Arnold Bennett's ten step plan for learning to appreciate poetry
You can do this on your lunch break
Clear your mind of all “present notions” about verse.
Read Hazlitt’s “On Poetry In General”.
One week later, read it again.
Read Chapter 40 of Isaiah.
Go back to Hazlitt. See if you can find anything “which throws light on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading Isaiah.”
Read ‘The Brothers’ by Wordsworth. Preferably, read aloud. It is a story: read it as such. Repeat step 5: what do you notice about your response?
Read Wordsworth’s poetical essays: the ‘Advertisement’, ‘Preface’, and Appendix’ to Lyrical Ballads; Letters to Lady Beaumont, ‘The Friend’, and ‘Preface’ to the 1815 poems. (Bennett recommends Wordsworth’s Literary Criticism, ed. by Nowell C. Smith.)
Read other narrative poems like ‘Michael’.
Read Aurora Leigh. (He prefers this to something like Paradise Lost.)
Go back to Hazlitt. He deals with Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope—read what interests you “under his guidance”.
This isn’t how I went about things, at all, but the first five steps at least seem sensible enough. Perhaps the opening of Ecclesiastes would be a better choice than Isaiah these days (Bennet thinks that the Isaiah verses will be familiar, but who knows Isaiah now? Of course, many readers of The Common Reader will know it…) Some people will not find the Wordsworth conducive. Personally I prefer many of the 1815 poems. Overall, Bennett has Romantic prejudices you may not share. I would advocate for more use of an anthology. And more memorisation. You may also find that, to begin with, you do not want take such a critical approach and would prefer to follow your nose rather than doing what Hazlitt tells you (although you should read Hazlitt at some point, he is among the greats). Still, I hope some of you find this of some use. It is taken from Literary Taste and How to Form It.
On 7th July I am debating James Marriott about the future of English Literature for Interintellect. Book your ticket here.
An interesting approach, except ... Aurora Leigh? Really? I speak from hard experience here: I once had the bright idea of teaching a class which included Aurora Leigh as one of the main set books, and my students absolutely hated it.
It's one of those books that, I feel, works much better as an idea - there are lots of great themes in it to discuss, including some of highly topical interest (sexual violence, for example): it's very fruitful for certain kinds of literary scholarship. But it's really hard going for modern readers (again, at least going by my experience), partly because it ends up in a place which is not at all what would be called conventionally feminist (to put it mildly), partly because of the ludicrous plot-twist in the final act, but mostly because, to be frank, the writing just isn't that memorable. EBB was a remarkable poet on a small scale, but I feel she struggled to maintain that kind of consistency in a book-length narrative poem - she isn't Tennyson or Wordsworth, let alone Milton. There are occasional sparks of brilliance in particular lines or sections, but one can read pages of Aurora Leigh without coming across any.
Maybe Bennett found more to his taste in it than I do. And I would probably agree that one shouldn't launch into Paradise Lost too early in one's poetic explorations. But there are many, many narrative poems out there which are much more accessible and attractive than Aurora Leigh.
Wow. Let me try if only during lunch break. Thanks.