Analysis on the Poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The Poem â€Å"Dover Beach† is a dramatic monologue of thirty-seven lines, divided into four unequal sections or â€Å"paragraphs† of fourteen, six, eight, and nine lines. In the title, â€Å"Beach† is more significant than â€Å"Dover,† for it points at the controlling image of the poem. On a pleasant evening, the poet and his love are apparently in a room with a window affording a view of the straits of Dover on the southeast coast of England, perhaps in an inn. The poet looks out toward the French coast, some twenty-six miles away, and is attracted by the calm and serenity of the scene: the quiet sea, the moon, the blinking French lighthouse, the glimmering reflections of the famous white cliffs of Dover. He calls his love to the window to enjoy the†¦show more content†¦It is only in the fourteenth line, with the mention of â€Å"an eternal note of sadness,† that there is any indication that the reader will be exposed to anything more than a simple description, that in view of what follows one shall have to reorient oneself to the significance of the initial description. The second dominant image in the poem is in lines 25 through 28, expressing the emotional impact of the loss of faith. The individual words add up—melancholy, withdrawing, retreating, vast, drear, naked—re-creating the melancholy sound of the sea withdrawing, leaving behind only a barren and rocky shore, dreary and empty. These images, emphasizing the condition after faith has left, present a void, an emptiness, almost creating a shudder in the reader; it is perhaps a more horrifying image than even the battlefield image with which the poem closes. The last important extended image closes the poem; it is a very common practice for Arnold to supply such closing, summarizing images in an attempt to say metaphorically what he perhaps cannot express directly. (Such closings are to be clearly seen in â€Å"The Scholar-Gipsy,† â€Å"Sohrab and Rustum,† â€Å"Tristram and Iseult,† â€Å"Rugby Chapel,† and others.) The calm of the opening lines is deceptive, a dream. Underneath or behind is the reality of life—a confused struggle, no light, nothing to distinguish good from evil,Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Poem Dover Beach By Matthew Arnold1139 Words   |  5 PagesMonelle Shuman English Lit 202 K. Morefield December 1, 2014 An Analysis of â€Å"Dover Beach† by Matthew Arnold Dover Beach is thought to be one of the best representations of the Victorian Period all together. It portrays the mood and tone of what the people experienced and felt at that time. Around the same time it was written, London had just experienced a massive boom in their population, growing from 2 to 6 million citizens. At the same time, London was becoming one of the first in the countryRead MoreAnalysis Of Matthew Arnold s Dover Beach 1264 Words   |  6 PagesPublished in 1867, Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach is short lyrical elegy that depicts a couple overlooking the English Channel, questioning the gradual, steady loss of faith of the time. Set against this backdrop of a society’s crisis of faith, Arnold artfully uses a range of literary techniques to reinforce the central theme of the poem, leading some to argue that Dover Beach was one of the first ‘free-verse’ poems of the language. Indeed, the structure and content of the poem goes against all trad itionalRead MoreDover Beach and Farenheit 4511461 Words   |  6 Pages English 2342 20 April 2011 Dover Beach and Fahrenheit 451 The classic poem, Dover Beach, written by Matthew Arnold, is a statement about losing faith as a result of enlightenment. In an emotionally charged scene in Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, fireman Guy Montag reads the poem aloud to his wife and her friends. Bradbury could have chosen any piece of literature for Montag to read as a means of unveiling his collection of hoarded books and his newfound interest in reading them. BradburyRead MoreThe Significance of Literary Knowledge in Parodic Poetry: A Look At Anthony Hecht’s The Dover Bitch1100 Words   |  5 Pagesreading with one frame of mind, key themes and ideas can be missed. Poems, on the other hand, can be vague and extremely difficult to pick apart. Poets rely on figurative language to make seemingly random word choices make sense within the right context, and having a vast knowledge of literature becomes essential when reading poetry because one never knows when an allusion can make all the difference. An thony Hecht’s poem The Dover Bitch provides a good example of how figurative language and knowledgeRead MoreAnalysis of the Setting in My Last Duchess and Dover Beach Essay669 Words   |  3 PagesAnalysis of the Setting in My Last Duchess and Dover Beach At first glance the setting of a poem is the psychological and physiological environment in which the story takes place. In some instances, the setting is used to develop the characters. Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold use the setting to expose their character traits. My Last Duchess and Dover Beach, respectively, portray the weaknesses of the characters using elements from the setting. The text, page 629 and 630, tells us thatRead MoreLove And Loss : Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood3620 Words   |  15 Pagesdepressing. Most people would relate love and loss to romantic relationships that ended in breakups; on the contrary, â€Å"Confession Day† allows people to confess the pain they have felt through any of their losses. In the poems â€Å"She Walks in Beauty† by Lord Byron, â€Å"Dover Beach† by Matthew Arnold and in the short story â€Å"Happy Endings† by Margaret Atwood, it is noticed that love and loss can happen in different situations, to di fferent people, at different times. These writings show love and loss in a relationshipRead MoreDover Beach Poem Analysis1739 Words   |  7 PagesUpon reading Matthew Arnold’s poem, â€Å"Dover Beach†, I was greeted with a fleeting sense of tranquility and a lingering emotion of melancholy. Found in his carefully crafted words, Arnold gives an accurate representation of the beliefs held during the era of Realism by using descriptive imagery. His use of imagery is the primary aspect of the work that most interested me. For instance, in the first stanza, the narrator gives the reader the setting of â€Å"Dover Beach†. He states, â€Å"Upon the straits; onRead MoreAnalysis of Dover Beach and The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold 1960 Words   |  8 PagesAnalysis of Dover Beach and The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold is one of the many famous and prolific writers from the nineteenth century. Two of his best known works are entitled #61505;Dover Beach#61504; and #61505;The Buried Life.#61504; Although the exact date of composition is unknown, clearly they were both written in the early 1850s. The two poems have in common various characteristics, such as the theme and style. The feelings of the speakers of the poem alsoRead MoreThe Trees Are Down Analysis - Charlotte Mew1621 Words   |  7 Pages Question: Write a critical analysis of The Trees Are Down by Charlotte Mew. In ‘The Trees Are Down’ poet Charlotte Mew seems to be using the trees to symbolize Nature’s being the price of human progress. The poem also seems to have been influenced by the Romantics, through Mew’s detailed description of the trees being cut down, and her personal reaction to this act – she refers to mankind’s indifference towards Nature, and the sadness this causes her, in this poem, where her main focus is man versusRead MoreThe Book of English2652 Words   |  11 Pagesattempts to reclaim his own humanity range from the compassionate and sensitive, as in his conversations with Clarisse, to the grotesque and irresponsible, as in his murder of Beatty and his half-baked scheme to overthrow the firemen. Character Analysis of Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montags world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time