lost:just baby blue Texas skywith six clouds shaped like apple turnoversdrifting in formation abovea barbed-wire fence.'No blame anywhere.

7

Three Black Haikus

1. 6/13/73

A company of five ravens cameto the big oak in the backyard.

2. 10/7/73

A raven came downfrom the roof this morningto sit on my shoulder.

3. 11/2/73

Three black ravens:sad silhouette on the evening skysaying goodbye...

8

Three Red Haikus

1

Red's black cat Cragmontran away carryingBob Read's red bandana.

2

The wind will notdisturb you here,red spider in the honeysuckle.

3

Three rainbows between red bandscradle mebetween gray horizons.

9

Upshit Creek

Down on Upshit Creekwe dreamed and dranktill the sun expiredand the moon bellowed like a bullin the sky below.We crafted our curses in verse.It was blasphemous, I know,but flat on our backs amid the bullnettleswith black hills overhead it didn't seemto matter so much what got said:

you know how it is when you're downon Upahit Creek, dreaming and drinking...

10

The Hero's Return

When the womanin the windownods her head at my disguiseand the momentof departurespreads sensation in the skiesand the murderof a beetleturns my heart from green to blueand it's springtimein the graveyardI'll be coming' home to you.

11

The Ship of Changes

Remember the American gothic monsterpiecewe lived in? where silvers and sepiasdiscolored the corners of the mirrorsand our tintype images in them;ponderous shapes of dust and sleepcame seeping through the feather-pillows,and the familiar tone and dreamof a past that is still to come.

The future and the furniture which are gonereveal to us even now in memory the momentbefore we fell asleep on the vacant floorbefore the fire, hearing the footstepsof a procession of ghosts on the staircase.

We awoke on the face of a sundial, whereradiant slants of amber sun marked time across the room,watched motes of light float flashing through the airslower than honey; we were trespassersinto the grace of bygone days,like hermit crabs sheltering in a conch shell,deathbed witnesses to our ancestor sodbus tersand homebuilders. Little did they think of us then,who made this frame for our lives; lessdid they plan to teach us, through the thingsthey left unfinished, how Timewould disregard our secrets.

Bluebonnets, verbena and black-eyed susans bred wildon the hilly slopes behind the house,and we spent hours on the backstepswide-eyed, watching the changes.And it was fittingthat the anthems of the revolutionshould be sung thus in rust and fossilas they always have been,that every waking momentshould bring Time closer to home.

Now we know, althoughthe house was burned down long ago,the local currents on which we move ourselves,but never can we hope to knowthe sea on which the Ship of Changes sails.

12

Practical Joke

Trying to wake up from a dream,fightin a dragon,forgettin to die,

seeing a horrible, sens in a terrible,woke with a scream with a beam in my eye.

Whose was the face on the broken beam?(colorful-feverful, dangerous -lovable)what do I do when he mentions my name?stand like a stag inthe field, or fly?

Ever however it seems to seem(ass may be draggin,mouth may be dry),0 yes, the mutable, ah! the Inscrutablehootable hero and suitable spy,

next best to knowable, allbut impossible,(not to be braggin),(not meanin to pry),

Im the most wonderful, much the most masterfulone with my enemies many am I.

Wrestlin angels beside the stream,suffering, saggin,exhalin a sigh,simple and shakable, f akable, breakable,flyin my flag inthe sun in the sky.

Treasures of the West

Treasures of the Westwhat the buzzards left behind

abandoned many times alreadyfallen amid cow patties and hoofprintsbehind the crunch and laughter of the covered wagons

behind the illustrated walls of ramshackle schoolyardswhere our great-grandparents playedin the jagged oriental shadeof the pecan treechildren grown and goneto seed

return to the sceneof the sweet crime and dreamthe secret so deep that everyone knows itthe beauty hidden where everyone can see it

out of sightin the vastness of the barnout of reachin the spell of the fireplace

primitive and dusty mysteryin the upstairs hallwaylace curtains that crumble at a touchtintypes scowling, discoloredhanging over our heads

on the cobwebbed windowseata book with brittle pagestraces of ancient grime and grape jamHuck Finn was hereleaning on his elbows over the bright pagesornate important-looking letteringfaded messages in a woman's flowering handin the margin

treasures of the Westshortcuts, hideoutsearly noontides of our lifetimescreekbottoms lined with hackberrysscattered with horseapplesrusted riggings on the fencepostssome cowboy stopped heresome sunny sabbath years pastto rest his horseand sleep in the shadethrough the afternoon heatdown where still waters run deep

13

1II

marbles, s quirtgunsslingshots in a cigar boxKing Edward the seventhon the lid

mason jars with airholes punched outlittle prisons for tarantulasancient history

out of earshothidden in mistin the Big Thicket, treasures of the Westin the rootsof the Toothache tree, in the throatsof pitcherplant and bladderwortout of earshotof saws and bulldozersbut not for long

last chancelas t gl imps eof blue bottles on pharmacy shelvesthunderheads at sundownrundown streets and relicsskills of the American Indiannow forgottenbroken windows on the prairie

las t treasurehuntwhere grandfather sangin the broken porch swingwhere the first summer lover layunder the sunflowerswheels spinning in her eyes

ice cream parlors....golden eyes ... .the book with fragile pages....all closed up

Western treasureswe may want againwhen the buzzards have gone

Old Soldiersfor my brother Terry

Has ever the earth seen twosuch scabby-headed heroesas ourselves?Such walruseswith broken tusks and battleribbons?But rise up, Brother Abel,there are battles left to lose, a few:pride like ours not easily can find ImmemorialDefeat.Let's go down dying like soldiers,trying to defend the Indefensible once again,clutching lilies with a cocky grin,unremitting tillthe end.

Meanwhile, back in the casket,the stiffness wearing off a little,the stiffness of sleep,the stiffness of centuries of sleep and stillness,we rise like Lazarus before sevenlaughing at bullets and barbiturates,plunge into the storm naked with our sleeves rolled upand barely survive to find outwhat all we have to brag about.Later, looking for anythingwith which to intoxicate ourselves till bedtime,we get together with the Four Horsemenround the table, clinking glasses,singing:

Songs of a man who draws no breathbut still has will to move, to rise,to bend a body stiff with death,sustain it through eternities....

We glory in the unknownbecause it's all there is to glory in.We don't examine the names on the crosses;we clink our glasses and sing.The small fortunes of warare ours . The small wonders of warexplode overhead, and Death or sleep comesthe same in a million places:painless.

Wake up !T am shaking you andit's another golden dawn, brother,no better than before: same battlefield,same enemy.

