❐ Examine Matthew Arnold's The Scholar Gipsy as an illustration of his view that poetry is a criticism of life.
Or
❐ Clearly bring out Arnold's attitude to Victorian life as revealed in The Scholar Gipsy.
Ans. :- Arnold describes poetry as a criticism of life in his famous essay The Study of Poetry. This criticism of life means 'a disinterested attempt to see things as they really are, in the course of which value-judgements naturally and almost insensibly form themselves.'
The Scholar Gipsy as a criticism of life will be examined against the background of Victorian England. Very early Arnold found his age distracting and fragmentary and determined to seek unity, completeness, and wholeness. To the sensitive Victorian, life moved with alarming rapidity, change was everywhere and what was more disturbing, a new attitude toward society was working in people's mind so that the old ways no longer seemed adequate to the pressing contemporary problems. It was a fluid, swiftly moving age, one in which were first felt the real effects of three great revolutions which have made the modern world : the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and what may be termed the Spiritual Revolution. The widespread use of the basic inventions of the power loom, the steam-engine etc. is a characteristic of the nineteenth century England. The long war with France intensified England's industrial development and speeded up the search for more productive methods in agriculture, mining and industry. The Enclosure Acts, the swift and haphazard growth of London and the industrial cities of the North, with the accompanying problems of housing sanitation and local government and the new and little understood problems of the capitalist and the labourer in industry gave Victorian England a legacy of unsolved social and economic problems which compelled attention. The railroad not only revolutionized travel and people's concept of speed, but changed England's economic and financial life. The new industrial techniques of manufacturing cotton and woollen cloth, iron plate, and rails enabled England to export to the rest of the world. Victorian England became the workshop of the world. In terms of government Victorian England was the seat of an expanding electorate, new means of handling and organizing the increasing number of voters, the growing number of members of Parliament, and New administrative and legal techniques to cope with the problems of industrial and urban England.
As one reads the religious and literary records of the beginning and end of Victorian reign, it is clear that society became more secular and more individualistic. The change was neither smooth nor continuous but under the impact of the scientific investigation of the text of the Bible and the study of geology and biology the nature of many people's religious faith changed. Some abandoned their faith in traditional Christian religion, others joined the Roman Catholic Church. For many of the most thoughtful Victorian the universe had become a hostile place, or at best a neutral battle-ground, devoid of values or any support for values.
The Victorian time, then, was a swiftly changing time. The old forms of government, religion, and society had been broken by the very forces which in their outworking complicated the organisation of new framework of life. The times demanded new methods of economic and social organization, new values and attitudes or re-interpretations of the old. It was an active, buoyant, expansive time, exciting to some, frightening to others, challenging to all.
Judged in the perspective of the age, The Scholar Gipsy clearly reflects Arnold's attitude to Victorian life. We, men of modern times, without any aim or purpose in life constantly strive after many a thing. Hence we repeatedly suffer from the shocks of failures and disappointments. These sap our energies and benumb the free activity of the intellectual powers. We heart-breakingly lack concentration and dissipate our energies upon many things and ultimately give up our life to the tutelary spirit that accompanies a man throughout our life. We remain in the state in which we have always been doing no good to any one. The poet deplores :
'For what wears out the life of mortal men?
'Tis that from change to change their being rolls;
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls,
And numb the elastic powers.
Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,
And tir'd upon a thousand schemes our wit,
To the just-pausing Genius we remit
Our worn-out life. and are - what we have been.
The Scholar Gipsy had left 'with powers fresh, undiverted to the world without.' He had not yet been dissipated by the unhealthy weariness of the spirit and attitude of doubt. He did not engage himself in worldly strife which tires us. We falter and hesitate with no purpose at all or aim before us. No one of us lives a full life. We all live in fragments. We also wait for something but we do not hope to ever attain it. On the other hand, the life of the Scholar Gipsy is unlike ours :
O Life unlike to ours !
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
Of whom each strives, not knows for what he strives,
And each half lives a hundred different lives;
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.'
The Scholar Gipsy awaits the sudden flash of inspiration and so we do. But the difference is that we have neither any firm faith nor any strong will. Our understanding of the problems of life does not take any concrete shape. We lack vague decisions and do not carry them out. Each year brings new adventures to us. But we hesitate and waver. We make fresh beginnings again and again and reap fresh disappointments again and again. We thus fritter away our energies and allow ourselves to drift in life :
'For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day'-
We, the moderns, await the flash of inspiration to save us from our present frustration. But is never comes. So we suffer agonies of disappointment. We do not expect happiness in our life. We lack in the firm determination to bear up everything resolutely. Our patience is only another name for despair :
... ... and we others pine,
And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
And waive al claim to bliss, and try to bear;
With close-lipp'd Patience for our only friend,
Sad Patience too near neighbour to Despair -
Modern life is afflicted with sick hurry and divided aims. It is full of unhealthy haste in the pursuit of aims. Our life in the age has been cumbersome with problems. We have lost the power for human sufferings. So the poet asks the Scholar Gipsy to preserve his solitary consolation 'from the strange disease of :
... ... modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rifle'-
The poet once again asks the Scholar Gipsy to run away form the modern age. If he catches the contamination of this strange disease of the modern age, his hopes will waver, his mental powers will dwindle away, his purposes will be made uncertain, his aims will become confused. He will furthermore lose his everlasting youthfulness :
'But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly !
For strong the infection of our mental strife,
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;
... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers,
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.