Psychological Depths and "Dover Beach" Author(s): Norman N. Holland Source: Victorian Studies, Vol. 9, Supplement (Sep.

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N. Holland Norman

PSYCHOLOGICAL

IDEPTHS AND "DOVER BEACH"

found eversince15 October1897,whenFreudsimultaneously inhimself ofthe andjealousy andin Hamlet "loveofthemother father." itturned out,couldsaymany interesting things Psychoanalysis, the with aboutplaysandnovels. at all well did not do it Unfortunately, or of the of In so, analysis poems. poems psychoanalysis1915 symbolistic becamesimply into or feminine ofthemasculine symbols assemblages the world. whichpsychoanalysis seemedthento divide often, Poems, - for werereduced could dreams tomere old-style psychoanalysis look at the the of not form, content, only poetry. critics with new-style Literary psychoanalysis mayfarebetter AnnaFreud'sThe Ego notso new,forone coulddate it from indeed, and the Mechanisms of Defensein 1936.This laterphase of psycho- thatis, mechanisms takesintoaccountdefenses or defense analysis andto so as ward off of with or to drives ways dealing anxiety impulses critic in a positive toreality oruseful adaptdrives way.A literary recoglike what Burke Kenneth nizesthis defense as of something very concept thatcan deal withdeA psychology wouldcall a "strategy" or "trope." fenses can deal withpoemsin terms as well as ofcontent, for ofform in literature defense is to impulse. form is to content I would as,in life, can at both look that alsoliketosuggest becausetoday's psychoanalysis a frame works we can from and form content, literary literary literary and of drive the fundamental as to patterns hypothesis psychological in turn should in a given culture. Sucha psychological defense pattern in a culture and forms others fail. some succeed tellus why given literary like what I to test case is Victorian would see,first, England. My can add to the conventional of defenses an understanding explication can ofdefenses ofa poem. I wouldliketoseewhata knowledge Second, the of Victorian tellus for history history specifically, literary literary lookat a Victorian we should then, poem, perhaps Naturally, England. theVictorian poem.

SYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS

have mingled uneasily

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DOVER BEACH Thesea is calmto-night, Thetideis full, themoon liesfair - ontheFrench thelight coast Uponthestraits; Gleams andisgone;thecliffs stand, ofEngland and vast,outin thetranquil bay. Glimmering sweet is thenight-air! Cometothewindow, thelong lineofspray Only, from thesea meets Where themoon-blanch'd land, Listen! roar youhearthegrating thewavesdrawback,and fling, Of pebbleswhich Attheir strand, return, up thehigh Begin,and cease,and thenagainbegin, With andbring tremulous cadence slow, in. Theeternal note ofsadness longago Sophocles HearditontheEgxean, anditbrought ebbandflow Intohismind theturbid we misery; Ofhuman Findalsointhesound a thought, northern it this distant sea. Hearing by The Sea ofFaith Was once,too,at thefull, and round shore earth's the a like Lay girdle folds of bright furl'd. ButnowI only hear Its melancholy, roar, long,withdrawing tothebreath Retreating, downthevastedgesdrear Of thenight-wind, Andnaked shingles oftheworld. letus be true Ah,love, To one another! which seems fortheworld, To liebefore us likea landofdreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hathreally neither nor norlight, love, joy, Norcertitude, nor peace,norhelpfor pain; Andwe arehere as ona darkling plain with alarms andflight, Swept confused ofstruggle Where armies clashbynight. ignorant

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"Dover Beach" (accordingto The Case for Poetry)is the most it seemslikethemost widelyreprinted poem in thelanguage.Certainly, it. once you begin researching Let me tryto sumwidely explicated, marize in a few paragraphswhat a dozen or so of the most useful have to say.1 explicatorsand annotators threestanzas on First,the date. Arnoldwrotea draftof the first notes forEmpedocles on Etna. He had completedthe poem, then,in the summerof 1850 (Tinker) or 1851 (Baum). Depending on which to some rendezvouswith Marsummeryou settlefor,the poem refers to or Arnold's withFrances. seaside guerite honeymoon to Sophocles in the second stanza is somewhat The reference vague, but it seems quite clear thatforthe finalimage Arnoldhad in mindthe episode in Book VII of Thucydideswhere,duringthe ill-fated Sicilian expedition, the Atheniantroops became confusedduringthe nightbattle at Epipolae. The enemylearned theirpassword,and the went down to disastrous defeat (Tinker). Athenians The poem itselfmoves fromlight to darkness,paralleling its faithto disillusionment thematicmovement as a whole from (Case for from from the the or literal to metaphorical, wholly Poetry), wholly small abstractions to large ones, frompast to present(Johnson,1961). At the same time,the poem builds on a seriesof dualismsor contrasts. The mostironicof themis the contrast betweenthe tranquilscene and the restless ofthe speaker (Kirby),but the mostpowerful is incertitude evokes a rich thatbetweenthe land and the sea. The sea, in particular, varietyof symbolicvalues: a sense of time and constantchange, of - also a sense of blankness, - the watersof baptismand birth vitality
1 Since explications necessarily overlap,it is hard to give creditwherecreditis due, but I will simplygive in parentheses seriesof footnotes, I will try.To avoid a cumbersome name or title,referring what seems to me the mostappropriate aftera givenstatement, Paull F. Baum,Ten Studiesin thePoetry listof explications: to thefollowing ofMatthew MatthewArnold,Poete: Arnold (Durham, N. C., 1958), pp. 85-97. Louis Bonnerot, Essai de biographiepsychologique(Paris, 1947), p. 203. The Case for Poetry,eds. 0. Lewis, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, FrederickL. Gwynn,Ralph W. Condee, and Arthur 1954), pp. 17, 19, and "Teacher's Manual," pp. 14-15. RodneyDelasanta, The Explicaand tor,XVIII (1959), 7. ElizabethDrew, Poetry:A ModernGuide to its Understanding "A TeachingApproach (New York,1959), pp. 221-223. GerhardFriedrich, Enjoyment XLIX (1960), 75-81. Frederick L. Gwynn, VIII to Poetry," Explicator, EnglishJournal, "MatthewArnold'sDialogue," University of Kan(1960), 46. Wendell Stacy Johnson, sas City Review, XXVII (1960), 109-116. Wendell Stacy Johnson,The Voices of MatthewArnold:An Essay in Criticism(New Haven, 1961), pp. 90-94. J. D. Jump, I (1943), MatthewArnold(London, 1955), pp. 67-68 and 81. J. P. Kirby,Explicator, 42. MurrayKrieger,"'Dover Beach' and the Tragic Sense of Eternal Recurrence," University of Kansas City Review, XXIII (1956), 73-79. Gene Montague,"Arnold's XVIII (1959), 15. FrederickA. 'Dover Beach' and 'The Scholar Gypsy,'" Explicator, Pottle, Explicator,II (1944), 45. NormanC. Stageberg,Explicator,IX (1951), 34. C. B. Tinkerand H. F. Lowry,The Poetry Arnold:A Commentary of Matthew (London, explications 1940), pp. 173-178. I do not know of any psychoanalytic exceptthatreto in n. 7. ferred