Let's hope for an uneventful day.

16

The Stars

The floor lay tiled in twelve blue constellationsand we floated on our rooftop at elevendown the flood of darkness through coolgrand ballrooms upside down,ten million miles of ceiling swinginga krexmahigular, jaggerwonkied mosaic.The floor lay covered with candlesand we floated on our rooftop at nine,our crazy, ocean-floor fearsin a faint music from the distancereturning to spin in the blue drain.The unknown balanced its arcsas our fearful eyes ventured by degreesbetween the stars into the endless hallway,the warm walls all absent now.

All in an instant they showered usand we knew a terror we could not describe,for our masks were changedby the ancient childhood darkness of our dreams,the knowledge too terrible to grasp:that we are sane only with the windows downonly behind our ideas, like drapes hiding the skyand the figures that stoop and weave there

but all of us are insane under the empty sky,hurtling down the hall of stars,gasping at the evolutionof our moving fingersclinging to our perishable hearts,our precarious earth.

17

The Poet and the Bulldozer

One day, I was about four I guess,I was out playing in the front yardand this enormous yellow bulldozer came down the street.I had never seen a bulldozer before, butI could see it was obviously wonderful,and I ran to the kitchen to find out what it wasfrom my mother. "Mommy: I saw a big Yellow Thing:"My mother, while not totally uncommunicative,was nevertheless not in the mood for guessing games,and she couldn't come to the front door right nowbecause she was busy with breakfast. Sothere I was, mind and heart full of the bulldozerbut unable to communicate the bulldozer;I remember standing there in the kitchenbawling in sheer frustration.I guess I've been a poet ever since.

18

Models of the Universe

Wisdom such as steps into a world of sin,Satan spins the golden twins,hangs them on a chain from heaven's floor,fixes the stars with a stare,starts the dance of opposing pairs, thenaround it all writes a ladder of lettersback to the door where he came in.No one knows where to begin.

Moloch is set below to moanand Moses above to praise.It's all a maze.

19

The Speculations of an Angular Man

They say after the rapeProserpina sat sobbing,weaving the shreds of her dressinto a model of the universe.A roughly spherical affair, I hear.Not unlike those of Ptolemy and Copernicuswho rolled after her their worldsinto balls, like dung beetles.

20

The Tree of Porphyry

A billion flames bloom on the Tree of Porphyry;they emanate soft as saliva from the white stems of the candelabra.From somewhere must come these emanations, these seminal reasonsthat shine forever in a shudder of feldspar.

In the hidden dungeons of ancient Egyptsleeps a man of stone, frozen like frankenstein in a wallof mica. White vapors from his fingers seep forward in stone,converge in the whisper of the occult calculus.

In the brain of man is born the bloom.The lotus of a hundred thousand petals pulses to open,to arrange by affinities these strange messages, these comparablerealities, in the pristine order of the Tree of Porphyry.

It's all one constant signal destroying itself asyour experience and Saint Bonaventura will demonstrate to code,creed and cult, one dangerous mystery in outer spacewith you for Messiah.

Fly, you foolU into the face of destruction!We love you for it! Lift your feathers to the fire ! Your lifewas at most only an impossible spin in destiny, a fuse burningat both ends.

Welcome to the sea, to the sublime, incestuous mystery of repose

21

Ars Moriendi

Note: The following voice-over is intended to accompanya short Symbolist film which focuses on the supra-personal aspect of the human experience. Thereare six voices: a boy, a girl, a mature man, amature woman, an aged man and an aged woman. Thevoices are phased together so that no individualspeaker is identified with any passage.

Voice 1:

Voice 2:

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice I:

I was a fooltill now. But allis well, all iswell. I see thatit had to beas it was.

Nothingis ever wasted. Thereis not one atomof dust, not onedead leaf more thanwhat is necessary.

TheWhole forever breaking itselfin new ways . Godmy father is generous.

He has given meeverything I ever wantedeven when I didnot know T wantedit.

Because once, youknow, I had agreat fear of death.All the things Idid I did toescape from death.

Icould not admit it.I could not realizeit. But I imaginedthat this one lifewas all the lifeI had.

I dreamedof a horrible closetof darkness. I hatedTime, the thief whotook away my toys .

Voice 2:

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice 1:

Voice 2

I knew that Iwas powerless to protectthe things I lovedfrom Time. I couldsave nothing, and Iwas all alone.

Butif it had notbeen for death--thebeautiful mystery of death--I would never haveknown you. I wouldnever have loved you.

Memories go back likebirds to the forestwhere they were fledged.I first saw yourface in the forest.

I was a stranger.I did not knowthat I was livinga life. I waswaiting.

How can weknow where to lookfor the happiness wehave never experienced? Theplans I made, thetraps I laid tocapture it, faded, neverwere fulfilled.

Thank Godfor that. I couldnever have prayed forpleasures that I didnot know existed. Icould never have dreamedof the luck thatwas coming closer tome with the softspeed of the earth,the pressure of plantsjust below the surfaceof the soil.

Isaw your face, onlya hint, and myblood like the sapof the trees was

22

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice I:

Voice 2:

stirred by some photoperiodicsignal, the days imperceptiblylengthening; the birds wereflying north to breed--sudden nakedness of life,words and deeds brokebleeding from the mouthof God. All inan instant I feltdesire.

I was ashamed.I hid my eyes.I fled from theaccusations of my mind.But my criminal heartbegan to learn yournames.

I did notunderstand. I did notsee how it wasall moving. I sawyour face again, framedby the first leavesof the dogwood tree.

Tt was spring. Thebutterfly's proboscus curled inblossoms of milkweed andsnapdragon. And I watchedyou in secret.

Iwas aware of youeverywhere. I did notshow myself. It iseasy to hide inthe forest. I wassure that no onesaw me.

The morningof the memorial beholdingof eyes and heartI saw you stepinto the sunshine, blazingflowers about you, perfectin my eyes.

Itwas a trick ofthe forest, that perfection.The magic of yourbody matched to thecloudy perfection of nameless

23

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice :

Voice 6:

Voice 1:

Voice 2:

gods, statues forgotten andeternally familiar, lifted onshrines in the subconscious.

Remember how you walkedto the river? Yourimages flowed like thewater in an eternalNow.

I had neverfelt the presence ofGod; habits, my mind'sdominating voices weighing rightsand wrongs, fell awayunnoticed.

I came frombehind curtains, shields Ihad employed against reality,left them under thetrees and followed youuntil the sun setand you disappeared fromsight.

I stood still.I felt the waterlap my feet, andwhen I turned themagic symmetry of theripples startled me asif I had neverseen them before.

