Arnold's view on Romantics in his work "The function of criticism at the present time"

 Matthew Arnold was an English poet and critic of the Victorian age. Arnold was also a major cultural critic, and he became a vigorous defender of "high culture" Some consider Arnold to be a bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. 

Arnold's evaluations of the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are landmarks in descriptive criticism, and as a poet-critic he occupies an eminent position in the rich galaxy of poet-critics of English literature.

Arnold turns his back on the prevailing Romantic view of poetry and seeks to revive the Classical values of objectivity, urbanity, and architectonics. He denounces the Romantics for ignoring the Classical writers for the sake of novelty, and for their allusive, Arnold uses the word 'suggestive writing which defies easy comprehension.

Arnold makes clear his disapproval of the vagaries of some of the Romantic poets. Perhaps he would have agreed with Goethe, who saw Romanticism as disease and Classicism as health. But Arnold occasionally looked at things with jaundiced eyes, and he overlooked the positive features of Romanticism which posterity will not willingly let die, such as its humanitarianism, love of nature, love of childhood, a sense of mysticism, faith in man with all his imperfections, and faith in man's unconquerable mind.

Arnold was actually against romantic poetry. During the Victorian Period, he saw that materialism had dominated the life of the people. Religious values were crushed due to the development of science. Arnold knew the malady of his age very well and protested vigorously against it. 

He wanted to renew the permanent ethical values of life. He wished to reconstruct art on its true basis. He also believed that art would help men in achieving ethical values. Therefore, he has insisted on the union of the best subjects and the highest expression in poetry. Only poetry of this sort can achieve its ultimate end.