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of thelandand mystery formlessness, 1961). One could think (Johnson, as one betweenman and natureorpresent and past (Krieger) sea conflict or between the dry,criticalmind (note the pun) and a natural,sponexistence taneous,self-sufficient 1960). represented by the sea (Johnson, to master of thesea as a kindofProvidencefailing One could even think the Necessityrepresented by the eternalnote of the pebbles (DelaThe is sea as faith stable, is; yetit has its ebb and flowand spray, santa). turbidlikehumanmisery. theland is itself solid and coherent, Similarly, but its pebbles and shinglesare atomisticand agitated (Gwynn), as were rightat the edge or minthoughthe point of miseryand conflict of land and sea (Case forPoetry). gling The dualismof the poem shows in its structure as well. Each of the fourstanzas divides quite markedly into two parts.In stanzas one, is illusion three,and four,the first part hopeful;the second undercuts with reality(Krieger). In everycase, illusionis presentedin termsof and reality in terms of sound (Delasanta). Thus, the poem moves sight, back and forth fromoptimistic images of images of sightto pessimistic sound.We can perhapsthink ofhearingas "themorecontiguous sense," the "more subtle sense" (Krieger), but the sounds that dominatethe and withdrawing roars(Gwynn). poem are alarmsof battleand grating The poem builds on thismanifold dualism,but at the same time with each stanza referring it presses steadilyforward, to the one preThere is a of as the poem kind structure five-part ceding (Krieger). moves froma settingto a dramaticsituationto a transitional passage (the second stanza) to an ethical, philosophical comment (the third that philosophical commentconvertsto a seemingly stanza); finally, unrelated image with a shock of abruptness and strangeness (Montague). The first stanza gives us a scene so richlyladen in values as to make us feel a kindof total satisfaction or uttercompleteness. Then, at the word "only"the scene lapses into the harsh sound and message of hints thepebbles (Krieger).Yet even in thefirst line,the word"to-night" at the transitory (Friedrich),as qualityof this fullnessand satisfaction do in thethirdand fourth linesthe appearance and disappearanceof the with lightfromthe French coast. The French lights,though,contrast so and and the stable cliffs of England which"stand,/Glimmering vast" The magnificent balance the French ebb and flowwith permanency. in the also acts out then its rhythm and and cease, again begin" "Begin, inexorable quality of the struggle(Krieger). The firststanza closes with the musical words "cadence" and "note,"a humanisticovertone stanza also ends which bridges to Sophocles (Gwynn). But the first

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Norman N. Holland

the calm of the a harshsoundthatshatters withthe "grating roar," the off to and sends more the Egaean(Drew). poet drastically opening a shift from the first stanzato thesecondrepresents The shift the and always(Krieger); from thehereand now to theeverywhere sea and landmerge noteofsadness andthebattle between eternal past Thethird tothesea as complete we andthey. returns andpresent, stanza exthenbreaksat the "but"intoa disillusionment and self-sufficient, fadesas faith did (Stageberg) The light pressedas sound(Krieger). and and leads us intothelasthalfofthestanzawhosefalling rhythm into the final stanza us over vowels (Jump). pour relentlessly open forthe first time That last stanzastatesthe themeexplicitly real and chaos the contrast between seemingperfection (Kirby), and the ofbeauty(Pottle) theworldas an illusion between (Krieger), of three lines us a life The last harsh (Drew). startlingly reality give metaone wholly new image (Baum), harshand surprising (Jump), of thepoem the otherwise realistic as against wholly setting phorical we oftheimage, (Johnson, 1961).Once we getovertheshock though, from what it is notdiscontinuous, butprogresses can see that logically theearlier becontrast the"darkling has gonebefore: plain"continues theearlier andenlarges thelandandthesea (Kirby) andextends tween of The the "naked Drew). rhyme-word "light" (Kirby, image shingles" takeus and "night" in thestanzaand thesubsequent "flight" halfway us a backto theopening and "light" rhymes (Kirby), giving "to-night" first three the stanzas sense of closureand completeness. Similarly, in an unpredictable mixed feetand less and used rhymes linesoffive The last one thatgave us a vague senseof recurrence. way,though the break at the abba cddcc with is stanza, though, rigorously rhymed lineshave irreguand closing breakin thought; and onlytheopening - the body of the stanzaconsists of sevenfive-foot lines lar lengths fill to clash Even within this consonants so, heavy regularity, (Krieger). outinsound thesenseofthefinal battle image(Drew). A senseoftwoness in duality. The poemends,thus, as it began, thevarious the to statetheidea runsthrough attempts by explicators that andpervades thepoem:"thepoet'smelancholy awareness informs oftheterrible illusion and between reality" incompatibility (Delasanta); "the ofthehuman anditspurposeless inclusiveness condition repetitive "thetragic senseofeternal "thesearecurrence" gyrations," (Krieger); the of world in of the soul finds and which also poet's rhythm general itself in accordwith thatcosmic mysteriously pulse"(Bonnerot). In general, thepoemmovesback and forth hereand between and land and and more love but there, battle, sea, past present, impor-

