Touchstone Method

Touchstone Method is a term coined by Matthew Arnold, the famous Victorian poet and critic.

He introduced the term in his essay “Study of Poetry” to denote short but distinctive passages, selected from the writing of great poets, which he used to determine the excellence of passages or poems which are compared to them.

As Arnold puts it, “There can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent . . . than to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry.” He quotes eleven passages, three from Homer, three from Dante, three from Milton, and two from Shakespeare; all of them have a tone of melancholy about them.

Lines of intense poetic quality must be treasured by us, and kept well in our minds as guiding touchstones to great poetry. This concept has aroused a lot of controversy. However, we must realize that Arnold did not wish his touchstones to be compared unimaginatively with some other passages of other poets.

On the flip side, the touchstones have only a short range. Single passages do not prove his theory. Great authors and centuries of national traditions cannot be represented in a line or two.

The touchstone method also runs counter to the principle of totality in a work.
It's a theory put forward by Matthew Arnold. He suggests that the best way of judging excellence is to have at one's command some passages from the great masters such as Dante,Shakespeare et al. and such passages can be used as a “touchstone" with which to evaluate one's poetry. According to this theory, the critic must allow himself to feel the presence of high poetry in the select passages to avoid giving a falsely high estimate of inferior poetry.

Simply..Suppose if you are writing a poem,then you should compare that poem with a well-known poet's poem.This will make you understand the differrence and helps you in producing better poem.