Thomas Mac Millan

DOVER BEACHM AT T H E W A R N O L D

Victorian Times

oFrom 1837-1901 during the reign of Queen Victoria.

oLink between periods.

oHigh literary point.

oWorks tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives.

oFamous Novelists and Poets include: Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Lord Tennyson.

oThe style became more complex as the century progressed.

Matthew Arnoldo Born in 1822 and died in 1888.

o Notable Works: “Dover Beach”, “The scholar-gipsy” and “Literature and Dogma”

o Called the Third Great Victorian Poet, along with Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning.

o In 1869 he stated:“I have less poetical sentiment than

Tennyson and less intellectual vigor than Browning; because I have more fusion and regularity applied to the main line of the modern development.”

o In 1867 he wrote “Dover Beach” considered the first example of the modern sensibility. The use of symbolic landscapes was typical of the Romantic era, while his pessimistic perspective was typical of the modern era.

ContextIn "Dover Beach," poet Matthew Arnold set this poem on the beach of the same name. This is the narrowest point on the English Channel where the lights of the French coast and the white cliffs are only about 20 miles away.

The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long agoHeard it on the A gaean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Dramatic Situation

The poet uses 1st, 2nd and 3rd person point of view in the poem. Generally, the poem is presented in 3rd person but it shifts to 2nd person when he addresses his beloved. Again, he shifts to 1st person when he includes his beloved.

The person addressed in the poem is Matthew Arnold’s wife, Frances Lucy. However since the poem expresses an universal message we can say that the listener is any woman.

The poem is a almost a dramatic monologue in which a man is telling his observations to a woman.

Tone: mournful tone -> e.g. Verse 14 “The eternal note of sadness in”Mood: Sadness, mournful. The mood created matches the tone.

Form and Structure

-37 Verses divided in 4 stanzas, each with a variable number of verses.

-Because the meter and rhyme vary from line to line, the poem is said to be free in verse.

-The last stanza has an “ABBACDDC” assonant rhyme.

Theme and Subject

The speaker is beckoning a woman to come to the window, where he is, so that she also can view the scene which he believes portrays a lack of faith.

The theme can be summarized into:The lack of faith in the world leads to ignorant conflict.

The tides represent the lack of commitment and faith of people and the last stanza tells us how that world could be: a world without joy, love, light, certitude, peace...The last verse is the final sentence. “Ignorant armies will clash”.

Analysis per stanza – 1st

The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in.

Repetition of “is” to illustrate the scene.

Alliteration

Auditory Imagery and Hyperbole. Metaphor: conflict between sea and land (old religious belief vs. modernism)

Metaphor (faith as it comes and retreats)

Visual Imagery

Metaphor: foreshadows the message of later lines (the light of faith in god and religion, once strong, now flickers.

Only hint of humanity.

2nd Stanza

Sophocles long agoHeard it on the A gaean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

Allusion – Sophocles heard the similar sound at the “Aegean” sea

The eternal note of sadness

Metaphor, In the sea, the lyrics speaker hears a thought that disturbs him as did the one heard by Sophocles.The Turbid human misery

3rd Stanza

The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.

Metaphor: religion could still be experienced without any doubt and full of faith.

Allusion with clothes: When the religion was full of faith it is bright (like the folds…), Now that the faith is gone, the world lies helpless.

Aural Imagery:It’s too late now the lyrics speaker just hears melancholy.

Girdle: a belt, cord, sash, or the like, worn about the waist.Shingles: gravel on the beach.

Simile of the sea with a girdle

Personification: the wind can’t breath.

4th Stanza

Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Metaphor: “please let us be true” is a response of what the world has become.

Anaphora, repetition of So.

Anaphora (nor):

Without faith and full of doubts the world has become: selfish, cynical, amoral, etc.

There is no more guiding light as we saw in Stanza 1.

All these are human values, this raises the question of what remains at all.

Darkling: dark, obscure, dim, menacing, dangerous.

Allusion: Peloponnesian War, soldiers were confused at night and killed their teammates.

Contrast: Land of Dream with the love of the opening verse and the darkling plain (change of scenario)

Human values disappeared as well as the religion and light, leaving humanity in darkness

Syntax

Matthew Arnold uses a lot of adjectives to enhance the poem’s language, such as “tremulous cadence” and “eternal note of sadness”. These help to increase the general melancholic feeling of the poem.

Elements and Symbols

Sea: The sea is both a symbol and metaphor, referencing the “eternal note of sadness” as well as the “Sea of faith”. The sea shows the fact that man float in their life on a series of waves that move up and down, that bring us close to happiness but only to pull us out again.

Dove: a dove is a white bird that is often used as a symbol of peace. Arnold could turn this noun and symbol into an adjective, “Dover” -> The Peaceful beach. This fact highlights the idea of God’s light and white cliff of the Dover strait.