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sound, between appeartantlybetween sweet sightand disillusioning ance and reality. What informsthe poem, then, is an attempt to in a personalrelationship the sweet sightof stability re-create and permanence which the harshsound of the actual ebb and flowof reality negates. Now, withall these explicatory riches,what can psychoanalysis add to a readingofthepoem? Like all explications, thesetreatthepoem as an objectivefact,whichit is in part.The part we prize,though, is our subjectiveexperienceof thepoem,theinteraction of the poem with what we bringto the poem - our own habits of mind,character, past and presentfeelingsthat act with the poem "out there"to experience, make a total experience"in here." Psychoanalysis is that science that triesto speak objectively about subjectivestates;and,by the same token, thepsychoanalytic critic triesto talkobjectively about his subjectiveexperienceof the poem. To me, "Dover Beach" is a tremendously peaceful and gently And that is somewhat since,after all, it is melancholy poem. surprising, a poem at leastpartly about disillusionment, loss of faith, despair- why I am asking should such a poem seem peaceful or satisfying? In effect the same questionAristotle(and indeed, Arnoldhimself)asked about can be feltas pleastragedy:how is it thatthe mostpainfulexperiences would answer: "Because art urable in worksof art?2A psychoanalyst a seriesof interacting imitateslife."That is, we approach life through art and a of offers a ready-madeinterand work us defenses, impulses action of impulses and defenses. When we take in Arnold's poem,
2 "Though the objects themselves "we delightto may be painfulto see," notesAristotle,

is to be found of themin art .... The explanation view the mostrealistic representations is the greatestof pleasuresnot only to the in a further fact: to be learningsomething but also to the rest of mankind,howeversmall theircapacity for it: the philosopher the meaning reason of the delightis thatone is at the same timelearning- gathering in a of things."And Arnold: "In presenceof the mosttragiccircumstances, represented as is well known,may stillsubsist:the represenworkof Art,the feelingof enjoyment, to destroy it. of the liveliestanguishis not sufficient tationof the mostuttercalamity, of which,thoughaccurate,no from the representation ... . What ... are the situations, finds no vent can be derived?They are thosein whichthe suffering poetical enjoyment in action; in which a continuousstate of mental distressis prolonged,unrelievedby to be to be endured,nothing hope, or resistance;in whichthereis everything incident, in the description of them thereis inevitably done. In such situations something morbid, monotonous" (Preface to Poems, 1853). something but the innor Arnoldhad a psychology NeitherAristotle adequate to the problem, theyare saysightsof both are sound,as far as theygo. Translatedintomodernterms, ing that painfuleventscan give pleasure in tragedybecause the workof art provides it into meaningful defensive pleasure. Aristotle, ways of escapingthe pain and turning as a defense. Arnold,typicallyVictorian, typicallyGreek, stressesintellectualization would say you have to analyze the stresses action. I, typicallytwentieth-century, beforegeneralizing. ofparticular and adaptations defenses tragedy by tragedy, tragedies,

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experienceit, we take in the drivesthe poem expresses.We also take them and in the poem's way of dealing with those drives,satisfying transmutes the art work of pattypically givingpleasure.And, further, ternsof impulse and defense into moral and intellectualmeaning,a wholeness and completenessthat our impulses and defenses do not life. have in everyday Let us, then,talk about "Dover Beach" as a subjectiveexperience. The poem gives me a tremendous tranfeelingof pacification, such a offers I the Because, think, poem quility, soothing peace.3 Why? the with set defenses. We massive of begin exquisitedescription heavy, of the seascape in which everything is vast, tranquil,calm - any disin the first turbancein thatcalmness,such as the word "to-night" line, immedithe appearance and disappearanceof the lightfrom is France, ately balanced and corrected.Only afterthis strongreassurancedoes Arnoldgiveus a stronger theeternalnoteofsadness- and, disturbance, he fleesin space and timeto Sophoclesand the IEgAean; he immediately, turnsthe disturbing intoliterature and far-off, ancientliterathought tureat that.And thusdefended, he can permit the disturbance to come back again: "we/Find also in the sound a thought," but even as he to the here and now, he defendsagain. He turnsthe feelingof returns intoan intellectual, disturbance in a statement, metaphorical symbolic, line thatneverfailsto jar me by its severelyschematicand allegorical to the quality:"The Sea of Faith."Defended again,he can again return sound,and in the mostpatheticlines of the poem he lets it disturbing roll offthe edge of the earthin long, slow vowels. In the last stanza, he bringsin the majordefenseof thepoem,"Ah,love, let us be true/To one another." He offers us as a defensea retreat intoa personalrelationof with another and he can give us so defended, ship constancy person; the final, terrible of the armies that clash image ignorant by night.In me the and too this tremendous short, poem gives others, feelingof because I am over-protected; because Arnoldhas offered tranquillity me strong defensesagainstthe disturbance the poem deals with- even beforehe revealsthe disturbance itselfin the finallines. thatdisturbance itself is neververyclearlypresented. It Further, is describedobliquely,by negatives.For example,the sea is calm "to- and the"to-night" thereare othernights acts as a qualification: night"
3 I realize thatothers findin the poem,not thissense of peace, but an ultimate feelingof failureand despairas, forexample,in the explications of Delasanta and Krieger(though Bonnerot findsthe pacification). Even so, if I can discoverby analyzingmy own reactionthe drivesthe poem stirsup in me and the defensesthe poem presents fordealing withthosedrives, thenI can understand the different reactions of others forwhomthose defensesare less congenialor adequate.

