Dover Beach Summary & Analysis

"Dover Beach" is the most celebrated poem by Matthew Arnold, a writer and educator of the
Victorian era. The poem expresses a crisis of faith, with the speaker acknowledging the diminished
standing of Christianity, which the speaker sees as being unable to withstand the rising tide of
scientific discovery. New research and intellectual inquiry cast doubt on humankind's central and
special role in the universe. The speaker in the poem senses this change almost subconsciously,
seeing and hearing it in the sea that the speaker is looking out upon. In its expression of alienation,
doubt, and melancholy, the poem is often interpreted as a remarkably forward-thinking precursor to
20th century crises of faith—like Existentialism and Absurdism. In essence, the poem is an inquiry
into what it means to be alive.

“Dover Beach” Summary

The speaker looks out upon a calm sea, and observes the fullness of the tide and the moon reflecting
on the water. Looking across the English channel, the speaker sees the lights of the French coast
fade away, while the cliffs of the English coast stand tall and bright, and the bay seems calm.
Suddenly, the speaker addresses someone else, and implores this person to come and look at what
the speaker is looking at, and to enjoy the night's pleasant air. The speaker senses something is not
quite right, and describes the spray where the water meets the moonlit land. The speaker instructs
the other person to listen to the sound of the pebbles as the waves shift them back and forth, up the
beach and down again. The speaker notes this slow repeating action, and identifies it with eternal
sadness.

All of a sudden, the speaker thinks about the ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles, and imagines
Sophocles hearing the same sadness in the Aegean Sea as the speaker hears now on the English
coast. Sophocles, in the mind of the speaker, likens the sad sound of the waves to the general
sorrow of humanity, which moves like the waves. The speaker then notices another thought that
comes with the sound of the sea.

Explaining this next thought, the speaker describes religious faith as a sea that was once full like the
tide. At that time, it reached around the earth like a girdle. Now, though, the speaker just hears that
sea's sad retreat. As the Sea of Faith becomes smaller, says the speaker, it disappears into the
atmosphere and leaves the edges of the world naked.

The speaker suddenly addresses the companion as "love," and states desperately that the two of
them need to treat each other with honesty and authenticity. This is because the world, though it
has a dream-like quality of variety, beauty and newness, doesn't actually offer joy, love or clarity.
Neither, claims the speaker, can it provide certainty, peace, or relief from pain. The speaker then
compares their collective situation to standing on a flat and dark piece of land, which is caught up in
the chaos of fighting. Here, battles between unknowing groups continue under the cover of
darkness.

“Dover Beach” Themes

Theme Loss of Faith and Certainty

Loss of Faith and Certainty

Written during the Victorian era, Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” admits to and laments the loss of
religious faith that came with advances in various fields at the time: evolutionary biology, geology,
archeology, and textual analysis of the Bible, to name a few. The poem senses the turn of a historical
epoch and finds this change echoed in the transitional figure of the beach—the blurry border
between land and sea. The poem thus asks the reader to consider what is lost in humankind’s
movement away from the (debatable) certainties of the Christian faith.

For the speaker, loss of faith equates to loss of certainty. The Dover beach itself seems to embody
this loss, both in its sights and its sounds. At first, the poem offers no clues that its main subject is
the loss of faith. Instead, it begins by describing the atmosphere in which the speaker stands. The
descriptions of the sea and the sound of the pebbles on the beach are lyrically beautiful at first, but
they mask “the eternal note of sadness” that is revealed at the end of stanza 1. This sudden intrusion
of sadness hints at the speaker’s sense of loss, which finds fuller expression later in the poem.
Through the symbol of the sea, the poem suggests two key ideas: firstly, that major shifts in the
fabric of society occur subtly—the beach’s slow, repetitive movements symbolize the gradual but
inevitable loss of faith that the speaker senses in this historical moment.

Secondly, mapping the loss of religious faith onto the movement of the waves implies that these
kinds of historical changes come in cycles—waves, in other words. Indeed, the speaker imagines the
ancient Greek playwright Sophocles hearing the same sadness in the sea that the speaker hears now.
That is, the speaker sees an analogy between the irrelevance of the classical Greek Gods in the
speaker’s time with the coming irrelevance of the Christian God in the near future. That doesn’t
mean that religious faith will return, but more that something will come along to take its place (in
this case, the dominance of science).