Theleaves rustled whispers, intimatedesignations, telling all thelegends of history. Andthe colors of thesunset drifted across thewater, settled in aclamshell which I foundmyself holding in myhand.

I had siftedbeauty from the sun,and every sunset andsound was a detailin the complete andelaborate beauty of mylife. I needed noother reason.

At night,

24

Vo ,e3

Voice 14:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice 1:

Voice 2:

in the forest, thevivid monster of myimagination awoke in summerheat.

Lush, swollen flowersdropped from their stalks.Pale mushrooms fed ondeath. Insects corrupted theleaves of the trees,and in my dreamsI sank before atall black tree andcried in anger, "Whatgood am I? Noone knows me."

Iran barefoot on theforest floor. In everyacre of the forest,ten thousand leaves, inevery leaf, your laughingface.

I was searchingfor you. Afraid toknow what I feltfor you. Afraid tofind you. But drawnto you by thefever 6f my fear,following your breathing, untilsound of your heartbeating loud: my ownstolen identity.

And thedark smile I sawthen on your facewas the smile ofmy death. My death,and all sexual delight.

Before a million witnesses,frightening snakes under fallenstones, moss made abed or shroud wherewe touched each otherin full moonlight scatteredby broken curtains, ancientforces spoke in thetrunks of trees, bodiesdelighted sprockets meshed, spasms

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice 1:

of the spine ascended,a thousand swords oflight striking, screams ofbright pain.

Something Iwas seeking in yourbody; the touch ofyou flowed off likewater and could notbe held. I wasfrantic with words, withquestions I did notdare to ask andalways it seemed yousmiled, though in thedark and light patcheschanging I could neverbe certain.

I partedfrom you breathing richpleasures in the air,waiting for the lightto cross your face,saying to you softlyall the names Iknew. But you werehidden from me then;It amused the mooninstead to show mehow the earth wassoaked with blood.

Thetaste of blood wasin my mouth, butI could not seemy crime. I crawledsearching with my handsacross the moss andstones.

Perhaps the deathwas mine after allT murmured. Someone. Someone.But was it youor I?

Clinging tothe earth I sleptand dreamed I heardyou speak my name.Waking in dawn lightI saw you ina strange remembered hallway,running, running.

26

Voice 2:

Voice 3:

Voice L:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice 1:

Voice 2:

The garmentyou wore fluttered behindyou, illusion of windand light: wings withfeathers seemingly appearing oneby one, as ifin recognition of yourchaste steps. I ranafter you.

You waitedfor me by theriver. The communion ofhands and names andeyes . For one dayon the surface ofthe water we watchedthe eternal transfiguration ofour own faces. Touching.

The forest, graced withs ilence.

When at thevery mention of themonth October trees dressedfor death, we walkedaround the world together.Familiar friends in brightrobes for the lastrites. August. Miraculous. Theforest was full ofour wisdom.

Someday soonnow we will die.We will give backthese bodies to theswarm of creation, andin exchange we willbe given everything.

only dreamed that allthe faces of theforest were not ourown. That was beforewe learned to die.

We

The leaves drop offso that the treemay continue to live .Strange: we saw thecycles everywhere except inourselves.

27

Voice 3:

Voice 4:

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Voice I:

Voice 2:

Vbibe 3:

Voice 14:

But then eachwas for the other.My immortality is therein your changing faces.

Smiling, the sun bloomsbackwards toward our birthtogether, and beneath thebloom both mysteries aremine, and the voiceof God is myvoice, and the willof God is mywill, and the unknownand secret ways ofGod, which hide belowthe napkin of thedream, are my ownsecret ways.

When theowl fluffs out hisfeathers, and the deergrows his coat ofhollow hair, and snowfalls we will betogether and naked andin ecstasy again.

Thenew and old facesof the forest inunison saying, "Thank God ;

It was all abad dream."

lo youknow? Believe? Remember?

Don'tworry. There is allthe time in theworld.

And already youare changing everything. Rememberingthese words. Remembering me.

Everything you have donewas for me. Becauseyou love me. Youmight have known. Ilove you just thesame.

28

Voice 5:

Voice 6:

Because we arethe same. And wehave loved and livedand died before inthe forest.

And thefears that seemed sopowerful were thin asdragonfly-wings. And thelove that seemed impossiblewas everywhere.

29

30

Cities of Gold

After eight long yearslost and wandering the New Worldfour dusty Spanish subjectsstumbled into the Viceroy's presencewith a fabulous story about seven cities:golden streets and jewelled wallssomewhere westward,high doorways of turquoiseand a prize of wealth insideas big as a man's imagination.The Viceroy was one of the firstfallen to the spell of the sundance;all his earliest, untethered dreamsreturned to possess him, and he started at onceequipping a search partyto bring Cibola back, stone by golden stone.De Vaca sailed for Spain.

One of the four survivors,Es tavanic o by name,stayed to guide the search.Could be the Viceroy bought him:he had black skin. But slave or not,he was the acknowledged leader;after eight years at home on the rangehe knew many things,even if where he was going wasn't one of them.Once they were under wayhe went to wearing wild garb:feathers, bells, and rattles, like a medicine man.The Indians they met bowed as to a black god,gave him his pick from their supplies and women.Times were good for Estavanico.Soon the black god and a few companionsmoved out ahead to scout and report back;when they found the cities it was agreeda cross would be sent back as a sign,the size of the cross to indicatethe size of the treasure.

When they came upon the pueblos in New MexicoEstavanico saw the sun gleam from adobe and sandstoneand mad with pride over the prize aheadhe sent the sign and made for his destiny.But at the legendary doorwayhis Indian magic backfired.Either because of a jealous medicine manor because he wore ornaments of an enemy tribeor because he murdered his Indian concubinesthe Pueblos attacked and killed him.

31

News of his deatharrived back at the main encampmentclose behind the sign he had sent:a cross as big as a man.