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when the sea is not calm, but we do not see them. The window in - it is as line six comes as something of a surprise thoughthe poet were for as out to take in the his even he back reaches companion reaching a form of the dualism that the pervades seascape, special poem. But the is dim and oblique. We do not see the roomor the person disturbance them.The "grating roar" addressed,onlythe windowfacingaway from of the pebbles is humanized and softenedinto music: "cadence" and "note.""The turbidebb and flowofhumanmisery" seemsmetaphorized, distanced,morethan a littlevague. The world,we are told,seems like but is not a land of dreams,but what it is we are not told. We are told that faith is gone; and, while most critics seem to assume Arnold's "Faith" means religiousfaith,that,it seems to me, is only one of its The word "Faith"is notexplaineduntilthe last stanza and is meanings. thenonlyexplainedby what is missing:the abilityto clothethe world with joy and love and light,to findin the world certitude, peace, and for But the does not tell what the world is like withus help pain. poem out these things,except,metaphorically, in the image of the ignorant armies.In otherwords,the poem offers us not only massive defenses, but also a specific line of defense:we do not see the disturbance itself; we only see what it is not. There is a second specificline of defense.This poem sees and it gives us pleasurethrough hears intensely; what we see and hear,but at the same timethe seeing and hearingoperate defensively. Often,in life,to see and hear one thingintensely may serveto avoid seeing and else.4 In this we look at and listento the sea, hearingsomething poem, the shingle, to Sophocles- what are we not lookingat? What is being hiddenfrom us thatwe are curiousabout, that we would like to see? I trustyou will not think me irreverent if I remindyou thatthis a poem
4 Arnold'sown psycheis no part of the presentpaper. It is interesting, though,to note how often the themeof seeingor being seen occursin Arnold'swritings. He praises,for example, one "Who saw life steadilyand saw it whole" ("To a Friend"). He spoke Empedocles of "Gods we cannot see," and in "Self-Deception"of a parental through "Power beyondour seeing." As suggestedin the text,Arnoldoftenlooked intensely at one thingas a way of not seeing something else. At the same time,though,this kind of intenseseeing and hearingcan operate dein anotherway. To say I am seeing can be a way of sayingI am not being fensively of not being seen or heard cropsout repeatedly. seen, and in Arnold'spoetrythe motif is about to Callicles, forexample,mustnot be seen by Empedocles as the philosopher crater.NeitherSohrabnor Meroperecognizes(i.e., sees) his son. jump intothe burning One can fairlyguess, I think, at the poet's escapingthe eyes of his parents,"He, who sees us through and through" ("A Farewell"), or a MotherNaturewatchingher strugglingchild ("Morality"). "I praise," he writes,"the life whichslips away / Out of the or Obermann. lightand mutely"("Early Death and Fame"), such as the scholar-gypsy Thus, in "Dover Beach," Arnoldtreatsthe world,not as seeing himselfand his love, not caring,not offering but as indifferent, armies."One is help forpain: as "ignorant remindedof the childrenin "Stanzas fromthe Grand Chartreuse,""secret fromthe soldiersmarchto war. distant eyes of all," watching

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I cannot at night. abouta pairof lovers at leastpartly speak together are I curious as to what as for am but for they up to. myself, everyone, of for six its tells me The poem, little, only however, thirty-seven very ofthosesixare so general withthe girl;and three linesdeal directly couldrefer to all mankind. they inus something thepoemshows case in which Thisis another the us whatit is not.The poettreats defensively, by showing directly, the himself and between here-and-now girlas relationship particular He defines the of all mankind. condition the always-and-everywhere for the one another us true to substitute for the world: let be girlas a thegirl with world false. He defines hiswished-for relationship proved with what his relationship negatively, by stating indirectly, obliquely, theworld at largeis not. is thisworldwhichthe girlmustreplace?As the What,then, it is a worldrather dividedinto two out, point sharply explicators of to illusion and or,in theterms reality aspects roughly corresponding thesight thepoemitself, a world ofa bright, calmseascape representing faith. with and thesoundofagitated one without faith, pebbles, ofthesounds The theme ofsound reminds us oftheimportance the and and of poemitself, particularly therhyme rhythm so beautifully and cease, intothe senseat three line worked twelve, points: "Begin, of the last fourlinesof and thenagainbegin";the longwithdrawal theimage stanzathree; theclotted consonants thataccompany finally, thatthesepoints wherethe armies. It is worth of theignorant noting of disillusionment inthe sound becomes are all strong particularly points in the seems linked to In of rhyme poem passages poem. general, strong ortrust oracceptance; linked seems toa sense rhythm strong expectation ofreality and solidity. in stanzatwo,the are strong Thus,therhymes ofdisillusionment, and in stanzafour, intellectual theemoacceptance tionalacceptance. the of the is at Rhythm strong poemwith opening itsgreat ofregularity, thereness. solidity, feeling three In thefirst stanzas of thispoemof division and dualism, and tend to At be divorced from each other. where rhyme rhythm points awareoftherhythm, we arestrongly therhyme to disappear tends from or even from consciousness the poem.Conversely, at pointsof very as in stanzatwo,the rhythm becomesirregular and rhyme, regular to disintegrate. tends Thissound to seems be a of pattern part thegeneraldefensive ofthepoem- todivide theworld and deal with strategy itinparts, toshow us things us what are not. byshowing they Similarly, - and this, Arnold divideseach of the linesfrom two to six halfway ofdivision in thepoem, but also, again,is partofthegeneral strategy

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Not untilwe begin to understand words does hearingbegin to convey as much to us as sightdoes, and it seems to be in the natureof things thata good deal ofwhattheone or two yearold childhearsis - "Don't." froma parent,oftena corrective, We experiencesound as a distancing nillyput up with,since we cannotshutour ears as we can our eyes. In "Dover Beach," then, what the poet wishes for fromthe world, but a knowswill not come, is the kind of fidelity, "Faith,"or gratification but the sound the poet child associates with the sightof his mother, And the poem, by associatingsightwith hears routshis expectations. of the worldas we wish and hope it would be, and sound as a corrector