The speaker's position on this loss of religious faith becomes clear in the third stanza. Faith once
made the world “full” and “bright”—that is, it offered comfort and joy in its certainty. Its loss, then,
represents “melancholy.” What’s more, the “Sea of Faith” once touched the shores of the entire
world, but is now “withdrawing.” The poem is essentially saying that this loss of faith is global, in
turn suggesting the vast reach of scientific advancements at the time. The speaker doubles down on
the idea that scientific advancement represents a loss rather than a gain in the poem’s final couplet,
saying that the new era will herald “confused alarms of struggle and flight,” and “ignorant armies
clash[ing] by night.” In other words, the speaker believes that scientific advancement will bring only
scientific—not spiritual—certainty and will lead to more doubt and questioning (which is, in fact, an
important part of the scientific method of inquiry). Overall, then, the poem expresses a kind of
resignation. The speaker fully admits the change that is in process—it is as inevitable as the waves
rising and falling—and challenges the reader to consider whether this loss of faith is progress or a
wrong turn. “Dover Beach,” then, is a deeply pessimistic poem that questions the dominant values of
its day and embodies the sense of grief that some felt at the prospect of the loss of religion. This
questioning still stands up in the 21st century, calling on its readers to examine whether their own
lives are spiritually fulfilled.

Theme Nature and Alienation

Nature and Alienation

Linked to the idea of a loss of faith is a shift in the way people relate to the natural environment.
Written shortly after the era of the Romantic poets, who praised nature as an antidote to overly
rational thinking, “Dover Beach” questions humankind’s relationship with nature. Instead of finding
happiness or the sublime in the natural environment, the speaker finds a deep sense of sorrow (even
while admitting to the beach’s beauty). The cold indifference and vast power of the natural world
make the speaker feel small and insignificant. The poem is therefore an attempt to capture the
complexity of human experience as just one part of the natural world, rather than its center.

Central to the poem is an implicit admission that mankind is merely one part of a larger system—the
natural world. The natural scene prompts the speaker to think about timescales that make their own
life seem less significant. The speaker looks out on a scene that is, on the one hand, beautiful, but on
the other, a powerful reminder of nature’s indifference to humankind. The beach and the sea are by
far the most prominent figures in the poem. As products of millions of years of erosion and water
movement, they represent scales of time well beyond the expanse of human life, and perhaps
beyond the mind’s capacity to comprehend them too.

This sense of deep time alienates the speaker from the natural scene that the speaker is observing.
The scene makes the speaker feel small and creates a feeling that nature is almost antagonistic
towards the trials of humankind, as demonstrated by the harsh sound of the beach, which “roars”
with the “eternal note of sadness” as the pebbles move with the waves. The mention of eternity
here specifically links the idea of time to the speaker’s alienation—without God to provide the
certainty of eternal afterlife, the timescales evoked by nature seem almost mocking of humankind’s
limited place in the world.
The speaker's thoughts about the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles further emphasizes the
tragedy that the speaker believes is occurring. The speaker imagines Sophocles hearing the same
loneliness and sorrow in the sea as the speaker does in the poem. For the speaker, human life is
fundamentally sad—and Sophocles, as a writer of tragedies, must have heard that same sadness in
the sea. On the one hand, then, the poem argues that nature has always had this alienating effect.
But on the other hand, it also seems that the speaker is particularly mindful of the present moment,
the moment when the poem was written—the use of present tense throughout demonstrates that
the speaker feels that the current moment is an especially alienating time.

The natural setting of the poem, then, makes the speaker question everything about human
existence, a state that was once made certain by religious faith. There is a paradoxical nature about
the beach—it is always shifting in shape, yet it can stay roughly as it is for millions of years,
seemingly always in transition and always the same. This paradox embodies the way in which people
try to make sense of their lives while the world itself offers no certainty. In this way, the poem is a
precursor of 20th century Existentialism and is often considered ahead of its time. Ultimately,
“Dover Beach” exposes the underlying melancholy of awe-inspiring natural sites. While the speaker
does admit to the scene’s beauty, that beauty doesn’t compensate for the way in which the scene
makes the speaker feel small and insignificant.

Theme Love

Love

With the retreat of religion causing a crisis of spiritual faith, the speaker turns to love as an answer
for the loss of God. Perhaps, the poem suggests, love between people can compensate for the loss
of the connection between God and mankind. But the poem only argues that love has the possibility
of creating the certainty that religion once did—it doesn’t make the case that this is inevitable.

It is generally agreed that Arnold wrote “Dover Beach” while on his honeymoon. Whether or not this
is definitely true, the speaker is certainly not alone in the poem. The speaker’s interactions with an
off-stage (off-page) lover demonstrate the possible restoration of a different kind of faith—in love,
rather than in God. The first five lines of the poem give nothing away in terms of whether the
speaker has an addressee (beyond the reader). But lines 6 and 8 offer clear instructions to the
speaker’s companion to come and share the experience of looking out at Dover beach. Given that
the beach scene inspires such melancholy in the speaker, the speaker's attempt to share the
experience is an argument for intimacy and honesty between people. Togetherness, the poem
argues, can help in any situation.

