Chapter 1 is 'Reading for meaning' - Practical Criticism and New Criticism The author starts off by saying that to understand English and American thought about literature in the 20th century, we must go back to the poet, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). Arnold felt that Darwin's theory of evolution made people question the Church and religion, so he placed a religious responsibility on poetry. He wrote an important book called 'Culture and Anarchy' in 1869 where he outlined his views. Arnold was familiar with Greek classical history and literature or 'Hellenism'. T.S Eliot in the early 1920s set out to define 'the best that had been thought and said in the world'. Eliot felt that poets must keep their emotion in check with 'wit'. The poet's private life should play no role in the presentation of the poem. Emotion must be conveyed indirectly. Eliot's own poems were complex and intellectual. He had been trained as a philosopher....
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