ofthepoem withtheworld thepoem,a wayof dealing as all through itin twoto theworld the as he dealswith described poem:dividing by itinparts. at of the not the close deal with rhythm, Finally, poem, only is a strengthening of defensive there but also rhyme becomesstrong; in ofgreatest and distress form to itsmoment stress as thepoemcomes at the close to and sense all content. come together Rhyme, rhythm, of in ourselves final makeus experience thepoem's acceptance rhymed a disturbing sound. as rhythmic reality expressed to the disillusioning influence be sound itself seems Rhythmic we need to ask what whichthepoemstruggles to accept.Obviously, fora moment, of thatrhythm the emotional is. Consider, significance of and do we thetwosenses, one's speak "feasting" sight hearing. Why "the of with look? we of conor a do voice" speak eyes "devouring" Why science or ofGod as "theword"? of our two major "Dover Beach"taps our earliest experience As earlyas the third of the childcomesto first. month senses.Sight, human the fourth or fifth a a face as such. can life, baby recognize By he can distinguish thefaceoftheperson whofeedsandfondles month, in ourminds himfrom other faces.Sight linked to beingfed, becomes to a nurturing for in "Dover thestrong mother. Beach," Thus, example, fivelineslead intoa demandthata woman sight imagesof thefirst ifwe identify a taste and even, come, kinaesthetically image("sweet"), ofthatsweet air.In infancy, with thepoet,an inhaling besight night with infrom comes associated a taking a mother a taking in,specifically inwhom we havefaith, whom we expect togiveus joy, certilove,light, for Our in life first as disillusionment comes that tude, peace,help pain. fails to stand calm, there, full, fair, vast, tranquil, always nurturing figure butinstead Andthepoemmakes us ebbsandflows. withdraws, retreats, hearthis withdrawal. with Our important comeslaterthanseeing. experience hearing

notsomething we must we anticipate and expect, butsomething willy-

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in us a responsive thatwish,finds note,forthishas been partof our experience,too. does the harshsound of grating But what, specifically, pebbles it in the Arnold describes as to our minds, poem? For particularly bring seems of the and conflict as the one thing, show, point misery explicators of land and sea. For another, to come rightat the joiningor mingling its rhythm. Where the disturbanceseems to lie in its veryperiodicity, the opening seascape is very solidly there,calm, full,tranquil- "the demandsheavy stress) of England stand" (and the internal cliffs rhyme - the disturbance a being a withdrawing, a retreat, is an ebb and flow, and then and the waves drawnback and flung cease, again up; "Begin, sound gains begin." And slowly,what was simplya harsh,rhythmical and we are leftwith otherovertones. The "bright girdle"is withdrawn "naked shingles."The world does not "lie before us like a land of dreams."Rather,the "Begin,and cease, and thenagain begin" has beThere is a well-nigh universalsexual symcome a naked clash by night. naked fighting bolismin thisheard-but-not-seen by night.The poem is in in at and feelings evoking me, least, perhaps manyreaders,primitive - disturbing, but thatgo bump in the night" about "things frightening, one Arnold's a horror This is at the same like movie. time, way exciting or despair into a satisfypoem turnsour experienceof disillusionment the covertgratification we get from thisfinal ing one, namely,through A a scene would fantasy." image. psychoanalyst recognize "primal Arnoldis talking abouthearinga sexual"clashby night," justas children At thesame time,theimage operatesdefensively as sex as fight.5 fantasy well. This poem tellsabout a pair ofloversin a sexual situation; as elseour attention where in the poem, the image deflects fromthat sexual and moralexperience, situation and sublimates it intoa distant, literary, a darkling plain fromThucydides. The conventional have foundsome logic underlying explicators that final startling to a image: logical developmentfrombrightness darkness,fromthe pebble beach to the darklingplain. Ordinaryexlittlebasis forthe armies, while psychological offers however, plication, offers considerable. The with a worldwhichis poem begins explication a world is which a world is investedwith which seen, verysolidlythere, in thesightofhis nurturing a faithlike a child'strust The poem mother. movesintosound,to thelater, harsher sense,and withit to the soundsof withdrawaland retreat.Thus, the sound of the ocean shifts fromthe
5 In the discussionfollowing the readingof this paper, it was suggestedto me that the sexual symbolism is even moreexact than statedin the text.The "darklingplain" may the nuptialbed, the "struggle"a man's activity and the suggestto us, unconsciously, a woman'spassivity in the sexual situation. "flight"

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of waves to the more permanent, even geological withdrawal rhythm of the "Sea of Faith."The feelingis one of permanent decay, a sense of harshrealityakin to a child's growing that his motherdoes knowledge not existforhimalone, thatshe has a lifeof her own and wishesof her own which cause her to go away fromhim and come back, to retreat and withdraw.The final image brings in a still strongerfeeling of a feelinglike that of a child'sexcitedbut frightwithdrawal, rhythmic ened vague awarenessof the naked,nighttime sound of that rhythmic other,separate adult life. It does not lie therelike a land of dreamsit is violentand brutal;thebright and bodies rather, girdleis withdrawn clash by night.Roughly, we could say thatthe lovelyappearances seen - corin the poem - the moonlight, the cliffs of England, the stillness to a faith in a mother. The harsh of sounds withdrawal heard respond in thepoem correspond to thedisillusioning knowledgeof one's mother's with the latter father, relationship expressedperhaps as Sophocles or father did edit Thucydides (Arnold's Thucydides).In the mannerof a the hiddenin thepoem,a father and mother, are dream, twoindividuals two "armies";and they,usuallyall-seeing, disguisedas two multitudes, of passion,"ignorant." all-wise,become in the violentmoment But we stillhave not answeredthe question,How does thepoem turnthisdisturbing awarenessof withdrawalintoa pleasurable experience? So far, we have talkedonlyabout the defensesthepoem uses: the to Sophocles,symbolicdisguise,intellectualization, most imporflight a difference between the seen tant,division, keeping sharp appearance and theheard reality. But such defensescan onlyprevent unpleasurehow can the poem give us pleasure and create a rounded experience? The pleasure lies in thataspect of the poem thatthe commentators almost withoutexceptionignore (thus provingthe strength and success of Arnold'sdefensivemaneuvers). Let me remindyou again that this is a poem that talks about a man and a woman in love and alone together. Yet how oddlyand how brilliantly thepoem handlesthis its of For the first five lines we have only problem stationing speaker! the vaguest inklingof where he is: lookingat a seascape near Dover. thathe is indoors, Then,in line six,we suddenlylearn,first, second,that thereis someone withhim,someone whom he wishes to take in what he is takingin. Yet the poem does nothing morewiththissudden placit arouses,the faintfeelingof disturbance, is ing. Instead,the curiosity onto the sound heard in the lines after line six another displaced way ofmaking us feelthesoundas disturbing, and as complicating thescene. The nexttwo stanzas do littlemorewiththe problemof stationtwo places the speakerin space - by showingus where he Stanza ing.