1

Just west of the hurricaneswhere it's so hot the jackrabbits carry umbrellasyou can pop corn on the sidewalk in the summertime

open sky overthe closing of the land

we were born soon enoughnot to miss the rattlesnakes and the sixgunsto see the cow skull smile in stainless sunshinebetween the cities appearingin the saga's later pagesas the search goes on

the Legend grows, retoldby crazy old prospectors and college professorsby grandfathers to their grandchildren at bedtimethe Truth goes backawaysto a childhood memory of the Mother Lode

Those great camps that sprang up overnightburned down and were rebuilt in brickprices skyrocketed as the boomtowns boomedour saloons and faro tables were outlawednow skyscrapers flash neon commandmentsacross the prairiemirror walls twenty stories high reflect each otherreflect the tombstone architecturedown Interstate 35 with slicesof wide-open spacesin between

the Legend grows on through the summer droughtit gets so dry the cows give powdered milkand still, without a cloud in sight,the search goes on

we sip Coors and cuss the Cowboysmen of the Westbig-hat hog-callers and tobacco-spitterslike our settler ancestors, concealingwhatever remains of their spiritunder sunburned, beergut exteriors

32

Times change our hearts in the wild West(but not the search nor the summer heatnor the reward we would steal from the world:that goes on)

2

It comes from the earth.At first they found it by digging in the dirt,poking through the pockets of ancient skeletonsf or something older,breaking through conglomerate and decaytoward something purer,something so old and pure in the earthit wouldn't mix in the molten beginningsbut stayed as it was, held by hardening quartzwhile the earth cooled off, lying down deepuntil the aching, changing, groaning groundbuckled and broke, shoving up the Sierras,exposing its treasure to the stormsto be washed and shaped and siftedby robber-winds and prehistoric rivers,gathered, scattered,stored up in sandbars and riverbeds,hidden and treasured and forgottenbefore Folsom Manbefore the crimes and migrationsand failures of our forefathers,already perfectbefore our minds and tools and celebrated works:

out there somewhere,shining under the mountain,new and warm in the dusttil the death of everything,and beyond.

3

Some time backI knew a cowboy named Coronado.Golden hair and beard he had; a glintof the s tuff in his eyes, too,and behind themhis mind was a hungry forge, fedfrom childhood on the Legend.

He learned earlyabout Sam Bass, the robinhood of the cross-timbers,from his grandmother: heard about the Denton mare,the race with the Indians,

33

the cattle drive with Joel Collins,the gambling, the good whiskey,the loss of the profits,and then after the first few twobit stage jobsthe big hit on the Union Pacific.Sixty thousand golden dollars,mostly still missing.

So we made a game of the search.Starting from his house in Sangerwe rode out with a sixpack to Pilot Knob;there, while I sat and guzzled,he searched for real, poked and hunted and hypothesized,finally saying after sundown,"It ain't here."

I guess I more believed the storiesthat said Sam cashed his last double-eagleon the way to his death at Round Rock.Not him, though.In the next few months he chased downevery wind of every yarn you ever heardfrom the field out by Bolivarwhere a goldpiece was plowed upto Cove Hollowto Leghorn Cavernswest damn near to the Red River.I lost track of him about that time.

4

Over the years I saw him less and less,but I heard about him more and more:gone to other times and goldrushes,backtracking after any whisper of paydirt.Some dope named Lopez finds a few flecksand he's off for San Reliciano Valley.Once in a while he'd come throughlooking like a character off the courthouse lawn,then off again after every flash in the panfrom the Black Hills to Tombstone,talking about some strike at Dry Diggingsor Poverty Gulch, as if we hadn't heard,about the swindlers and claim-Jumpers and high-graders,hot after every bonanza in history,saying the word Goldand raising a clenched fist.

34

And in his eyes I could see itmined and crushed,passed over shelves of quicksilver,extracted and captured and keptfor all time.

Toward the end they sayhe drew more water in the desertthan any man alive, knew the badlandslike his own backyard.

Finally he returned along that trailEstavanico took back at the very beginning,thinking all the time he was headedfor Wickenburg, where a lode was, he heard.

Maybe the spirit of the Pueblo medicine manthought it was the black god coming back,seeing as how their errand was the same.Some think he stepped on Spiderwoman's doorand made her mad. There's no shortageof angry spirits in the dunes: thirsty ghosts and sandgoblinsand Indian spells left from long ago.Something out there hated Coronadoenough to send a sandstorm after himso thick and hot and fiercehe couldn't see, couldn't breathe,couldn't tell w-here he was going.It followed him for days,howling like nine hundred Apaches in his ears,burning and biting and tormenting him,never letting him rest,visions appearing all around him,filmy eldorados receding across the landscape before him,sandlions singing from their pits,yellow catamounts crouching, leaping at him;the desert madness got hold of himand the slow torture of the sun:

then, between the burning gusts,he seemed to see himself up aheadbreaking through clouds into the clear,and he followed his own vanishing form,zigzagging into the windlike a path in a Navaho sandpainting,wiping a grimy wrist across his eyes, amazedat the miracle of veins in mineral hands,

at the unknown guide leading himlike some crazy snake eating itself up from the tail,sundog digging to the bone, to wherethe wind and wild voicessuddenly died away.

6

Down on his hands and knees in the sandhe shook his head and tried to focusfacing into a blinding sunset on the horizon.But as the fog cleared it was no sunset he saw;it was the skyline of a shining city:walls of gold shedding a glow on the desertand a golden, open gateway in the middlefilled with leaping flames.

Rising slowly, telling himself it was onlythe best mirage he ever laid eyes onhis believing feet began to take himtoward the golden towers, terraces,staircases more than he could count,while he tried to swallow, his feet sinking in,marking the sand, slowing his steps.Then, when he looked again,his eyes said a figure was standing therein the distant doorway. His spirits roselike those of a man heading for fire and home;he ran fast as the sandand his weary legs would let him, heart hammering,eyes straining till he could seebetween the burning gatesa woman holding out her arms to him.Not Yvonne deCarlo on the silver screen,more beautiful even: a golden womantowering over a burning boomtown, bendingto welcome, moving to meet him,belle of a western citybetter than a dream of desire,Phoenix, falling, flaming lovercoming to claim his love for the sun,coming with crazy notions,coming with swings and shadetrees and lemonadein a light too bright to look at,flames twisting like sidewinders' tails,swarming everywhere like an ocean around her,like a burning bush dying more to live more,dying faster than flowering to keep aliveforever, embracing a flaming lady,kissing sweet to decay and come again.

36

7

The search goes on.Tales reach us of rich ships on the ocean floor,of Aztec curses, Union payrolls, fortuneshidden by the Dalton gang. Maybe Sam's stashis still out there s omewhere . Meanwhile,we stumble through the streets to our jobs,airplanes roaring over our heads,sweating figures at the buss topsnot looking up, not speaking,following the dark figurethrough the secret storm,

Sometimes we see each otherlike ships that pass in the morning,stop in the shade of an awning,cuss the heat and jokeabout Coronado. But the sun beams downand all signs fail in dry weatherand saying we better get after it againand grinning, we move onto circle with the sundance,still holding out for the glory hole,a tree with golden apples upside down,from which any fool's fortune may break forthsomeday in shining pieces, signsof a treasure bigger than Dallas,right where the cross said it was.

