The Morning Critic by Marifa Khan

broadens our own vision and offers a perspective that we may have not
thought of before. It is a great medium to strengthen our literary
knowledge. However, with the benefits of literary criticism, there are quite
a few downsides that come along, one of them being the trend of classism.
Classist opinions are, unfortunately, very prevalent in the works of many
well-known critics like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Matthew Arnold.
Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria offers different perspective with which to
look at poetry, and while it does so in an excellent manner, it also portrays
discriminatory opinions. He believed informal language or the language
used by the common people was not adequate to generate superior
thoughts and emotions. While learning to speak in formal, high class
language can be an expansion of knowledge, it certainly is not the only
medium of expression.
Matthew Arnold’s The Study of Poetry offers a strong
yet problematic belief that only critics who carry
knowledge of prior great works can criticise art.
Through this statement, he was creating a limitation
to who can and cannot offer their criticism. Being as
academically powerful and influential as he was, it is
no surprise that he put his faith wholeheartedly in
education. However, not only the educated population are capable of
showing different, creative perspectives of literature.
Critics like Coleridge and Arnold present numerous educational aspects
through their works. However, their strong opinions on idealising and
allowing only a certain class of people to be able to access and create
literature are restrictive and incorrect.
Page 6| The Morning Critic| 13 September, 2022