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sea." The is not,the IEgaean; then,it places him by "a distantnorthern "we" of line eighteenhas all the ambiguitiesof the editorialwe - it thepoet and his companion, or the could be thepoet as a public speaker, Stanza three the in and all his poet time, places contemporaries. poet again, negatively:not "once" when the sea of faithwas full,but "now" - again, something a bit vague and something we alreadyknow.Then, new tells us line again - thathe is in something twenty-nine suddenly, thusemergesfrom the rest love withhis companion.Their relationship of the poem like shadowyfigures until,at last,onlytwo materializing,6 stations thepoet and hislove: "And theclose,thepoem firmly linesfrom forthe "we" we are here." Even here,though,thereis some blurring, could be the editorialwe of stanza two as well as the we of you-and-I. we are no sooner"here"thanwe are there, And,further, metaphorically armies. flown to the darkling plain sweptby ignorant In short, the stationing of the poet and his love involvesa good and ambiguity. deal of shifting As always in this poem, the poem is us whattheyare not.The are us what things obliquely,by telling telling are suggeststhatwe look the and love his about where poet ambiguity to see where they are in anothersense and there, indeed, we can locate them quite precisely: they are rightthere in lines six, nine, and thirty-five. They occur pretwenty-nine, eighteen,twenty-four, in the poem whereit movesfrom sightto ciselyat thepointsof division to from in stanza a literor, far-off, reality, sound,from two, appearance the of to here and now "we" the northern To sea. ary Sophocles put by it another the way,theloverscome betweenthetwokindsof experience This is the creates. of "And the we are here," poem importance phrase, which makes us feel the closure and completeness of the poem. Read over the last lines withvariantphrasings to see the importance of that clause: nor for ... nor peace, pain; help And the world is,asona darkling plain with confused alarms ofstruggle andflight, Swept Where armies clash ignorant bynight.
6 This, too, is a recurring - a sense of the truestateof affairs themein Arnold'swriting like a humanfigure. in the emerging Thus, the 1853 Prefaceto Poems speaksof a myth mind "traced in its bare outlines. . . as a groupof statuary, Greek spectator's faintly outlines.... seen, at the end of a long and darkvista: thencame the Poet, embodying the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itselfto the riveted gaze of the spectator:untilat last, when the finalwordswere spoken,it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of immortal at the openingof the beauty." Similarly, he describes Truthas a "mysterious Goddess" who, 1869 Prefaceto Essays in Criticism, even if approached obliquely,can only be seen in outline,while, "He who will do but fight towardsher ... is inevitably destinedto runhis head into nothing impetuously the folds of the black robe in which she is wrapped." I am remindedof Empedocles' into the crater. rushing

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... norpeace,norhelpfor pain; AndI amhere, as ona darkling plain confused alarms ofstruggle andflight, Sweptwith Where clashbynight. armies ignorant

Thepoemneedsthefinality bothofbeinghereandofbeingwe,for this is thepoem's ultimate defense. Stanzaoneopened with taken as reassuring, constant, full, sight, and closedwithsoundsensedas a kindof corruption the penetrating fair two and fled Stanzas three this conflict both in time and sight. space, it in another andfled thepoet'suniversalizing ofhisfeelwaythrough them overall time, all space,all peoples.Andyetthis ings, spreading leaveshimdisillusioned, defense and he turns at theopening ofstanza four tothegirl as a wayofdealing with theproblem. He begins one another"; "Ah,love,letus be true/To by saying, and"true" is thekey He wants word. tore-create inhisrelationship with herthelostsenseoffaith; he wants herto be "true," notto withdraw as theearlier had done. "True" also the that relationship of sight suggests thetwo,thepoetand his love,willnotbe liketherelationship of the twohalvesoftheworld as he seesthem. The lovers willnotcorrupt or contradict one another as thetwohalvesoftheworld do - rather, they willbe "true/To oneanother." The laststanzathen movesintoa series ofliststhatact outthe toward the world that failed has that itseems him, poet's feeling though
So various, so beautiful, so new, Hathreally neither joy,norlove,norlight, Norcertitude, norpeace,norhelpfor pain.

Thelists ofinclusiveness, oftaking itall in,butthelists giveus a feeling arenegative, "nor"- so that itis precisely "neither," theinclusive"nor," nessthatis rejected; the fact that the world all the precisely negates the to wants take in leads to that the of the world. things poet rejection Here is thefirst halfofthepoem'sstrategy: to try to takein joy,love, someone part certitude, light, peace,helpforpain;but,uponfinding oftheworld that these to all the world. A psychonegates things, reject would here of the denial: must conanalyst speak poet denywhatever flicts with hiswishto be given and therest. In thekey joy,love,light, thepoetturns backto thegirl. "We arehere," line,"Andwe arehere," as the was in stanza and we are quite one; solidly, constantly, seascape from what conflicts with thatsolid,constant trust distinctly separate the ignorant armies. not"we"; and theyare Theyare quitedistinctly distanced from "we"by"as,"that andliterary reference. is,bymetaphor
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thefirst halfofthestanza The factthat"we are here" stands between the half second from thefirst. and thesecond, penetrating preventing out Morrison as Theodore Paradoxically, years ago, the pointed many involved in a the disillusionment to prevent poemuses loveprecisely ofsexuality.7 knowledge offour the The strategy ofthepoemthusconsists First, stages. faith. a world felt us as Second, constant, nurturing, evoking poetgives he rejects thewholething to he discovers a disillusioning sound. Third, from his he retreats of that sound. rid Fourth, global get disillusioning in a statein miniature, to re-create theearlier wishes and tries idyllic The poemdefends by denial;it getsrid of the personal relationship. sound it thepoet. awayfrom by putting metaphorically disillusioning in terms of an adult world Thenthepoemgives byre-creating pleasure inhisparents.8 for andfaith a child's wishes trust, constancy, forourselves the us experience too,how thepoetmakes Notice, He the somewhat the describes. first, givesus, vague experience poem in us botha wishto takein more, of and a feeling seascape,evoking of another. Thenhe surprises and security. us withthepresence trust thepoemtellsus is a sound. So it We feela disturbing which influence, to of "Come the and want voice we is - thesudden window," speaking to takein more. the secondand third stanzas to knowmore, Instead, intellectualize and to distance the but fail and influence try disturbing tension in us. The fourth comebackto it,thus stanza abanbuilding up to deal with donstheseearlier theproblem. it suddenly First, attempts from theexternal retreats world tothesmaller ofthelovers; world secit in shifts from the Dover to the ond, metaphor seascape ignorant Thefourth armies. stanza us thevaguehope, "Letus be true"; and, gives ofthepoem, as at thebeginning we feeltrust, butalsoa desire security, Butnowwe learn totakeinmore. that thedanger, themoving backand
7 "Dover Beach Revisited:A New Fable forCritics," Harper'sMagazine,CLXXX (1940).