PART II

AN ESSAY ON MATTHEW ARNOLD

AND T. S. ELIOT

From time to time, every hundred years or so, it isdesirable that some critic shall appear to review thepast of our literature, and set the poets and the poemsin a new order. This task is not one of revolution butreadjustment. What we observe is partly the same scene,but in a different and more distant perspective; there arenew and strange objects in the foreground, to be drawnaccurately in proportion to the more familiar ones whichnow approach the horizon, where all but the most eminentbecome invisible to the naked eye. The exhaustive critic,armed with a powerful glass, will be able to sweep thedistance and gain an acquaintance with minute objects inthe distant landscape with which to compare minute objectsclose at hand; he will be able to gauge nicely the positionand proportion of the objects surrounding us, in the wholeof the vast panorama. This metaphorical fancy only repre-sents the ideal; but Dryden, Johnson and Arnold have eahperformed the task as well as human frailty will allow.I

Thus T. S. Eliot, in the 1933 Norton lecture on Matthew

Arnold, describes the position which Arnold occupied in his

age and which Eliot, despite disclaimers, was filling in his

own. Although he refers to Arnold as "in some respects the

most satisfactory man of letters of his age," 2 such positive

statements lose much of their force in the total context of

Eliot's criticism, which, with regard to Arnold, is overwhelm-

ingly negative. At different points Eliot has accused Arnold

of shallowness, prejudice, and an incapacity for logic, of be-

ing ill-equipped for philosophy and theology and of being a

Philistine in religion,. His poetry, according to Eliot, ranges

from academic to careless and is of little interest generally.

37

38

Such good qualities as Eliot will credit to Arnold are of a

minor sort; yet there is much in Eliot's critical writing

which is closely akin to Arnold, and Eliot's own critical

preoccupations are perhaps nowhere more clear than in his

attacks on his predecessor.

That Eliot is Arnold's literary descendant has been

established by various critics. When Eliot says, "The im-

portant moment for the appearance of criticism seems to be

the time when poetry ceases to be the expression of the

mind of a whole people, #3 he is making some of Arnold's

assumptions. Lewis Freed, in T. S. Eliot: Aesthetics and

history, says, "Whoever takes up the subject of criticism

nowadays finds that all lines lead to Eliot (and I. A.

Richards ), as they once led to Arnold . . . ." Douglas

Bush, in his Matthew Arnold: A Survey of His Poetry and

Prose, says, "Tn some points he I~Arnold) anticipates T. s.

Eliot, who, for all his antagonism, was his chief heir."5

Speaking of the similarities between them, Bush says this:

Eliot, who combined qualified respect for Arnoldwith a particularly religious hostility, had a partlysimilar classicist and European outlook, a similarcomparative method and similar felicity in the persua-sive use of quota tions, a similar urbanity of styleand tone, . . .

Lionel Trilling, in his biography of Arnold, makes

this c ompar is on:

Arnold could find little charm in the bourgeoisworld. Like Wordsworth before him, like T. S. Eliotafter, he wrote primarily for a small group of saddenedintellectuals for whom the dominant world was a waste-land, men who felt heartsick and depri e d of some partof their energy by their civilization.

39In order to see Eliot's objections to Arnold's criticism

clearly, we must first be clear as to the major points of

that criticism. Arnold did not have a "system" in the sense

of a pattern for assessing all poetry; surely no man sensi-

tive to literature would approach criticism in this way.

The heart of his critical theory is seen in a few important

statements and major preoccupations around which the dis-

courses are organized. Arnold's touchstones for critical

analysis are set forth most compactly in his 1865 essay,

The Function of Criticism at the Present Time. Therein he

gives his answers to three questions: why is criticism

needed? what should criticism seek to do? and, how should

criticism be conducted?

The need for criticism, Arnold indicates, is as a cor-

rective for British narrowness . He refers repeatedly to

the stultifying effects of the era which followed the

French Revolution: "The notion of the free play of the mind

upon all subjects . . . hardly enters into an Englishman's

thoughts." And curiosity, he believes, is "an instinct for

which there is . . . little original sympathy in the practi-

cal British nature, and what there is of it has undergone a

long benumbing period of blight and suppression. . . ."

In his essay on The Literary Influence of Academies, Arnold

asks: "What are the essential characteristics of the spirit

of our nation? Not, certainly, an open and clear mind, not

40

a quick and flexible intelligence." 9 Somervell thus describes

Arnold's insistence that criticism was the need of his age:

"He surveyed a scene of earnest bustling energy, but of

energy, alas, so misdirected, so stupid. He appealed to

his generation to stop and think; he sought to lower rather

than raise the temperature." 1 0 And Trilling reinforces this

view in his summary of Arnold's reaction to the Romantic

Movement:

For one thing, it had produced no single work com-parable in execution to the perfection of form of theGreek best, or equal in profundity of insight. Foranother, it had sired no line of poetical descendantsof an interest equal to its own. It had been dominatedby energy but had lacked order and this was typical ofthe British spirit.ll

Despite this unflattering view of post-mid-century England,

Arnold was not without hope. He saw, in fact, the signs of

an awakening of what he called an "epoch of expansion," a

period in which ideas would find a more hospitable audience.

And the purpose of criticism, he believed, was to encourage

such a development:

Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign sense ofthe word, appear amongst us, and it is in these thatcriticism must look to find its account. Criticismfirst; a time of true creative activity, perhaps --which, as I have said, must inevitably be precededamongst us by a time of criticism, -- hereafter, whencriticism has done its work. 1 2

In 1863, just before writing his article on Joubert,

Arnold wrote a letter to his mother which summarizes not only

what he felt criticism should do but indicates in part how

criticism should be conducted:

41

It is very animating to think that one at last hasa chance of getting at the English public. Such a pub-lic as it is, and sumh a work as one wants to do withit! Partly nature, partly time and study have also bythis time taught me thoroughly the precious truth thateverything turns upon one's exercising the power ofpersuas ion, of charm; that without this all fury, energy,reasoning power, acquirement, are thrown away and onlyrender their owner more miserable. Even in one's ridi-cule one must preserve a sweetness and good humour.13

How criticism should be conducted appears more explicitly

in Arnold's definition of criticism: "a disinterested en-

deavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and

thought in the world." This definition contains the basic

principles which Arnold adopted for his own use and espoused

for others:

First, the critic should be disinterested. Arnold insisted

that criticism should be free of party, that it should serve

no "practical ends," in the sense that those practical ends

were interests other than its own.

