Arnold's assessment of Chaucer and Burns in "The Study of Poetry" -

"The Study of Poetry" is a famous critical work by Matthew Arnold, a great Victorian poet, literary critic, and also an educationist. In this essay, Arnold asserts that Burns and Chaucer are not great classics. He here gives plausible reason behind his assertion.
   
                According to Arnold, poetry is at the bottom 'a criticism of life'. He says that great poetry must have "a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can." And he also adds that in order to be a classic, the poet must be able to fill us and our life with joy and delight and also guide is toward the right way.

               Accoding to Arnold, "Chaucer is not one of the great classics." Though Chaucer has a 'poetic truth of substance' and 'poetic truth of style', 'he has not their accent'. Arnold says that, "the substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity, but it has not their high seriousness." Arnold praises his 'divine liquidness of diction', 'divine fluidity of movement', but does not place him among the classics. He also praises him by saying that "With him is born out real poetry" and "Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry."  But he is not like the 'great classics'.

              He even does not place Burns among the classics. He says, "Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the great classics." And he also asserts, "virtue of matter and manner which goes with that high seriousness is wanting to his work." He claims that Burns has the 'truth of matter and truth of manner', but he has not "the accent or the poetic virtue of the highest masters."