Shelley and Arnold each seem to strive for a type of perfection in their writing. For Shelley, perfection can never be written down into a poem. A moment of inspiration (or I might interpret it as perfection or sublime as we called it in Romantic class) comes but by already starts receding before the poet can record it.
Arnold just keeps on reaching for perfection. He writes that Culture is the way to perfection; it has “its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection” (826). Culture entails all the good things like helping your elderly neighbor with her groceries, getting up early in the morning to help your dad repaint the basement, “diminishing human misery”… you know, stuff like that. Arnold defines culture as the best that is known and thought which should propel us into doing good. The pursuit of perfection should bring about beauty, for beauty is just as important as goodness.
Culture brings about “the two noblest things, sweetness and light” (832). Sweetness and light refer to beauty and intelligence (or goodness). Poetry for Arnold links this sweetness and light better than a formal religion. The beauty of poetry and its strive for evoking perfect humanity falls into culture, making it Arnold’s substitution for religion.
Shelley’s definition of poetry echoes closely to Arnold’s culture: “Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds” (714). It seeks to capture a moment of perfect beauty. It “purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity” and exposes something beautiful out of something ordinary.
The perfection comes in that moment of beauty, but similar to Arnold’s strive for perfection, Shelley’s poetry “is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the poet.” (This line also echoes Emerson’s concept of the poets who try to write those “primal warblings” down but cannot produce a perfect copy because our human imperfections keep interfering.)
I guess what I’m trying to conclude is that poetry in its ideal form is perfection and poets try to capture that perfection so it can better mankind, but in reality the poet’s humanness interferes causing the poem to be notches below the poem’s ideal form. Yet, the poet still strives to capture that ideal and to reach that perfection.
Arnold just keeps on reaching for perfection. He writes that Culture is the way to perfection; it has “its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection” (826). Culture entails all the good things like helping your elderly neighbor with her groceries, getting up early in the morning to help your dad repaint the basement, “diminishing human misery”… you know, stuff like that. Arnold defines culture as the best that is known and thought which should propel us into doing good. The pursuit of perfection should bring about beauty, for beauty is just as important as goodness.
Culture brings about “the two noblest things, sweetness and light” (832). Sweetness and light refer to beauty and intelligence (or goodness). Poetry for Arnold links this sweetness and light better than a formal religion. The beauty of poetry and its strive for evoking perfect humanity falls into culture, making it Arnold’s substitution for religion.
Shelley’s definition of poetry echoes closely to Arnold’s culture: “Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds” (714). It seeks to capture a moment of perfect beauty. It “purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity” and exposes something beautiful out of something ordinary.
The perfection comes in that moment of beauty, but similar to Arnold’s strive for perfection, Shelley’s poetry “is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the poet.” (This line also echoes Emerson’s concept of the poets who try to write those “primal warblings” down but cannot produce a perfect copy because our human imperfections keep interfering.)
I guess what I’m trying to conclude is that poetry in its ideal form is perfection and poets try to capture that perfection so it can better mankind, but in reality the poet’s humanness interferes causing the poem to be notches below the poem’s ideal form. Yet, the poet still strives to capture that ideal and to reach that perfection.
1 comment:
So I guess it's a pretty Romantic view for the poet to be defined as the person who always strives for the sublime (and that word "strive" always instantly reminds me of Victorian lit), but it interested me that you said a poet's humanness is what interferes with the pursuit of the perfect. It seems like the concept of perfection is so subjective when it comes to something like poetry. So who defines perfection? Does it have a unique definition for every poet?
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