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040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aPR
100 1 _aArnold, Matthew,
_d1822-1888
245 1 0 _aEssays in criticism
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-11-16
505 0 _aThe function of criticism at the present time -- The literary influence of academies -- Maurice de Guérin -- Eugénie de Guérin -- Heinrich Heine -- Pagan and mediæval religious sentiment -- A Persian Passion Play -- Joubert -- Spinoza and the Bible -- Marcus Aurelius -- The study of poetry -- Milton -- Thomas Gray -- John Keats -- Wordsworth -- Byron -- Shelley -- Count Leo Tolstoi -- Amiel.
508 _aTim Lindell, KD Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520 _a"Essays in criticism" by Matthew Arnold is a collection of literary and cultural essays written in the mid-19th century. The volume ranges from theory—what criticism is for and how it should work—to vivid appraisals of European writers and reflections on language, culture, and taste. It is likely to appeal to readers interested in how ideas shape literature and how literature in turn shapes civilization. The opening of this collection begins with a preface in which the author clarifies earlier, much-debated remarks (notably softening a sharp phrase about a Homer translation), separates his personal views from his Oxford title, and praises Oxford’s humanizing ideals while lamenting rising philistinism and narrow practicality. The first essay, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” argues that criticism—disinterested, truth-seeking, and independent of party or practical agendas—prepares the very ideas great creation needs; it contrasts English suspicion of ideas with Continental habits, weighs the French Revolution’s intellectual impulse against Burke’s corrective, and rebukes national self-satisfaction with stark social facts. He urges criticism to “know the best that is known and thought,” to resist factional organs, and to judge works like those of Colenso and Renan by their grasp of the real religious problem, not by their utility to a party. The second essay’s opening then sketches the French Academy’s origins under Richelieu, its role as a high court of letters safeguarding language and tone, and uses this to highlight England’s lack of such a standard-setting body—linking it to national temper (energy over flexible intelligence) and to weaker prose standards, journeyman work, and errant linguistic habits. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cNew York: A. L. Burt, 1900
653 _aPoetry
653 _aLiterature
653 _aTolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910
653 _aCriticism
653 _aMarcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121-180
653 _aHeine, Heinrich, 1797-1856
653 _aEnglish poetry -- History and criticism
653 _aSpinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677
653 _aGuérin, Maurice de, 1810-1839
653 _aGuérin, Eugénie de, 1805-1848
653 _aJoubert, Joseph, 1754-1824
653 _aAmiel, Henri Frédéric, 1821-1881. Journal intime
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/essaysincriticis0000arno_j8n6/page/n7/mode/2up
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77244
999 _c117964
_d117964