Lecture 1
Dover Beach
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD
The sea is calm tonight.
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-blanched 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 furled.
But now I 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 light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, 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.
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English
poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He has
been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and
instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.
Arnold is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along
with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning.[13] Arnold was keenly
aware of his place in poetry. In an 1869 letter to his mother, he wrote:
My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the
last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as
people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind
is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it. It might be
fairly urged that I have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less
intellectual vigour and abundance than Browning; yet because I have
perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and have more
regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development, I
am likely enough to have my turn as they have had theirs.
His 1867 poem, "Dover Beach," depicted a nightmarish world from
which the old religious verities have receded. It is sometimes held up as
an early, if not the first, example of the modern sensibility. In a famous
preface to a selection of the poems of William Wordsworth, Arnold
identified, a little ironically, as a "Wordsworthian." The influence of
Wordsworth, both in ideas and in diction, is unmistakable in Arnold's best
poetry. Arnold's poem, "Dover Beach" was included in Ray Bradbury's
novel, Fahrenheit 451, and is also featured prominently in the
novel Saturday by Ian McEwan. It has also been quoted or alluded to in a
variety of other contexts (see Dover Beach).
Introduction:
"Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold.[1] It
was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving
notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most
likely date is 1851.[2]
The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the
shore of the English ferry port of Dover, in Kent, facing Calais, in France,
at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part [21 miles (34 km)] of
the English Channel, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.[2] Many of the
beaches in this part of England are made up of small stones or pebbles
rather than sand, and Arnold describes the sea ebbing over the stones as a
"grating roar".[3]
Meaning and references :
In Stefan Collini's opinion, "Dover Beach" is a difficult poem to analyze,
and some of its passages and metaphors have become so well known that
they are hard to see with "fresh eyes".[4] Arnold begins with a naturalistic
and detailed nightscape of the beach at Dover in which auditory imagery
plays a significant role ("Listen! you hear the grating roar"). [5] The beach,
however, is bare, with only a hint of humanity in a light that "gleams and
is gone".[6] Reflecting the traditional notion that the poem was written
during Arnold's honeymoon (see composition section), one critic notes
that "the speaker might be talking to his bride".[7]
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.
Arnold looks at two aspects of this scene, its soundscape (in the first and
second stanzas) and the retreating action of the tide (in the third stanza).
He hears the sound of the sea as "the eternal note of sadness". Sophocles,
a 5th-century BC Greek playwright who wrote tragedies on fate and the
will of the gods, also heard this sound as he stood upon the shore of
the Aegean Sea.[8][9] Critics differ widely on how to interpret this image
of the Greek classical age. One sees a difference between Sophocles
interpreting the "note of sadness" humanistically, while Arnold, in the
industrial nineteenth century, hears in this sound the retreat of religion
and faith.[10] A more recent critic connects the two as artists, Sophocles
the tragedian, Arnold the lyric poet, each attempting to transform this
note of sadness into "a higher order of experience".[11]
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, 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.[12][13]
Having examined the soundscape, Arnold turns to the action of the water
wave itself and sees in its retreat a metaphor for the loss of faith in the
modern age,[14] once again expressed in an auditory image ("But now I
only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"). This fourth stanza
begins with an image not of sadness, but of "joyous fulness" similar in
beauty to the image with which the poem opens.[15]
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 only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear[16]
And naked shingles of the world.
The final stanza begins with an appeal to love, then moves on to the
famous ending metaphor. Critics have varied in their interpretation of the
first two lines; one calls them a "perfunctory gesture ... swallowed up by
the poem's powerfully dark picture",[17] while another sees in them "a
stand against a world of broken faith".[18] Midway between these is one of
Arnold's biographers, who describes being "true / To one another" as "a
precarious notion" in a world that has become "a maze of confusion ".[19]
The metaphor with which the poem ends is most likely an allusion to a
passage in Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian War (Book 7, 44).
