The Motive of Return in Matthew Arnold's Writings‪.‬

In an essay entitled "A Reading of Longinus," Neil Hertz acknowledges the willingness of admirers of Longinus "to release him from the strictures of theoretical discourse and allow him the license of a poet,"(1) and he also recognizes W. K. Wimsatt's charge that the ancient Greek "slides" between rhetorical topics in his presentation of argument. Hertz, then, finds that both defenders and detractors of Longinus ground their criticism in a distinction between poetry and prose. Seemingly taking up Wimsatt's position, Hertz adds: Thus Hertz alerts us to two aspects of his reading of Longinus: one, that he values digression from the proclaimed unity of the ancient's text, and two, that he responds to prose argument in a way that collapses the distinction between poetry and prose. It is remarkable how well Hertz's strategy for reading Longinus applies to a reading of Matthew Arnold, for Hertz notes: