SOURCE: Trilling, Lionel. “The Spirit of Criticism.” In Matthew Arnold, pp. 190-221. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949.

In the following excerpt, Trilling examines Arnold's widespread influence as a literary critic.

For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always in the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

—Descartes

Arnold was the most influential critic of his age: the estimate must be as unequivocal as this. Other critics may have been momentarily more exciting; none was eventually more convincing. T. S. Eliot has said that the academic literary opinions of our time were formed by Arnold; F. O. Matthiessen, recalling this...