As a metaphor, a touchstone is any physical or intellectual measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested. It is similar in use to an acid test, or a litmus test in politics.
The word was introduced into literary criticism by Matthew Arnold in "Preface to the volume of 1853 poems" (1853) to denote short but distinctive passages, selected from the writings of the greatest poets, which he used to determine the relative value of passages or poems which are compared to them. Arnold proposed this method of evaluation as a corrective for what he called the "fallacious" estimates of poems according to their "historic" importance in the development of literature, or else according to their "personal" appeal to an individual critic.[1]
- ^ Abrams, M.H; Glossary of Literary Terms