"The ordinarydegree of aggressiveness, the normaljoy of conquest and possession, seemedto be whollyabsentfrom him.The love he asked forwas essentially a protective or motherly; in its unavoidable ingredient of passion he felt a constant love, sisterly him" (see pp. 240-241). Professor Morrison offers danger,whichrepelledand unsettled his insight in the whimsical of a Pooh Perplex,but it seemsto me sound neverthespirit less. This essay, by the way, containsthe only otherpsychoanalytic of the explication poem I know. 8 Like thetheme of sight, theform ofrejecting or giving so as to gain another up one thing versionof the first) occursover and over again in Arnold'swritings. (oftena mollified Among the poems that take this formare: "To a Republican Friend, 1848" (both poems), "ReligiousIsolation,""In UtrumqueParatus,""Absence," "Self-Dependence," "A Summer Night," "The Buried Life," "The Scholar-Gipsy," "Thyrsis," "Rugby Chapel"; and among the prose, "On Translating Homer," "The Functionof Criticism at the Present of Philistinism, Time," the rejection anarchy, Hebraism,and so on. "I am Arnoldwroteto "K," and the tropeseems to represent fragments," a basic defensefor him."Dover Beach" is quintessential Arnoldas well as quintessential Victorian.

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we takea metaphorical in timeand space to is elsewhere; forth, flight at flight failed that in stanzas twoand theplainofEpipolae.The efforts instanza Thephrase is almost four three succeed because"wearehere." ofdisillusionment, thepoem andthus, bythevery acceptance parental; letus takeinwhatwe wished to gratifies us,becauseitdoes,ultimately, with a takein: itletsus seetwo"true" a lovers of "clash together glimpse elsewhere. bynight" The poemmakes us experience theexperience described by the it and we can does in the see various We explications. have poem, the of as a of trust thathe willbe the child's poem spoken re-creating in thathe willbe able to take and be takenintosomecomnurtured, environment. inspeaksof thepoemas "therepetitive forting Krieger clusiveness ofthehuman situation." We havespoken ofthepoemas an the worldas it once was, in childhood. to re-create attempt Krieger and eternal of sense of "the recurrence." speaks repetitiveness tragic We havespoken ofthedisturbing notein thepoemas thesenseofebb and flow thatcutsdowna child'sfaith thatthe nurturing worldwill be Bonnerot "the the there. of of worldin always speaks sea-rhythm the and of soul which finds also itself in poet's general mysteriously accordwiththatcosmicpulse,"9 whileDelasantaspeaksof "terrible - thetwosidesofa child's trust. incompatibility" In short, a psychological ofthepoemas an interunderstanding and defenses actionofimpulses conventional complements explication theemotional our becauseit reveals to underobjective underpinnings of the It enables us to about our subpoem. speakobjectively standing the of even when those experience poem, jective subjective experiences But whatcan thiskindofawareness ofthepoemas imvarysharply. contribute to literary pulseand defense history? A preliminary must be: Whatdo we meanby question, though, Once moves themerechroniliterary history? literary history beyond of names and in as a reference we ask,I think, thatit dates, book, cling
9 Bonnerotoffers a curious confirmation of the readinghere suggested,that the sea in "Dover Beach" evokesfeelings like thosetowarda nurturing mother. after Immediately the statement cited, he quotes (free associates to?) the followingfromGod and the Bible: "Only when one is youngand headstrong can one thusprefer bravado to experience, can one stand by the Sea of Time, and instead of listeningto the solemn and beat of its waves, choose to fillthe air with one's own whoopingsto start rhythmical the echo." It is not too difficult to hear under Arnold's"whoopings"something like a child's anguishedhowls to preventhis mother's withdrawalor bringher back ("start the echo") or replace the void she leaves ("fill the air"). There is further confirmation in Arnold'sletterto Clough of 29 Sept. 1848, wherehe describeshimself as "one who looks upon water as the Mediatorbetweenthe inanimateand man." See H. F. Lowry, Arnoldto Arthur ed., The Lettersof Matthew Hugh Clough (London, 1932), p. 92.

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to understand events thatis, as havbe an attempt literary historically, in time.Typically, to other events relations ing causesor meaningful from chronicle it shades when moves to history, history though, literary ceases to be a as off of ideas. Literary intothehistory history, such, is that I think, we are acThe reason thishappens, discipline. separate to lookat the content of literature whenwe are looking at customed in But not what content is literature literature is literary historically. kind of In form the and is. terms, is; quality expression psychoanalytic form aredefenses; andmodeofexpression litertowrite and,therefore, which is of the of not a branch ideas, aryhistory merely history literary which whatis literary in literature, dealswith we shallhaveto history aboutthedefenses write a particular culture uses.We shall havetothink likea cultural more than an intellectual historian. anthropologist have said "DoverBeach"is therepresentative, the Manycritics Victorian poem,or,in Krieger's quintessential gentlepun,a "highly Victorian" the critics have said thisbecause however, poem.Mostly, - major see the as about doubt and of faith loss they poem primarily in Victorian themes ideas. But "DoverBeach"is an emotional experione.Further, notjustan intellectual to see thepoemas only about ence, doubtis notto see theform ofthepoem, for Arnold setshisdoubtand a sexualsituation: thisis a poemthattellsabouttwo despairagainst aloneatnight.10 lovers We haveseenthat"DoverBeach"defends thatsituation against and adaptsit to moraland intellectual three pleasureby employing itavoids at thelovers lookFirst, strategies. looking directly byintensely and to at the the sea, else, ing listening something shingle, Sophocles, and reality so as to keep up a division or dualism, to prevent certain from orpenetrating. The feeling ifthenegative is that things mingling thepositive soundtouches one must them both.One must sight, reject either the world or it Both thesedefenses wholly reject wholly. accept thepsychoanalyst wouldcall forms ofdenial:denying theexistence of forbidden what are not; byseeing only things they denying compromise orimperfection. thepoemtries to re-create in therelationThen, third, morechildish, but moresatisfying ship withthe lovera simplified, ofan adult version lovefor another or the world as a whole. person
10 Thus, I think, Walter Houghtoncomes closerto the themeof doubtwhen he reminds us: "For the Victorians, the disagreeablefacts were primarily those of sex, and the truth the stateof religion"(The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870 [New terrifying In pp. this section of I am Haven, 1957], 413-414). mypaper, relying veryheavilyon Professor to sheer gratiHoughton'sbook. My feelinggoes beyondmere indebtedness tude thatsuch an encyclopedic and perceptive book exists.

