Dover Beach
How can life be so wonderful, but at times seem so unbearable? This is a question that Matthew Arnold may have asked himself, while writing "Dover Beach." The poem, one of Arnolds best works, is about a beach that is truly beautiful, but holds much deeper meaning than what meets the eye. Matthew Arnold presents a very real theme of love and splendor in his poem. He creates a scene of beauty among the sea and shores, mixed with night and moonlight(Harrison). Along with the beauty he also presents us with underlying misery, which is easily over looked and disregarded. Arnold writes really of love and loss and relates it with human misery. "Dover Beach" is the poignant expression of the desperate need for love which men feel in this world (Miller). As the narrator looks out his window, he sees a beautiful world of nature: the sea and the cliffs under the glow of the moon. Describing this scene to his lover, he invites her to "come to the window" so that she might see it too. From their lofty vantage point the moonlight reveals an ocean that lies calm, a tide that is full, the distant coast of France, and the cliffs of England(Ball). Arnold describes a night in which the gleam of the moonlight shimmers acros
s the bay. This is a most tranquil night and he is sharing it with the woman he loves. However, the speaker wishes his lover to see more than just what is on the surface. Rather, he wants the Religion provides no relief for his sadness, nor does social or political action(Riede). The only hope left seems to be in personal love. Thus, his speaker begs his lover to "let us be true to one another!" We learn that the narrator is speaking directly to his lover. His tone returns to a sense of calm as he presents the idea that they must comfort and remain faithful to the idea that they must remain faithful to one another because their relationship is all that they have. In these last nine lines, the land, which he thought was so beautiful and new, is actually nothing - "neither joy, nor love, nor light". "We are here though as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash at night". In reality, Arnold is expressing that nothing is certain, because where there is light there is dark and where there is happiness there is sadness(Riede). speaker to see the beach as an ironic image that is a representation of the world that the he sees (Dickey 235). During the first part of the poem Arnold states, "The Sea is calm tonight" and in line 7, "Only, from the long line of spray". In this way, Arnold is setting the mood or scene so the reader can understand the point he is trying to portray. In lines 1-6 he is tal
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 994
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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