It is because criticism has so little kept in thepure Intellectual sphere, has so little detached itselffrom practice, has been so directly polemical and con-troversial, that it has so ill accomplished, in thiscountry, its best spiritual work; which is to keep manfrom a self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgar-ising, to lead him toward perfection, by making his minddwell upon what is excellent i itself, and the absolutebeauty and fitness of things.

Brown analyzes Arnold's disinterestedness as containing

two elements. The first is a critical strategy, a mode of

presenting ideas in which the reader is worked upon in a

roundabout fashion by ideas which have "the innocent appearance

42

of generality." The other element is a critical faculty

and strategy combined. It is contained in criticism which

is divorced from practical or party ends and which derives

from "a vision of things as they really are." 1 5

Second, the critic should be concerned about ideas. It

is this emphasis on ideas that Arnold is concerned with when

he writes: "Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for

the best, the really excellent, and of the strength and joy

to be drawn from it, should be present in our minds and should

govern our estimate of what we read."1 6 Arnold often uses

"ideas" as being almost synonymous with "ideals." In a defense

of literature, he says:

. . . we shall find that the art and poetry and elo-quence of men who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had themost limited natural knowledge, . . . have a fortifying,and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power,capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the resultsof modern science to our need for conduct, our needfor beauty. 1 7

His stress on ideas implies negatively an impatience

with superficiality, with stereotyped thought couched in

glowing prose, with "the barren optimistic sophistries of

comfortable moles."

Arnold's definition contains a third element, that of

"propagation." Where should the critic turn for subjects fit

for propagation? Arnold felt, during the 18 60's at least,

that not much of English literature qualified as "the best

that is known and thought in the world." He felt impelled to

43

turn to the literature of France and Germany. By acquainting

the British public with authors like Heinrich Heine and

Joubert, he hoped to develop a Continental outlook. He

wanted, as he phrased it, "to let the ideas of Europe steal

amicably in."

It is not, I think, with these central views of the

critic's task that T. S. Eliot finds fault; in fact, he

seems to have assimilated them. Trilling has pointed out

that Eliot's opinion of his fellow Britishers was much in

accord with Arnold's. Observe, for instance, the following

from Eliot's essay on Francis Herbert Bradley: "In fighting

the battles that he fought in the 'seventies and 'eighties

Bradley was fighting for a European and ripened and wise

philosophy, against an insular and immature and cranky one;

the same battle that Arnold was fighting. . . ."8 F. 0.

Matthiessen concludes that, "behind any tangible debts and

obscured by their sharp divergence of approach, there is to

be discovered everywhere in Eliot's work his kinship to

Matthew Arnold, a kinship to be noted in their views of

the relation of the individual to society, as well as on

such matters as the importance of wholeness of structure in

a work of art." 1 9 The following passage from Eliot's first

Norton lecture is Arnoldian in tone, echoing in part the

doctrine of disinterestedness:

The third, or mature stage of enjoyment of poetry,comes when we cease to identify ourselves with the poet

44we happen to be reading; when our critical facultiesremain awake; when we are aware of what one poet canbe expected to give and what he cannot. The poem hasits own existence, apart from us; it was there beforeus and will endure after us. It is only at this stagethat the reader is prepared to distinguish betweendegrees of greatness in poetry. . .

In his introduction to The Sacred Wood in 1950, Eliot

incorporates Arnold's words into this judgment: "It is

part of his the poet's] business to see literature steadily

and to see it whole; . . . to see the best work of our time

and the best work of twenty-five hundred years ago with the

same eyes." 2 1

Eliot was also very much concerned about ideas. He

followed Arnold's practice of searching abroad for the best

that had been thought there. In his essay on "Eliot and the

Criterion," a literary journal edited by Eliot from 1922 to

1939, John Peter says that the chief strategist of the

Criterion was "Matthew Arnold, the somewhat unlikely spirit

glimpsed in motion again and again behind the editor's com-

mentaries for the first decade." 2 2 Suggesting that Eliot's

editorship of the Criterion was thoroughly Arnoldian, Peter

makes the following points of comparison:

Culture and Anarchy has to be seen as central toEliot' mole purpose in what he himself was doing.Significantly, it is repeatedly quoted or alluded to --more frequently, I believe, than any other modern book.Eliot recalls Arnold's picture of the Populace 'bawling,hustling and smashing' (v 286); he applies the criteriaof Sweetness and Light to the Sunday Express just asArnold might have done (viii 3; he reproves his agefor its incautious trust in 'machinery' (vi 290),

45

recommends a variant of Arnold's Hellenism (ii 342),and indeed at one point implicitly avows himself amember of that 'Party' which had been rallied inCulture and Anarcy . , . .23

Attempting to present English readers with "the best of

foreign thought and literary art,"2 t1 the Criterion was the

first English periodical to print works by Marcel Proust,

Paul Valery, Jacques Riviere, Jean Cocteau, Ramon Fernandez,

Jacques Maritain, Charles Naurras, Henri .Massis and others,

while including such native Britishers as Lawrence, James

Joyce, Aldous Huxley, Yeats, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf,

and Wyndham Lewis.25

Critic Ian Gregor has noted as similar, in addition

to the ideas they shared, the "unusual self-awareness of the

function they felt themselves called upon to perform, "26

this self-consciousness being evidenced in the poetry as

well as the criticism of the two authors.

But if Eliot is in general agreement with Arnold, he

finds much that is specific with which to disagree.

Matthiessen formed the impression of "deft, if inconspicuous,

sniping, kept up over quite a few years."27 Critic Peter

appraises this "sniping" as follows:

Granted the later poet's veneration for the EstablishedChurch a certain Intolerance towards his predecessor onthis score is understandable, but I am sure I am notthe only reader to have felt a touch of jealousy in theintolerance, too, a faint sense of grievance that -- inthe matter of general outlook at least -- M nold hadoften rather irritatingly got there first.

46

The central point of Eliot's dissatisfaction with Arnold

comes into focus when he terms him a Philistine in religion.

At one point Eliot has accused Arnold of choosing those sub-

jects "in connexion with which he could best express his

views about morals and society. . . .*29 But surely this is

even more true of Eliot himself. His critical writings are

largely an apology for Christianity in general and Anglo-

Catholicism in particular, and on this issue of central con-

cern to him, Arnold is branded an enemy of the light. This

prejudice is evident in Eliot's statement that "Literary

criticism should be completed by criticism from a definite

ethical and theological standpoint."3 0 This predisposition

is enough to color Eliot's reaction to all writers, and his

statements about Arnold must therefore to some extent be

understood as a defense of his own position.

