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Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

            In 1867 Arnold wrote his most famous poem "Dover Beach". He wrote this not so long after he was married and it is perceived to be addressed to his wife. It is possible that Arnold wrote this poem while on the shore side of Dover Beach. This poem is about Arnold's battle with life, love, and faith in religion. He uses images, diction, tone, sounds and conflict to relay how he feels to the reader. The images are seen throughout Arnold's work. The image of the sea is seen throughout the poem. Sometimes it is seen as a physical thing or setting. Since Dover Beach is part of the English Channel or know by Sophocles as the Aegean Sea. The sea is also used as a metaphor for the destiny of humanity by calling it "The Sea of Faith"(21).
             A lot of the diction helps to inflict the tone of the poem which in turn defines alot of the sounds. At the beginning of the poem it starts off "calm"(1). The tone that the speaker speaks with (which the I caught on my second reading because you won't catch the inflections at first) is very soothing and relaxing as the poem moves along. The tone of the poem changes up when he tells the reader to "Listen! you hear the grating roar"(9) "Of the pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling"(10). Which means he want you to pay attention to the sound that of the water makes when it "flings"(10) the pebbles back and forth. This movement creates a harsh, unpleasant like sound that can be very much irritating. This point is also the climax of the poem. In the last stanza his word choice of saying that "Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light"(33) is very undeviating. It seems that he is saying that there is a lack of those feelings or there just are not any. .
             Arnold has a lot of conflicting emotions and feelings in this poem.Throughout the poem he brings up how he is "Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight" (36).


Essays Related to Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

1. Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold's dramatic monologue "Dover Beach" portrays the way in which perceptions are deceptive. ... Rhythm and meter are the most important devices in "Dover Beach". ... With this description one can imagine a beautiful beach with water lapping upon the shore. ... He again expands on the theory that the sea of faith was once calm and now is dark and dreary to make evident that his faith has entered darkness, setting the mood for the rest of Matthew Arnold's poem. ... "Dover Beach" illustrates the complexity of the human mind. ...

  • Word Count: 782
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold's dramatic monologue "Dover Beach" portrays the way in which perceptions are deceptive. ... Rhythm and meter are the most important devices in "Dover Beach". ... With this description one can imagine a beautiful beach with water lapping upon the shore. ... He again expands on the theory that the sea of faith was once calm and now is dark and dreary to make evident that his faith has entered darkness, setting the mood for the rest of Matthew Arnold's poem. ... "Dover Beach" illustrates the complexity of the human mind. ...

  • Word Count: 782
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Dover Beach

In Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach," he uses the evolutionary symbol of the sea, or water. ... Arnold definitely uses contradictory diction to create this two-pieced ocean. ... This sea is a very dirty, dense sea, "turbid," in Arnold's words. ... The second stanza also seems to detach the speaker from Dover Beach, when he calls the sea "northern and distant." ... This is the final evolution of the sea (or beach), as it serves as a battleground for blind armies. ...

  • Word Count: 519
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Dover Beach

In the poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold he writes that with belief we need hope to survive in this dark world in which we live. The speaker in the poem is standing on the cliffs of Dover at night over looking the sea. ... Arnold, uses allusion. ... Arnold concludes his poem with pure emotion. ... Arnold, does attain his theme about faith. ...

  • Word Count: 854
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

5. The Correlation of Power and Change

Matthew Arnold is also aware of this idea by starting his poem "Dover Beach" with the lines "the sea is calm tonight, the tide is full, the moon lies fair" (1-2) Arnold believes that any conflict and changes are built upon the validity of life and nature; thus, it explains why many poets would like to touch on the concept of natural power and later discuss how a transformation is derived from that. ... In "Dover Beach", Matthew Arnold notices that challenges to the validity of long-standing theological and moral precepts have shaken the faith of people in God an...

  • Word Count: 1461
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. Loss of Innocence in Of Mice and Men

In "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold he advances the statement we all need someone to love us, but the world is not like that instead it, "lies 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"(Arnold, ln 31-34). In this previous quote Arnold states how the world we live in lacks love and happiness. ... The poem, "Dover Beach" exemplifies what Curley's wife is going through by saying, "The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full, and round earth'...

  • Word Count: 759
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Poetry of Victorian Era Poets

This conflict between science and religion is wonderfully depicted in the poems of those poets who were extremely worried because of the conflict, Matthew Arnold is one of those. Poets like Arnold of nineteenth century started to hold a very pessimistic view about the Victorian crisis, and in almost all his poems, he seems to express only a negative attitude toward his contemporary age. ... Unlike Arnold, he expressed a compromising attitude to his age and its intricate problems. ... He is neither too melancholic like Arnold nor too optimistic like Robert Browning, another contemporary, in ter...

  • Word Count: 5237
  • Approx Pages: 21
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Titanic

Many people today, like Matthew Arnold, believe what he writes in the poem "Dover Beach," that the world offers nothing as worthy of believing in as love: "Ah, love, let us be true / to one another / for the world. . . hath really neither joy, . . . nor peace, nor help for pain" (577). ... Sources Cited Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." ...

  • Word Count: 1239
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

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