BY MATTHEW ARNOLD - CRITICAL APPRECIATION
The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;-on the French coast the light
Gleams 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 spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of 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 bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I can only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Dover Beach is Matthew Arnold's best known poem. Written in 1851 it was inspired by two visits he and his new wife Frances made to the
south coast of England, where the white cliffs of Dover stand, just
twenty two miles from the coast of France.
Many claim it to be a honeymoon poem.
A reluctant poet, Arnold said of poetry: 'More and more mankind will
discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to
console us, to sustain us.'
Arnold's "Dover Beach" presents the reader with a virtual journey
through time. Lamenting the transition from an age of certainty into an
era of erosion of traditions - Modernism - is the backbone of all four
stanzas of the poem, brought together in our imagination by the
nostalgic image of the sea. "Misery", "sadness" and "melancholy" reign
most of the poem, yet the author chooses to conclude it with an
emotional appeal for honesty: "Ah, love, let us be true/ to one another"
- as it is the only true certainty left as the world around collapses under
"struggle" and "fight". The poet's attitude towards the subject of the
poem is revealed through key words, which are also references to a
number of themes in the poem. The most obvious one of these is "the
sea" with its nostalgic nature and ability to represent time and
timelessness simultaneously. "Sadness", "misery", "melancholy", "pain"
accompany this effect and reveal the overall sense of regret and
helplessness the author feels before the powers of time and inevitable
change.
The tone of the piece is determined by the constant presence of
"melancholy" and "misery" in the poem that stretch on into the distance
with a "long withdrawing roar..." The calmness of the narrative voice
with which the piece is set to work ("the sea is calm to-night./ The tide
is full, the moon lies fair.") is essential for the descriptive nature of the
first stanza. Yet, later on its role is to emphasise the negativity in the
tone of the poem: "But now I only hear /Its melancholy...", "Into his
mind the turbid ebb and flow /of human misery..." The end of the piece,
however, implies that the alteration of the things around us is
something inevitable. The tone changes in the last verse of the poem in
the sense that it now not simply resents mutability, but is also a tone
pleading with the reader to realise nothing is as stable and reliable as
one perceives it, not to take the world for granted, and to stay "true/ to
one another".
The fundamental issues of the poem are not only obvious in its
conclusion. The theme of Time is being discussed in the second verse,
where Sophocles - an essential historic figure - is referred to. The
mentioning of England and France at the beginning of the first verse can
also be considered a historic reference and therefore - part of the
theme of Time as history is a natural subject of it. Time here is
represented by the image of the sea - with its vastness evoking
powerful admiration. The theme of mutability follows closely because of
the sea's unreliable nature. It is presented as something inevitable and
insecure and, in its turn, leads onto the theme of humans staying true
and honest to one another - this involving love for each other - as the
only way to remain together, "for the world, which seems/ to lie before
us like a land of dreams/ Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light."
The structure of the poem gives the immediate impression of being
inconsistent and built upon no particular rules. There are four verses,
none of which are alike, with no particular rhythm or rhyme pattern. Yet
its tremendous effect on the reader is wittily based upon the impression
of sharing the author's thoughts as we read - it seems easy to identify
with the subject matter just as the latter synchronise with the sea's
waves. The verses lead onto one another by theme although they appear
to be quite unconventionally structured. Thus the end of the first stanza
the image of sea and insecurity of the end of the second verse invites
the beginning of the following and ending verse. The unity of the poem
is in this way complete and its impact on the reader stretches far
beyond the lines.
straits - narrow passages of water
moon-blanched - made white or pale by the moon
tremulous - shaking, quivering
cadence - rhythm
Aegean - sea that lies between Greece and Turkey
turbid - confused,cloudy,obscure
shingle - tiny pebbles, stones on a beach
hath - have (archaic)
certitude - complete certainty,conviction
darkling - growing dark
Further Analysis
Dover Beach is a complex poem about the challenges to theosophical,
existential and moral issues. Important questions are raised after
reading this poem. What is life without faith? How do we gauge
happiness and loneliness? What gives life meaning?
The first stanza starts with a straightforward description of the sea and
the effects of light, but note the change in pace as the syllabic content
forces then relaxes with long and short vowels, mimicking the sea as
wavelets shift the pebbles.
Then in lines 6 and 9 there is an invitation - to come and fill your
senses - for the reader or for the speaker's companion? The speaker,
despite momentary excitement, concludes that the moonstruck sea
evokes sadness, perhaps because of the timeless monotony of the
waves.
