Three studies in literature

These Studies were originally introductory essays in volumes of selections from the prose writings of Jeffrey, Newman, and Arnold. The essay on Jeffrey has been rewritten and ex...

It follows that, when Jeffrey is dealing with purely literary questions, he is less argumentative than at other times, and that what has been said of his viewing every subject i...

Besides the light it throws on Jeffrey’s quarrel with Romanticism, his theory of beauty is of special significance because it emphasizes the genuineness and intensity of his eth...

His dealings with Goldsmith between 1755 and 1765, and with William Taylor of Norwich between 1790 and 1800, illustrate his narrow policy in the conduct of the _Monthly_ and his...

Newman’s loving regard for these traits of St. Philip’s genius is a revelation of some of the deepest instincts of his nature,--instincts which must at once be brought into view...

The application of all this,--particularly of what Newman says touching the persuasiveness of a personal appeal,--to the whole method of the _Apologia_ hardly needs pointing out...

“And in you I gather up and bear in memory those familiar, affectionate companions and counsellors, who, in Oxford, were given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace an...

Mediævalism, as we have seen, was a distinctive note of the Romantic spirit, and, certainly, Newman was intensely alive to the beauty and the poetic charm of the life of the Mid...

In the lectures on _Celtic Literature_ Arnold points out, in closing, that it has been his aim to lead Englishmen to “reunite themselves with their better mind and with the worl...

A last illustration of Arnold’s insistence that knowledge be vital may be drawn from his writings on religion and theology. Again criticism and culture are the passwords that op...

To bring together, then, the results of this somewhat protracted analysis: Arnold ostensibly admits that poetry, to be of the highest excellence, must, in addition to containing...

In a letter of 1863 Arnold speaks of the great transformation which “in this concluding half of the century the English spirit is destined to undergo.” “I shall do,” he adds, “w...

Akin to Arnold’s skilful use of reiteration is his ingenuity in the invention of telling nicknames. On three classes of his fellow-countrymen he has bestowed names that have bec...

[38] This image may have been suggested by a sentence of Joubert’s: “Plato loses himself in the void, but one sees the play of his wings, one hears their rustle.... It is good t...