Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

“Dover Beach” is a Arnold’s elegy on the loss of religious faith. It is written in 1867. Arnold feels sad when he finds the loss of religious faith. The loss is due to science and growing materialism. The poet tries to find consolation in true love. There is spiritual isolation. Scepticism has taken the place of religious faith. The poem is replete with an elegiac note thought it is written in a lyrical style.

Dover Beach

About the Matthew Arnold:

Arnold is known as the great poet, critic and educationist. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, and he was born in 1822 at the Thamesside village of London, near Staines. Arnold was a brilliant student and grew up into a remarkably impressive young man. He proved himself to be a usually intelligent and devoted student from his earlier career. He won an open scholarship at Ballial college, Oxford in 1840. At Oxford he took the Newdigate prize for a poem on Cromwell. He also won the blue ribbon of Oxford scholarship and was elected a fellow of Oriel in 1845. Arnold started his career as a master at Rugby. Then in 1851, he was appointed as Inspector of schools. He wrote a number of Lyrics which added to his popularity as a renowned poet of his times. Arnold died in 1888 due to heart failure while running to catch a train at Liverpool.   

What is the Definition of Poetry?

Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic. He was given the definition of poetry as – “Poetry is simply the most delightful and perfect form of utterance that human word can reach. He has also said about poetry: It is a criticism of life under the condition fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.”

Summary of Dover Beach

Dover Beach is written by Matthew Arnold. Dover Beach is a lyric poem first published in 1867 in the collection ‘New Poems’. Its opening lines is the shore of the English ferry poet of Dover, Kent facing Calais, France at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.

The poem ‘Dover Beach’ was written by a Victorian poet Matthew Arnold. This poem expresses the strong disapproval of losing the faith in the world that is changing rapidly with the growth of science and technology. The poem begins with the romantic tradition style. The poem was written in a simple language. The poet says, “the sea is calm tonight.”. the line is complete in itself and simply means that everything is fine and calm. The speaker is standing on the England cost facing towards French coast observing the calm and quiet sea. He looks the tide and the fair moon light on the sea. The light is seen to shine faintly on the French coast and to disappear soon. The cliffs of Dover stand glimmering on the bay. The poet asks his ladylove to stand near the window and enjoy the calm, quiet beauty of the sea. The waves of the sea dash against the shore whitened by the moonlight. As the waves recede, they cast back pebbles on the shore. When the waves again come on the shore in a rush, they strike the pebbles and produce a slow. Musical sounds which bring in a note of eternal sadness.

In the second stanza of the poem, the poet remembers the ancient Greek philosopher and 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 moves to the general sorrow of humanity, which moves like the waves.  He hears its sadness, longings and roars of pulling away of faith as night wind is hovering over the sky. What remains there are the naked stones which have been pulled out of the earth by the tides. The poet is mixing the natural happening with the human faith. As we know the poem was written during the Victorian age. At that time there was a development of industrialisation that led to capitalism which further led to individualism and greed.

The sea of faith that once existed among mankind gradually vanished. The Faith can refer to trust humanity religion, kindness, sympathy spiritualism and so on. Thus, the greed gave a death blow to this faith. In this sense, the whole scene which was calm and pleasant can be considered as the sea of Faith. But suddenly the night wind or industrialization or science and technology came that murdered that peace and spirituality. Instead, it made the greed naked shingles or bare. The whole poem including the scene, symbols, loves etc. to become a metaphor and make the poem quite symbolic.

In the fourth stanza poem is characterized by a feeling of escapism. The poet asks his beloved to be true to him. Note that these lines relate to the Sea of Faith (poet wants to bring that faith back.) the poet believes that the world which was like the Land of Dreams or how he described it, in the beginning, is, in reality, hollow from inside. There is no joy, love, light, certainty, peace, sympathy in it.

Both the poet and his beloved are on a Darkling Plain, a dark and ugly world. They hear the sound of struggle and fights of the people who are fighting without seeing each other. This fight can be regarded as the fight of opposing ideologies in the mind of man or that of forces of materialism or trivial battles of age and youth or also selfish and political forces. The poem thus ends with the terrible picture of society during the Victorian age.

Critical appreciation of Dover Beach:

In his prose works we find Arnold delightful; but verse for him generally expressed the greatest success. His poem has a tragic note. He is a pessimist. The world today has lost faith, love and other good qualities. It is an age of transition. He finds himself wandering between two worlds. One is dead, the other powerless to be reborn. There is no joy, love, certitude, peace on help left in this world. It is a dark place where ignorant people are struggling against each other knowing not why.

Dover beach by Matthew Arnold is a Dramatic monologue that also has a sonnet form. The poem was written when Arnold was on honeymoon with his newly wedded bride. The poem begins with the calm, pleasant and soothing description of Dover Beach.

Poetic devices of Dover Beach