A certain melancholy flows into the second stanza. Note the allusion to
Sophocles, a Greek dramatist (496-406BC), which brings a historical
perspective to the poem. His play Antigone has an interesting few lines:
"Happy are they whose life has not tasted evils. But for those whose
house has been shaken by God, no mass of ruin fails to creep upon
their families. It is like the sea-swell...when an undersea darkness
drives upon it with gusts of Thracian wind; it rolls the dark sand from
the depths, and the beaches, beaten by the waves and wind, groan and
roar."
So the tide becomes a metaphor for human misery; it comes in, it goes
out, bringing with it all the detritus, all the beauty and power, contained
in human life. Time and tide wait for no man so the saying goes, but
the waves are indifferent, hypnotically following the cycle of the moon.
Stanza three introduces the idea of religion into the equation. Faith is at
low tide, on its way out, where once it had been full. Christianity can no
longer wash away the sins of humanity; it is on the retreat.
Matthew Arnold was well aware of the profound changes at work in
western society. He knew that the old establishments were beginning to
crumble - people were losing their faith in God as the advancements in
technology and science and evolution encroached.
This vacuum needed to be filled and the speaker in stanza four suggests
that only strong personal love between individuals can withstand the
negative forces in the world. Staying true to each other can bring
meaning to an otherwise confused and confusing world.
Point of View
The poet/persona uses first-, second-, and third-person point of view in
the poem. Generally, the poem presents the observations of the
author/persona in third-person point of view but shifts to second person
when he addresses his beloved, as in line 6 (Come), line 9 (Listen!
you), and line 29 (let). Then he shifts to first-person point of view
when he includes his beloved and the reader as co-observers, as in Line
18 (we), Line 29 (us), Line 31 (us), and line 35 (we). He also uses
first-person point of view to declare that at least one observation is his
alone, and not necessarily that of his co-observers. This instance occurs
in line 24: But now I only hear. This line means But now I alone hear.
It's as if the speaker is looking into the future, with regard for the past,
declaring love for a special companion (or love for all humanity?) to be
the way forward if the world is to be survived.
Wars may rage on, the evolutionary struggle continue, only the
foundation of truth within love can guarantee solace.
“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold is dramatic monologue lamenting the
loss of true Christian faith in England during the mid 1800’s as science
captured the minds of the public. The poet’s speaker, considered to be
Matthew Arnold himself, begins by describing a calm and quiet sea out
in the English Channel. He stands on the Dover coast and looks across
to France where a small light can be seen briefly, and then vanishes.
This light represents the diminishing faith of the English people, and
those the world round. Throughout this poem the speaker/Arnold crafts
an image of the sea receding and returning to land with the faith of the
world as it changes throughout time. At this point in time though, the
sea is not returning. It is receding farther out into the strait.
Faith used to encompass the whole world, holding the populous tight in
its embrace. Now though, it is losing ground to the sciences, particularly
those related to evolution (The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was
published in 1859). The poem concludes pessimistically as the speaker
makes clear to the reader that all the beauty and happiness that one
may believe they are experiencing is not in fact real. The world is
actually without peace, joy, or help for those in need and the human
race is too distracted by its own ignorance to see where true assistance
is needed anymore.
Arnold begins this poem by giving a description of the setting in which
it is taking place. It is clear from the title, although never explicitly
stated in the poem, that the beach in question is Dover, on the coast of
England. The sea is said to be calm, there is beach on the water at full
tide. The moon “lies fair,” lovely, “upon the straits” (a strait is a narrow
passage of water such as the English Channel onto which Dover Beach
abuts).The speaker is able to see across the Channel to the French side
of the water. The lights on the far coast are visibly gleaming, and then
they disappear and the “cliffs of England” are standing by themselves
“vast” and “glimmering” in the bay. The light that shines then vanishes
representing to this speaker, and to Arnold himself, the vanishing faith
of the English people.
No one around him seems to see the enormity of what it happening, the
night is quiet. There is a calm the speaker refers to as “tranquil.” But as
the reader will come to see, many things may seem one way but
actually exist as the opposite.
Now the speaker turns to another person that is in the scene with him,
and asks that this unnamed person comes to the window and breathe in
the “sweet…night-air!”