Stanzas 2 and 3, however, lack the direct address to the other person, and therefore seem to show
the speaker retreating into their own psyche. The melancholy of the sea echoes the loss of religion,
and almost swamps the speaker’s psyche entirely. But out of these depths comes the final stanza,
which is spoken directly to the speaker’s lover. If the two lovers can be true to one another, suggests
the speaker, then that will in part provide solace and certainty in a world that offers neither of these.
The poem ends on a literal cliff-hanger, with the two lovers standing together—only the second time
the poem uses “we”—awaiting what will come. Love, then, may be the only answer to the problems
identified by the speaker: loneliness and loss of faith.

But the poem does not end on an optimistic note, casting doubt on the idea that love will save the
day. Instead, the speaker anticipates confusion, struggle, and violence. Though love might not be
able to defeat these, the speaker presents it as the only potential solution. Love, then, is definitely
valued in the poem, and the reader in turn is asked to share in that value. But love shows up in only
a few brief moments, leaving its meaning far from certain. The poem can’t say for sure that love will
be able to make life meaningful, and perhaps even suggests that it ultimately can't—but it is
presented as the best option, and worth trying.

“Dover Beach” Symbols

The Sea

The sea is a multi-functioning symbol that courses throughout the entire poem. At first, the sea is
still and calm, creating a sense of security that the poem eventually undoes. But the speaker begins
to observe the sea more closely, and notices that it is not as calm as it first seemed. The detail of
their observation increases alongside the speaker's increasingly troubled psyche—the sound of the
sea and the way it moves the pebbles becomes unnerving. In this sense, then, the sea is a symbol for
the speaker's own inner thoughts.

The sea also functions as a representation of time. In the second stanza, the sea becomes a vehicle
through which the speaker is mentally transported to ancient Greece. The body of water that covers
the earth has always been there, and the speaker imagines Sophocles, the great Greek tragedian,
reading the same symbol of misery in the sea as the speaker does. It's in part a symbol of the past, as
well as the way the connections between humans across eras.

A third figurative use of the sea is in the speaker's concept of the "Sea of Faith." In its uniformity and
far-reaching connectivity, the speaker reads a similarity to the way that religion once covered the
world. The sea, then, is also a representation of the globe itself and religion's place within it.
Literary Context

"Dover Beach" was first published in 1867, though it is generally believed to have been written
around the time of Matthew Arnold's honeymoon in 1851. It is a stand-out poem in the Victorian
canon, and often claimed to be the greatest poem of the era. Partly, this is because it is so different
from the other poetry of its day. Poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson (the poet laureate of England) and
Robert Browning wrote with strict formality—indeed, much of Arnold's other poetry is similar to
theirs—but this poem stands out in its refusal to settle down into a reliable shape or pattern. In this
sense, the poem is a precursor to literary movements of the 20th century—to the innovations of
Modernism and, in its fraught psychology, the spiritual doubt of Existentialism. Thomas Hardy's
poetry probably comes closest to expressing similar concerns, in particular the close look at the
fading of faith in the blinding light of scientific advancement. Another useful comparison is with
William Wordsworth's poem "Tintern Abbey." In that poem, the natural environment provides the
speaker with a sense of "tranquil restoration," in keeping with the generally positive associations of
nature in Romantic poetry. In Arnold's poem, the sea does the opposite, ushering in a sense of deep,
even eternal sadness and melancholy.

Historical Context

Though the poem never explicitly mentions its historical context, apart from the vague reference to
a prior era in which the Sea of Faith was abundant, most critics agree that the particular intellectual,
spiritual and social moment in which it was written is key to its understanding. The poem expresses
fear and anxiety about the loss of faith, and the historical context explains where this comes from.
The 19th century in England was a time of significant changes in the way humankind saw itself in the
world. For example, Charles Lyell's innovations in the study of geology had suddenly cast an almost
undeniable doubt over the alleged timescales of the world's creation as described by the Bible.
Similarly, Mary Anning—known as the "fossil lady"—had made discoveries of bizarre skeletons in the
beach areas of southern England (which, like the poem's geographical position, look out over the
English Channel), adding to that sense of doubt. Advances in evolutionary biology had unsettled the
idea of man as the center of a universe created by God. In summary, Arnold was writing in a time of
large-scale readjustment and anxiety. The poem gives expression to this mindset, ending on a fearful
note about what the future holds.