To Arnold a critic is a social benefactor.Before Arnold a literary critic cared only for the beauties and defects of works of art, but Arnold the critic chose to be the educator and guardian of public opinion and propagator of the best ideas.Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold.Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold. He gives the principles by which the best poems should be selected. Aristotle says that poetry is superior to History since it bears the stamp of high seriousness and truth. If truth and seriousness are lacking in the subject matter of a poem, so will the true poetic stamp of diction and movement be found lacking in its style and manner. Hence, the nobility of subject matter, and the superiority of style and manner, are proportional and cannot occur independently. Grand style arises in poetry when a noble nature, poeticallgifted, treats with simplicity or with a severity a serious subject

Architectonics: Arnold asserts the importance of architectonics that is the necessity of achieving unity by subordinating the parts to the whole, and the expression of ideas to the depiction of human action, and condemns poems which exist for the sake of single lines or
passages. Scattered images can only provide partial effects, and not contribute to unity
so much of his thought and outlook became part of the general educated consciousness. To Arnold's method of criticism is comparative. Steeped in classical poetry, and thoroughly acquainted with continental literature, he compares English literature to French and German literature, adopting the disinterested approach he had learned from Sainte-Beuve.

Arnold's objective approach to criticism and his view that historical and biographical study are unnecessary was very influential on the new criticism. His emphasis on the importance of tradition also influenced F. R. Leavis, and T. S. Eliot. In an age when cheap literature caters to the taste of the common man, one might fear that the classics will fade into insignificance. But Arnold is sure that the currency and the supremacy of the classics will be preserved in the modern age.

Arnold was unable to practise disinterestedness in all his essays. Arnold sometimes became a satirist, and as a satirical critic saw things too quickly, too summarily. he overlooked the positive features of Romanticism such as its humanitarianism, love of nature, love of childhood,faith in man. Arnold's love of classicism made him blind to the beauty of lyricism. It was also unfair of Arnold to compare the classical works to modern poetry. Arnold upheld the supreme importance of the architectonic faculty, then later shifted his ground.