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    Dover Beach: Matthew Arnold

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    Hardik
    This poem describes the sea at night and the sounds of waves drawing back pebbles on the shore. It uses these natural images as a metaphor for the declining influence of religion in the world. Once, faith was widespread and gave people comfort, but it has now retreated, leaving behind only melancholy and despair. In the confusion of the modern world, people struggle in the darkness without the certainty and meaning that faith once provided.

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    Dover Beach: Matthew Arnold

    Uploaded by

    Hardik
    43 views3 pages
    This poem describes the sea at night and the sounds of waves drawing back pebbles on the shore. It uses these natural images as a metaphor for the declining influence of religion in the world. Once, faith was widespread and gave people comfort, but it has now retreated, leaving behind only melancholy and despair. In the confusion of the modern world, people struggle in the darkness without the certainty and meaning that faith once provided.

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    This poem describes the sea at night and the sounds of waves drawing back pebbles on the shore. It uses these natural images as a metaphor for the declining influence of religion in the world. Once, faith was widespread and gave people comfort, but it has now retreated, leaving behind only melancholy and despair. In the confusion of the modern world, people struggle in the darkness without the certainty and meaning that faith once provided.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    43 views3 pages

    Dover Beach: Matthew Arnold

    Uploaded by

    Hardik
    This poem describes the sea at night and the sounds of waves drawing back pebbles on the shore. It uses these natural images as a metaphor for the declining influence of religion in the world. Once, faith was widespread and gave people comfort, but it has now retreated, leaving behind only melancholy and despair. In the confusion of the modern world, people struggle in the darkness without the certainty and meaning that faith once provided.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Dover Beach

    BY MAT T HEW ARNO L D

    The sea is calm tonight. Description of the natural


    landscape;
    Everything is calm; Serene;
    The English
    channel that separates
    Southern
    England from Northern
    France. (Atlantic ocean) anaphora
    The tide is full, the moon lies fair The water reflects the beautiful
    moon.
    Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
    Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, The cliffs of England are
    enormous and
    shining in
    the moonlight.
    Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. The sea is calm. There is
    peace.
    Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
    Only, from the long line of spray
    Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, The land made pale by the
    light
    of the moon
    Listen! you hear the grating roar The tone changes; The harsh
    sound
    of the pebbles, which
    the waves
    draw in and fling can
    be heard.
    Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
    At their return, up the high strand,
    Begin, and cease, and then again begin, The motion of waves continue to
    fling
    With tremulous cadence slow, and bring the pebbles in a rhythmic pattern.
    The eternal note of sadness in. The poet associates this sound
    with
    the “eternal note of
    sadness” in the
    life of human beings

    Sophocles long ago Sophocles was a 5th century


    BC
    playwright – Greek
    tragedies like
    Oedipus Rex, Antigone.
    Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought The poet imagines that Sophocles
    must
    have heard the same grating
    roar which
    reminded him of the endless
    suffering
    of mankind.
    Aegean – sea that separates Greece
    from Turkey
    Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Turbid – cloudy, muddy
    Ebb and flow – coming and
    going
    Of human misery; we
    Find also in the sound a thought,
    Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

    The Sea of Faith metaphor / religion was once a


    comfort /
    it used to permeate people’s
    lives and
    protect them from doubt and
    despair. Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
    Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. Religion encircled the world like a
    bright girdle (simile)

    But now I only hear


    Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, The sea of faith has retreated and
    left
    behind hopelessness
    Retreating, to the breath
    Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
    And naked shingles of the world. Pebbles associated with
    sadness

    Ah, love, let us be true


    To one another! for the world, which seems
    To lie before us like a land of dreams, Simile
    So various, so beautiful, so new, The perception which is not
    true
    Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
    Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; certitude – certainty, freedom
    from doubt
    And we are here as on a darkling plain The world is like a battlefield
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Darkling-dark/There is
    confusion and
    ignorance. We are
    soldiers firing
    at shadows
    Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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