The first volume of Essays in Criticism was published in 1865.  That a book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character, so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort, should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality.  What Arnold called his “sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding” tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two volumes of Essays in Criticism and the volume of Mixed Essays discloses what that purpose is.  The essays may roughly be divided into two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing subjects of more general nature.  The purpose of both is what Arnold himself has called “the humanization of man in society.”  In the former he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates it for us.  But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewhere in the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us the essence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escape us.  How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much to illustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to his readers.  Besides the general purpose of humanization, two other considerations guide him:  the racial shortcomings of the English people and the needs of his age.  The English are less in need of energizing and moralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with the passion for perfection.  This need accordingly determines the choice in most cases.  So Milton presents an example of “sure and flawless perfection of rhythm and diction”; Joubert is characterized by his intense care of “perfecting himself”; Falkland is “our martyr of sweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper”; George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal life the normal one; Emerson is “the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit.”

The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanization determines Arnold’s loyalty to that form of art; that classical art is superior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect, determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry.  He thus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet has experienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it.  Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope and his contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand and Goethe on the other for his exemplars.  He feels “the peculiar charm and aroma of the Middle Age,” but retains