Mathew Arnold: thinking activity

Q1- Write about a Idea of  Matthew Arnold which you find interesting and relevant in our times.

ANS: 

Matthew Arnold was a well known critic and poet of 19th century.He has given very apt definition of Poetry that- 'poetry is criticism of life', it is truly relevant in our time. I am agree with the idea of, definition of poetry by Arnold and for that I would like to give one example from Sabika Abbas's poetry namely "SAREE". In which she criticized not only male dominated society but also Politics,Castism and oppression of people of Kashmir.  

    
He also talked about the Idea of 'Disinterestedness' or 'Detachment'.'Disinterestedness on the part of the critic implies freedom from all prejudices, personal or historical'.Here Arnold tries to say that Detachment is behoove for critic. Critic should be free from all prejudices, he wants to make decision without partiality. critic have to forget his prejudices of personal as well historical, but it highly depends upon critics whether they follow or not.
e.g.= 

1. Drop of oil in water
2. Umpire of cricket 

Q2- Write about one idea of Matthew Arnold which you found out of date and irrelevant in our times.   

ANS:

I think Matthew Arnold's theory of "TOUCHSTONE METHOD' is out of date and irrelevant in our time. because, Arnold's general principle, the" Touchstone Method" introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools for judging individual poets.Arnold's ideal poets are Homer and Sophocles in the ancient world, Dante and Milton among moderns, Goethe and Wordsworth in moderns, thus according to Arnold Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, and Shelley fall short of the best, because they lack "high seriousness". But I don't think that -any work of any writer can be judge by only a piece of few caplets or a small paragraph. I think people have their own parameters,they can think on their own way ,so they don't want to borrow anything from past to judge current works.