9 Matthew Arnold Quotes on Art

Matthew Arnold quotes on art

1. I keep saying, Shakspeare, Shakspeare, you are as obscure as life is.

2. Had Shakspeare and Milton lived in the atmosphere of modern feeling, had they had the multitude of new thoughts and feelings to deal with a modern has, I think it likely the style of each would have been far less curious and exquisite. For in a man style is the saying in the best way what you have to say. The what you have to say depends on your age. In the 17th century it was a smaller harvest than now, and sooner to be reaped; and therefore to its reaper was left time to stow it more finely and curiously. Still more was this the case in the ancient world. The poet's matter being the hitherto experience of the world, and his own, increases with every century.

44. For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.

51. Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye? When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday?

83. Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and wisely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.

84. Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.

89. He went; his piping took a troubled sound Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead!

115. The best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.

119. The crown of literature is poetry.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.