Perhaps most interestingly, the first stanza switches from visual to
auditory descriptions, including "the grating roar" and "tremulous
cadence slow." The evocation of several senses fills out the experience
more, and creates the sense of an overwhelming and all-encompassing
moment.
The speaker draws his companion’s
attention to the sound that the water makes as it rushes in over the
pebbles on the shore. They roll over one another creating, “the grating
roar.” This happens over and over again as the sea recedes and returns.
The slow cadence of this movement, and its eternal repetitions, seem
sad to the narrator. As if the returning sea is bringing with it, “The
eternal note of sadness in.”
The second stanza is much shorter and relates the world in which the
two characters are in to the larger picture of history. The speaker states
that “long ago” Sophocles also heared this sound on the Ægean sea as
the tides came in. It too brought to his mind the feelings of “human
misery” and how these emotions “ebb and flow.” Sophocles, who
penned the play Antigone, is one of the best known dramatic writers of
Ancient Greece.
In the third stanza of the poem it becomes clear that Arnold is in fact
speaking about the diminishing faith of his countrymen and women. He
describes, “The Sea of Faith” once covered all of the “round earth’s
shore” and held everyone together like a girdle. Now though, this time
as passed. No longer is the populous united by a common Christian faith
in God by, as Arnold sees it, spread apart by new sciences and
conflicting opinions.
The comparison that he has been crafting between the drawing away,
and coming in of the sea is now made clear as his speaker says there is
no longer any return. The sea is only receding now, “melancholy,” and
“long.”
At the beginning of the fourth stanza it becomes clear that the
companion who is looking out over the water with the speaker is most
likely a lover or romantic partner.
He speaks now directly to her, and perhaps, to all those true believers
in God that are still out there. He asks that they remain true to one
another in this “land of dreams.” The world is no longer what it was, it
is more like a dream than the reality he is used to. It is a land that
appears to be full of various beautiful, new and joyous things but that is
not the case. This new world is in fact without “joy…love…[or] light…
certitude… [or] peace,” or finally, help for those in pain. It is not what it
appears to be.
He reflects that underneath this veneer of calm, there is something
more volatile and unsettling: ‘the grating roar / Of pebbles which the
waves draw back, and fling, / At their return, up the high strand’. This
sounds like a simple description of the waves tossing the pebbles about
the place on the shingly beach, but behind it there lurks the Victorians’
geological fascination with pebbles, shells, and other remnants of the
Earth’s distant past. Geology had been a hot talking point for the
Victorians ever since Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology appeared in
1830-33 (indeed, this was several years before Victoria came to the
throne in 1837). These pebbles may be more than window-dressing (as
it were) for Arnold’s poem, then: they may be an oblique reference to
the science of He reflects that underneath this veneer of calm, there is
something more volatile and unsettling: ‘the grating roar / Of pebbles
which the waves draw back, and fling, / At their return, up the high
strand’. This sounds like a simple description of the waves tossing the
pebbles about the place on the shingly beach, but behind it there lurks
the Victorians’ geological fascination with pebbles, shells, and other
remnants of the Earth’s distant past. Geology had been a hot talking
point for the Victorians ever since Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology
appeared in 1830-33 (indeed, this was several years before Victoria
came to the throne in 1837). These pebbles may be more than
window-dressing (as it were) for Arnold’s poem, then: they may be an
oblique reference to the science of geology that had done so much to
undermine many Victorians’ faith in the Biblical account of Creation
(see, for instance, John Ruskin’s comment about ‘those dreadful
hammers’).
So, the ‘Sea of Faith’ is retreating. What hope is there for humanity?
Arnold calls upon his newlywed wife to show solidarity and fidelity: if
we cannot have faith in religion, we can have faith in each other, in
human companionship and love. It’s possible that Arnold’s bleak vision
of a (potentially) godless world was influenced by Tennyson’s famous
depiction of a bleak world – of ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’ – in his
popular 1850 poem In Memoriam. Interestingly, Tennyson’s ‘dinosaur
cantos’ also seem to end by entreating human beings to find comfort in
each other, with his ‘behind the veil’ implying that marriage and love
will console us against our loss of faith in a divine plan for our future
and well-being.
He explores this contradiction through what is possibly the poem's most
famous stanza, that which compares his experience to that of Sophocles.
The comparison could be trite, if the point were merely that someone
long before had appreciated the same type of beauty that he does.
