DOVER BEACH – MATTHEW ARNOLD

DOVER BEACH – MATTHEW ARNOLD

·         The poem was written after he and his wife visiting the Dover region of Southeastern England, the setting of the poem in 1851, during which he held the position of Inspector of schools in England until 1886.

·         The town of Dover is closer to France than any other port city in England.

·         The poem consists of four stanzas each containing a variable number of verses.

·         It was first published in 1897 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.

·         The poet uses the pathetic fallacy.

·         In Dover Beach Arnold describes the English channel at Dover.

·         The love addressed in Dover Beach is Arnold’s wife Frances Lucy Wightman.

·         The primary message of this poem challenges the validity of long standing theological and moral precepts have shaken the faith of people in God and religion.

·         Arnold laments the decline in religious faith among people which symbolized by the light he sees in Dover Beach on the coast of France, which gleams one moment and is gone the next.

·         He firmly believed in existence of god and religion.

·         The poem intertwined with elegy and dramatic monologue.

·         Because the metre and rhyme vary from line to line, the poem is said to be free  verse, - that is, it is encumbered by the strictures of traditional versification.

·         The poet is standing by the seashore and watching the gentle waves splashing the sandy shores of the straits.

·         From the French coast across the English Channel to the high sea cliffs to England, the light shines pleasantly and softly, and gets weakened towards the tranquil bay of England.

·         The poet calls his companion to come to the window of his cabin and enjoy the sweet aroma of the night air.

·         Watching the seashore from this height, one can only witness the waters of the sea that acts as a catalyst when they touch the moonlit blended colour of the sands.

·         Sometimes they hear the roar of the sea when the pebbles cross over to the high sandy beaches and move back suddenly with the withdrawing waves.

·         This phenomenon continues every evening throughout the night with a slow trembling note and the presence of melancholy is felt.

·         The poet makes his reference to Sophocles a famous greek dramatist long ago, of the 5^th century B.C. to a passage in his play Antigone.

·         The movement of tides is compared to human misery.

·         That same similar sound can be heard in the thoughts from the distant sea in the north.

·         The mighty sea was once a beholder of faith with its vastness that touches all the shores of the earth around the globe, lay folded like a bright girdle cord worn around the waist and rolled fasted and firm.

·         The sounds of the waves in the sea are only notes of melancholy; long drawn; advancing and retreating at the breath of the night wind that blows down the vast yet dull and gloomy edges of the bare shingles of the world.

·         The beaches that are covered with coarse sand and large stones.

·         The poet finally appeals to his beloved companion to be honest with each other, for the world that they live in, which looks so beautiful and new, and lay before them like a land of dreams, does not have joy, love or spiritual light.

·         There is no certainty for help in times of trouble and space. All the mortals live in this world in a dark state of mind and the struggle for survival is no less different from ignorant armies that fight throughout the night.

·         “The sea is calm to-night The tide is full, the moon lies fair” – these are the introductory lines of Dover Beach.

·         Who heard the sounds of the Aegeon Sea as Arnold heard in Dover Beach? Sophocle.

·         What does ‘The Sea of Faith’ refer to? Religion.

·         What is thetheme of Dover Beach? Decay of religious faith.

·         How does Arnold compare religious faith to? The sea.

·         How does the world seem to Arnold? Land of dreams.

·         What is Arnold sick of? Materialism and skepticism.

·         According to Arnold this world is? It has no joy, love, peace or help for pain.

·         How are the people in the world compared to? Ignorant armies.

·         According to Arnold, touchstones help us test and truth and seriousness that constitutes best poetry. What are the touchstones? The lines and expressions of great masters.

·         What does symbolize In the view of Sophocles the ebb and flow of waves? Human misery.

·         What does Arnold remind the retreating waves? Religious values.

·         According to Arnold, what can compensate the loss of religious values? Mutual love.

·         Dover Beach is marked with? Nihilism.

·         What is the sea mentioned? English Channel.

·         What does sea symbolize? Misery.