"From the high, solid ground of Anglo-Catholicism Eliot

looked down, with rather un-Christian scorn, upon the under-

graduate Philistinism of Arnold's religious views, and he

gave thoroughly prejudiced and misleading accounts of them."31

One such account appeared in the 1926 essay, "Francis Herbert

Bradley," in which Eliot makes a lengthy comparison of Bradley

to Arnold. The point of attack is Arnold's book Literature

and , upon which Bradley had commented in his Ethical

Studies. Eliot applauded Bradley's arguments, saying, "the

greatest weakness of Arnold's culture was his weakness in

47

philosophical training. . . . Arnold had made an excursion

into a field for which he was not armed." 3 2 Commenting on

this, Matthiessen says:

Eliot is hardly more qualified for metaphysicalspeculation than Arnold was -- he himself has spokenof his 'incapacity for abstruse reasoning'; in spiteof his long training in philosophy, his mind was tooheavily concrete, his insight too purely intuitive,to qualify him for sustained flight in the realm ofpure logic.

Of course it is true that Arnold was not on firm ground

with religion, and he knew it well. But Bradley's arguments

as presented by Eliot are not unanswerable, and even were he

correct they would hardly have "knocked the bottom out of

Literature and Doma," as Eliot says they did. In fact,

Bush reports, Bradley apparently formed his criticism with-

out the benefit of having read the book. The most perplexing

point in this criticism of Arnold comes when Eliot says:

"In Culture and Anarchy, which is probably his greatest book,

we hear something said about 'the will of God'; but the 'will

of God' seems to become superseded in importance by 'our best

self, a right reason, to which we want to give authority';

and this best self looks very much like Matthew Arnold slightly

disguised.' 314 It seems strange that Eliot should rebuke

Arnold on this point. Right reason has traditionally been

viewed, by Milton among others, as the inner working of the

will of God in man; it is synonymous with conscience and is

the means whereby God makes his will known. William S.

48Knickerbocker quotes Eliot as saying that theology "may be the

finding of good reasons for what we believe on instinct," and

then asks the following questions:

Can Mr. Eliot's 'instinct' be identical with MatthewArnold's 'best self' and Professor Babbitt's 'innercheck'? Should one, in good taste and fair play, mimicMr. Eliot's pleasantries in disposing of 'the best self'and 'inner check', by paraphrasing him and saying:'Mr. Eliot's 'instine' looks very much like T. S. Eliotslightly disguised'?

In 1930, in his essay "Arnold and Pater," Eliot says his

purpose is "to indicate a direction from Arnold, through Pater,

to the 'nineties, with, of course, the solitary figure of

Newman in the background."3 6 The direction indicated would

seem to be mostly downward. Eliot begins with an estimate of

Arnold's aesthetic and religious views. Although he occasion-

ally damns Arnold with such faint praise as, "Arnold taught

English expository and critical prose a restraint and urbanity

it needed," more heavily weighted are the statements like,

"Nothing in his prose work . . . will stand very close analysis."

He credits Arnold with a decadent tendency to substitute morals

or art for religion, sets him at the head of the Humanist move-

ment, and conducts a reductio ad absurdum from Arnold through

Pater to Oscar Wilde. M. L. S. Loring comments:

Mr. Eliot girds at the vagueness and haziness of theCulture which Arnold presents: the vagueness of defini-tion he holds directly responsible for Pater's aestheti-cism, which is in its turn held responsible for some un-tidy lives. When this point is examined a little moreseriously, perhaps, than it was made, we have Mr. Eliotadopting Arnold's social theory of art: for there can

49

be no critical objection to untidy lives, nor to Pater'sleading to them, nor even to Arnold's leading to Pater'saestheticism. The whole point resolves into a slap thatMr. Eliot gives Arnold in passing, and no serious infer-ence can be drawn from it. ne might imagine them con-temporary and rival critics. 7

It should also be noted that the vagueness of definition

to which Eliot objects is not a result of vague thinking but

a part of Arnold's method of persuasion, the technique called

dissimulatio wherein an author charms his audience with state-

ments which have "the innocent appearance of generality." In

his study, "Bellwether: An Exercise in issimulati ,"

Knickerbocker makes this analysis:

.. neither Mr. Eliot nor anyone else will ever quitediscern more in Arnold's prose than a limpid fluencywhich charms unless he has the penetration and patienceto stay with Arnold long enough to perceive the sinuous'dissimilatio' of Arnold's strategy in disclosing acoherent, cumulative, and satisfactory view of life andemploying a cultivated manner in the means of persuasionwhich Arnold probably learned from Newman and whichNewman vaguely called 'the principle of the economy.'He saw nothing to be gained by plain bluntness.-3

Eliot is ever at pains to attack Arnold on religious

grounds, here as elsewhere. He is quick to see heresy where

there is really only reservation. Bush has commented on

Eliot's unfairness in saying that Arnold wants to "get all the

emotional kick out of Christianity one can, without the bother

of believing it." 3 9 But perhaps Eliot's most careless statement

is: "The effect of Arnold's religious campaign is to divorce

Religion from thought." Surely Arnold cannot be held respon-

sible for this; and even if it were true, religion and

thought occupied separate compartments In the minds of many

before Arnold's time. It is Eliot's dogmatic views, not

Arnold's, which might more understandably contribute to such

a judgment. Arnold's intent, whatever his effect may have

been, was to work toward an accommodation of the new scienti-

fic knowledge to religious belief. He must be seen as a

deeply religious-minded agnostic, struggling through darkness

perhaps, but in a direction opposite to that which Eliot

indicates.

During the winter of 1932-33, Eliot delivered his series

of lectures as Norton Professor of English at Harvard University.

One of these lectures is devoted entirely to Arnold, and he is

mentioned in several others. Eliot's most extreme statements,

both positive and negative, were made during this series of

lectures. Arnold is "the most satisfactory man of letters

of his age," but "in philosophy and theology he was an under-

graduate; in religion a Philistine.""40 Also, "All his writings

in the kind of Uiterature and Dogma seem to me a valiant at-

tempt to dodge the issue, to mediate between Newman and Huxley."

About this last statement one scholar has remarked:

it may be urged as fairly and more sympatheticallythat Arnold's mediatorial and conciliatory impulsesimply sought to recognize the results of and the limi-tations imposed by 'science' while preserving the mostprecious modes of knowledge from the past.41

Eliot's most scathing comments refer to the line, "Poetry is at

bottom a criticism of life," which occurs in Arnold's essay on

Wordsworth. The wording is perhaps unfortunate, but surely

Arnold intended to indicate that poetry is to life as criticism

is to poetry, being some sort of treatment of life by the poet.