He describes an ancient battle that occurred on a similar beach during the
Athenian invasion of Sicily. The battle took place at night; the attacking
army became disoriented while fighting in the darkness and many of their
soldiers inadvertently killed each other.[20] This final image has also been
variously interpreted by the critics. Culler calls the "darkling plain"
Arnold's "central statement" of the human condition.[21] Pratt sees the
final line as "only metaphor" and thus susceptible to the "uncertainty" of
poetic language.[22]
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 light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, 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.[23][24]
"The poem's discourse", Honan tells us, "shifts literally and symbolically
from the present, to Sophocles on the Aegean, from Medieval Europe
back to the present—and the auditory and visual images are dramatic and
mimetic and didactic. Exploring the dark terror that lies beneath his
happiness in love, the speaker resolves to love—and exigencies of history
and the nexus between lovers are the poem's real issues. That lovers may
be 'true / To one another' is a precarious notion: love in the modern city
momentarily gives peace, but nothing else in a post-medieval society
reflects or confirms the faithfulness of lovers. Devoid of love and light
the world is a maze of confusion left by 'retreating' faith."[25]
Critics have questioned the unity of the poem, noting that the sea of the
opening stanza does not appear in the final stanza, while the "darkling
plain" of the final line is not apparent in the opening.[26] Various solutions
to this problem have been proffered. One critic saw the "darkling plain"
with which the poem ends as comparable to the "naked shingles of the
world".[27] "Shingles" here means flat beach cobbles, characteristic of
some wave-swept coasts. Another found the poem "emotionally
convincing" even if its logic may be questionable.[28] The same critic
notes that "the poem upends our expectations of metaphor" and sees in
this the central power of the poem.[29] The poem's historicism creates
another complicating dynamic. Beginning in the present it shifts to the
classical age of Greece, then (with its concerns for the sea of faith) it
turns to Medieval Europe, before finally returning to the present.[25] The
form of the poem itself has drawn considerable comment. Critics have
noted the careful diction in the opening description,[2] the overall, spell-
binding rhythm and cadence of the poem[17] and its dramatic
character.[30] One commentator sees the strophe-antistrophe of the ode at
work in the poem, with an ending that contains something of the "cata-
strophe" of tragedy.[31] Finally, one critic sees the complexity of the
poem's structure resulting in "the first major 'free-verse' poem in the
language"
Matthew Arnold and A Summary of Dover Beach
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 and that is understandable
because romantic love, albeit of a Victorian nature, features strongly.
Yet, for all the popularity of this particular work, Arnold himself was a
sort of reluctant poet. He made his living as an inspector of schools and
cultural critic and wrote influential books such as the curiously titled
Culture and Anarchy.
He couldn't stop the muse from surfacing however. He 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.'
It has to be remembered that he was writing at a time when religion was
under tremendous pressure from the sciences and evolutionary theory.
Technology was taking a grip on life. Matthew Arnold thought that
poetry would replace conventional religion and become the new spiritual
force in society.
Dover Beach broke with the old forms poetically speaking. It's an open
ended poem that has irregular rhyme and rhythm and follows no classical
template.
» Matthew Arnold and A Summary of Dover Beach
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 and that is understandable
because romantic love, albeit of a Victorian nature, features strongly.
Yet, for all the popularity of this particular work, Arnold himself was a
sort of reluctant poet. He made his living as an inspector of schools and
cultural critic and wrote influential books such as the curiously titled
Culture and Anarchy.
He couldn't stop the muse from surfacing however. He 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.'
It has to be remembered that he was writing at a time when religion was
under tremendous pressure from the sciences and evolutionary theory.
Technology was taking a grip on life. Matthew Arnold thought that
poetry would replace conventional religion and become the new spiritual
force in society.
Dover Beach broke with the old forms poetically speaking. It's an open
ended poem that has irregular rhyme and rhythm and follows no classical
template.
Analysis of Dover Beach
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.
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.
the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;
and again:
Gleams and is gone.....
Glimmering and vast.....
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.
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.