However, it is poignant because it reveals a darker potential in the
beautiful. What natural beauty reminds us of is human misery. Because
we can recognize the beauty in nature, but can never quite transcend
our limited natures to reach it, we might be drawn to lament as well as
celebrate it. The two responses are not mutually exclusive. This
contradictory feeling is explored in many of Arnold's poems - "The
Scholar-Gipsy" and "A Dream" are two examples - and he shows in
other poems an instinct towards the tragic, the human inability to
transcend our weakness (an example would be "Consolation," which
presents time as a tragic force). Thus, the allusion to Socrates, a Greek
playwright celebrated for his tragedies, is particularly apt.
Such a dual experience - between celebration of and lament for
humanity - is particularly possible for Arnold, since mankind has traded
faith for science following the publication of On the Origin of Species
and the rise of Darwinism. Ironically, the tumult of nature - out on the
ocean - is nothing compared to the tumult of this new way of life. It is
this latter tumult that frightens the speaker, that has him beg his lover
to stay true to him. He worries that the chaos of the modern world will
be too great, and that she will be shocked to discover that even in the
presence of great beauty like that outside their window, mankind is
gearing up for destruction. Behind even the appearance of faith is the
new order, and he hopes that they might use this moment to keep them
together despite such uncertainty.
The poem epitomizes a certain type of poetic experience, in which the
poet focuses on a single moment in order to discover profound depths.
Here, the moment is the visceral serenity the speaker feels in studying
the landscape, and the contradictory fear that that serenity then leads
him to feel. To accomplish that end, the poem uses a lot of imagery and
sensory information. It begins with mostly visual depictions, describing
the calm sea, the fair moon, and the lights in France across the
Channel. "The cliffs of England stand/Glimmering and vast" not only
describes the scene, but establishes how small the two humans detailed
in the poem are in the face of nature.
The poem concludes with a pessimistic outlook on the state of the
planet. As the people are suffering around the world on “a darkling
plain,” confused and fighting for things they don’t understand, real
suffering is going on and faith is slipping away.
‘Dover Beach’ is one of the best-known and best-loved of Victorian
poems, and the most widely anthologised poem by a Victorian figure
whose poetic output was considerably slimmer than that of many of his
contemporaries, such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson or Robert Browning.
Time has not been overly kind to Matthew Arnold either: the poems for
which he is remembered in the popular imagination tend to be confined
to ‘The Scholar-Gipsy’, ‘To Marguerite: Continued’, ‘Shakespeare’, and –
most of all – ‘Dover Beach’, which has been subjected to much critical
analysis already. Here is Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’, the poem which sums
up an era, along with a few words about its language and meaning.
otes, Stanza 1
moon . . . straits: The water reflects the image of the moon. A strait is
a narrow body of water that connects two larger bodies of water. In this
poem, straits refers to the Strait of Dover (French: Pas de Calais), which
connects the English Channel on the south to the North Sea on the
north. The distance between the port cities of Dover, England, and
Calais, France, is about twenty-one miles via the Strait of Dover.
light . . . gone: This clause establishes a sense of rhythm in that the
light blinks on and off. In addition, the clause foreshadows the message
of later lines--that the light of faith in God and religion, once strong,
now flickers. Whether an observer at Dover can actually see a light at
Calais depends on the height of the lighthouse and the altitude at which
the observer sees the light (because of the curvature of the earth), on
the brightness of the light, and on the weather conditions.
cliffs . . . vast: These are white cliffs, composed of chalk, a limestone
that easily erodes. Like the light from France, they glimmer, further
developing the theme of a weakening of the light of faith
moon-blanched: whitened by the light of the moon.
grating . . . .pebbles: Here, grating (meaning rasping, grinding, or
scraping) introduces conflict between the sea and the land and,
symbolically, between long-held religious beliefs and the challenges
against them. However, it may be an exaggeration that that pebbles
cause a grating roar.
Sophocles . . . Aegean: Arnold alludes here to a passage in the ancient
Greek play Antigone, by Sophocles, in which Sophocles says the gods
can visit ruin on people from one generation to the next, like a swelling
tide driven by winds.
it: "the eternal note of sadness" (line 14).
Aegean: The sea between Greece and Turkey. In the time of Sophocles,
the land occupied by Turkey was known as Anatolia.
turbid: muddy, cloudy
Find . . . thought: In the sound of the sea, the poet "hears" a thought
that disturbs him as did the one heard by Sophocles.