At any rate, the statement is not really fundamental to

Arnold's thought; yet Eliot makes much of it, arriving at theconclusion that "Arnold's notion of 'life,' in his account ofpoetry, does not perhaps go deep enough." By 1944, when hewrote his essay on "Johnson As Critic and Poet," Eliot hadperhaps re-evaluated this statement. Speaking of the edifi-

cation which good poetry affords, he says, "When Matthew

Arnold said that poetry was a criticism of life, he was main-

taining the standard of edification. "42 This is a more charitableassessment of Arnold's intention.

There is evidence of some softening in Eliot's judgment ofArnold through the years. In the 1940 Introduction to The

Sacred Wood, Eliot says:

The faults and foibles of Matthew Arnold are no less evi-dent to me now than twelve years ago, after my first ad-miration for him; but I hope that now, on re-reading someof his prose with more care, I can better appreciate hisposition. And what makes Arnold seem all the more re-markable is, that if he were our exact contemporary, hewould find all his labour to perform again.4 3

In the 1941 essay on Kipling he says:

cl. . a poet who has treated problems of his time will notnecessarily go out of date. Arnold's Stanzas from theGrande Chartreuse voice a moment of historic doub~rcordedby its most representative mind, a moment which has passed,which most of us have gone beyond in one direct n oranother; but it represents that moment forever.

52

But perhaps the most positive of these isolated remarks occurs

in the essay, "To Criticize the Critic," presented as a lecture

at the University of Leeds in July, 1961. Eliot speaks of

"those masters of English criticism whom I regard with most

reverence," and then explains: "I am thinking especially of

Samuel Johnson and of Coleridge, and not ignoring Dryden or

Arnold. "4 5 Even at this late date, however, he includes

Arnold among the most distinguished poet-critics "with reser-

vations." The reservations are undoubtedly religious reser-

vations.

It is interesting to compare Eliot's attitude toward

Arnold with his attitude toward Tennyson. In his essay, "In

Memorial," Eliot declares that Tennyson's poem is "religious,"

saying, "It is not religious because of the quality of its

faith, but because of the quality of its doubt."4 6 One wonders

why he could not also appreciate the quality of Arnold's doubt.

This question brings into focus a real difference between the

critical methods of the two men. Arnold moves from the general

to the particular, Eliot, from the particular to the general;

thus Eliot is likely to apply different standards at different

times. As Loring says:

Mr. Eliot sees a great deal, and finds little cohesiveorder in his disparate minutiae; Matthew Arnold is nota master of detail, nor erudite, but he exercised suffi-cient judgment on what he did know to develop standardsimmediately applicable and socially important to the lifeof his time. 4

53Of course, Dliot's criticism is no less important to his

time. Accepting the tasks and, largely, the methods of Arnold,

Eliot sought to execute them in accordance with the needs of

a new age. The contrast of his own view with Arnold's was part

of the means by which Eliot continued Arnold's quest for perfec-

tion in culture and art.

FOOTNOTES

T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism(London: Faber a ndT bT,~ tTmtEod,7 t l33)~~p~Tp7o9.

2 Ibid., p. 104.

3 Ibid., p. 22.

Lewis Freed, T. S. Eliot: Aesthetics and His for(La Salle: Open Court,~196Tp. 175.

Douglas Bush, Matthew Arnold: A Survey of His Poetryand Prose (New York: To ergBEEk?, 1'7U, p. T 1 7~

6 Ibid., p. 132.

7 Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold (New York: ColumbiaUniversIty Press, 1949 ),ThTWT

Lionel Trilling, ed., The Portable Matthew Arnold(New York: The Viking Press, l94TTTp.2TiF:7

9 Ibid., p. 273.

10 D. C. Somervell, English Thought in the NineteenthCentury (London: Methuen & Company, LimTe l TFp7 T"1.

I1 Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold, pp. 198-9.

12 Trilling, ed., The Portable Matthew Arnold, p. 248.

13 Ibid., p. 6)4h.

14Ibid., p. 250.

15E. K. Brown, Matthew Arnold: A study in Conflict(Chicago: The University of Chicago press, lT'8), pp. 20-1.

16 Trilling, ed., T4he Portable Matthew Arnold, p. 302.

17 Ibid., p. 423.

18 T. S. Eliot, Essays Ancient and Modern (New York:Harcourt, Brace and Company, 192T, p. .

19P. 0. Matthiessen, The Achievement of T. s. Eliot(Boston: Houghton MiffliTn~~mpany, 1937,~p.32.

20 Eliot, The Use of Poetr p. 34.21 T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood (London: Methuen and

Company, Limited, 19T7~ pp. xv-xvi.

22 John Peter, "Eliot and the Criterion," in Eliot inPerspective, ed. Graham Martin (London: MacmillanranCompany,1970), p. 253.

2Ibid., pp. 253-4.

424 Ibi1d., p. 255.

25 Ibid., pp. 260-1.

26 Ian Gregor, "Eliot and Matthew Arnold," in Eliot inPerspective, ed. Graham Martin (London: Macmillan ateCompany, 170 ), p. 267.

27 Matthiessen, p. 3.

Peter, p. 253.

29 Eliot, The Use of Poetry, p. 110.

30 Eliot, Es says Ancient and Modern, p. 92.

31 Bush, p. 179.

32 Eliot, Esays Ancient and Modern, pp. 50-1.

Matthiessen, p. 149.

34 Eliot, Essays Ancient and Modern, pp. 53-4.

William S. Knickerbocker, "Bellwether: An Exercisein Dissimulatio," Sewanee Review, 41 (1933), 73.

36 T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, 1917-1932 (New York:Harcourt, Brace and Company, 19321,7p. 346.

37 M. L. S. Loring, "T. S. Eliot on Matthew Arnold,"Sewanee Review, 43 (1935), 480.

38 Knickerbocker, p. 75.

39 Bush, p. 179.

40 Eliot, The Use of Poetry, p. 105.

5641 David J. DeLaura, Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian

Engiand (Austin: University of T exas -, T 6 -J~P7173.42 T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets (New York: Farrar,

Straus and Cudahy, 79 7)7,Tp.1T.

43 Eliot, The Sacred Wood, p. xi.

E44Eliot, OnPoetry and Poets, p. 267.

45 T. S. Eliot, To Criticize the Critic (New York:Farrar, Straus and Giroux,1965)7 ~p~1.

46 Eliot, aEss Ancient and Modern, p. 200.

47 Loring, p. 479.

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