Sea . . . full: See theme, above, for an explanation.
girdle: sash, belt; anything that surrounds or encircles
I only hear: I alone hear
shingles: gravel on the beach
Interpretation
There was a time when faith in God was strong and comforting. This
faith wrapped itself around us, protecting us from doubt and despair, as
the sea wraps itself around the continents and islands of the world.
Now, however, the sea of faith has become a sea of doubt. Science
challenges the precepts of theology and religion; human misery makes
people feel abandoned, lonely. People place their faith in material
things.
neither . . . pain: The world has become a selfish, cynical, amoral,
materialistic battlefield; there is much hatred and pain, but there is no
guiding light.
darkling: dark, obscure, dim; occurring in darkness; menacing,
threatening, dangerous, ominous.
Where . . . night: E.K. Brown and J.O. Bailey suggest that this line is an
allusion to Greek historian Thucydides' account of the Battle of Epipolae
(413 BC), a walled fortress near the city of Syracuse on the island of
Sicily. In that battle, Athenians fought an army of Syracusans at night.
In the darkness, the combatants lashed out blindly at one another.
Brown and Bailey further observe that the line "suggests the confusion
of mid-Victorian values of all kinds . . . " (Brown, E.K, and J.O. Bailey,
eds. Victorian Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1962, page 831).
Interpretation
Let us at least be true to each other in our marriage, in our moral
standards, in the way we think; for the world will not be true to us.
Although it presents itself to us as a dreamland, it is a sham. It offers
nothing to ease our journey through life.
Figures of Speech
Arnold uses a variety of figures of speech, including the following
examples. (For definitions of the different figures of speech, see the
glossary of literary terms:
Alliteration Examples 1: to-night , tide; full, fair (Lines 1-2); gleams,
gone; coast, cliff; long line; which the waves; folds, furled
Assonance: tide, lies;
Paradox and Hyperbole: grating roar of pebbles
Metaphor: which the waves draw back, and fling (comparison of the
waves to an intelligent entity that rejects that which it has captured)
Metaphor: turbid ebb and flow of human misery (comparison of human
misery to the ebb and flow of the sea)
Metaphor: TheSea of Faith (comparison of faith to water making up an
ocean)
Simile: The Sea of Faith . . . lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled
(use of like to compare the sea to a girdle)
Metaphor: breath of the night-wind (comparison of the wind to a living
thing)
Simile: the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams
(use of like to compare the world to a land of dreams)
Anaphora: So various, so beautiful, so new (repetition of so)
Anaphora: nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for
pain (repetition of nor)
Dover Beach is a poem that offers the reader different perspectives on
life, love and landscape. Arnold chose to use first, second and third
person point of view in order to fully engage with the reader. This adds
a little uncertainty. Note the changes in lines 6, 9, 18, 24, 29, 35.
There is varied line length, 37 in total, split into 4 stanzas, the first of
which is a mixed up sonnet with a rhyme scheme abacebecdfcgfg, a sure
signal of a break with convention.
The second stanza of 6 lines also has end rhymes, as does the third
stanza, and the fourth stanza of 9 lines concludes with a repeat of the
initial end rhymes.
Rhyming always brings with it a clear relationship between pattern and
harmony, between voice and ear. The more frequent the rhyme of
regular lines the more confident the reader becomes and arguably, the
less complex the poem.
When that rhyme is varied, as in Dover Beach, more interest is
generated for the reader and listener. Line length, enjambment and
internal rhyme also help to add spice.
Enjambment is very important in this poem as it reinforces the
action of the tidal sea, coming in, relaxing, then moving out again. As in
lines 9-14 for example. Enjambment works together with other
punctuation to maintain this pattern throughout Dover Beach.
The third stanza, with figurative language, contains a fascinating word
mix, the letters f, d and l being prominent, whilst assonance plays it
role:
once/too/round/shore
like/bright/girdle
melancholy/long/roar
Two examples of simile can be found in lines 23 and 31.
Anaphora, repeated words, are used in lines 32 and 34.
Combinations such as bright girdle furled and naked shingles of the
world add to the liquid feel of the scene.
Alliteration can be found in the last stanza:
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
And the final two lines are packed with an irresistible spread of vowels:
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Arnold sees life ahead as a continual battle against the darkness and,
with the decay of Christianity and the demise of faith, only the beacon
of interpersonal love can light the way.
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