and so on. Second, the poem places its "you" and "I" between illusion

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thepsychoanalytic VictorIn short, ofthisquintessentially study makes it so "Vicas to what ianpoemcuesus toa particular hypothesis the use of denialto retorian": a certain ofdefenses, pattern namely, an adultworld tomeeta child's for demand create Now,we perfection. Victorian? needto ask,To whatextent is this pattern characteristically didit comefrom? How didit sustain itself? Ifitis characteristic, where in literary forms? Andhowis it expressed in a mere answer all these we cannot essay, questions Obviously, with the the Victorian We itself butwe can begin. can begin style way therejection oftheRegency and all thefour the Georges, began with of other the club-life and levities, rejection eighteenth-century rejection of the aristocracy, and therejection of Byronism and the excesses of sucha massive ofthepastis, Romanticism.ll Psychologically, rejection a at some levelofa man's of his his in being, rejection parents, forebears orhistorical a physical sense. It is no accident, as wellas an intellectual I think, immediate thatthisage thatso rejected should parenthood withtheproblem of evolution, also have been so preoccupied parenthooddistanced to a prehistoric Burke thecharpast.Kenneth suggests acteristic mental habitof thenineteenth was translating "escentury sence"into"origin" so thatthe statement, "Thisis the essenceof the becomes "Thisis how it began."'2 And thisstrategy, situation," too,I for take it,is a wayoflooking lostorigins parenthood in areassafely distanced from realorigins. When the Victorians immediate their rejected past,what did it with? as they stuffed and over-stuffed their rooms Just they replace felt with were new a world themselves furniture, they they creating and notwithout reason. "Your could "starts railroad," write, Thackeray "It was only thenewera.""We are oftheage ofsteam." but yesterday, whata gulfbetween now and thenl" In a very real sense,the newly middleclass could claimto have created itself, powerful psychologito beenitsown parents have or,in Clough's cally, by itsvery phrase, success tohaveachieved '"This kin." keensupplanting ofnearest Butwhenwe lookto see howtheVictorians ofparents, thought if the Victorians we findthat, were theirown parents, theywere a
11 Houghton,pp. 45-53, lo9, 300, and 342. Lionel Trilling,"The Fate of Pleasure:

Wordsworth to Dostoevsky,"in Northrop Reconsidered:SeFrye, ed., Romanticism lected Papers fromthe English Institute(New York, 1963), pp. 73-106, particularly the idea that pp. 73-90 and 97-101. Professor Trilling'spaper develops brilliantly Victorianmoral and spiritualenergyshould be regardedas an effort to mask over indeed, attack- pleasures erotic and gentlemanly. My own essay mightwell be reto a particularpoem Trilling'shypothesis garded as the attemptto extendProfessor and to literary forms. 12 Cited by StanleyEdgar Hyman,The Tangled Bank (New York,1962), p. 366.

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ratherspecial kind of parent.Motherbecomes Patmore'sAngel in the House, or, as Tennyson'sPrince describesher,

As forthe gods, we recognizethe Victorianfather:a man thoughtof in termsof forceand power and authority, a kingor hero on primarily a of almost an Old TestamentGod. model, captain industry, Carlyle's What such parentslack, of course,is adult sexuality, whichis replaced forceor householdcontentment. by a kindofindustrial We see the same denial in Victorianhero-worship, particularly of a father of heroeswho combinedfeatures and a son: wild, primitive but of impeccablemoralstature. The favorite was the Galahad figures, and it tells the us Victorian the denial of secret: leads to story, sexuality to it another the Victorians looked at a or, put physicalstrength way, man's strength as a way of not seeinga man'ssexuality. Symbolsforthe denial are thebaptismalimagesthatrecurin Victorian ofwater writing, or cleansing ofthesoiledself,as in The WaterBabies or Kingsley's whole advice forlife- '"hard work and cold water."13 What I am suggestingis that the Victoriansin general, like Arnoldin "RugbyChapel," soughtparentssuch as a child would wish, What the Victorians parentsdevoid of sexuality. rejectedin theirsocial the Regency,they rejected in their parents,the eighteenth century, actual parents: levity, As libertinism, gentlemanly pleasures,sexuality. in the to his readers would Thackeraycomplained preface Pendennis, not accept a virile man or a realisticwoman. When the Victorians createdtheirown new world,became parentsthemselves, theybecame on this infantile model. we find Beatrice Webb's Thus, father, parents and nightto thoughhe was a railwaytycoon, kneelingdown morning meek repeat the prayerhe learned at his mother's lap - "GentleJesus, and mild,look upon a littlechild."Perhaps it is trueof any age baffled of rapid change that it regresses, triesto come to by the complexities childishterms; but theVictorians gripswithitsworldin moreprimitive, do seem to have done so morethanmost. In thiswish to re-create one's parentson the model of a child's we wishes, findan answerto what is to me the mostpuzzling problem of Victorianlife: Why was it a stable society?Afterall, the Victorians triedto put down wit, levity, leisure,acceptance, and passivity, along with sex. It was a stately, solemn,perhapsdrearykind of culture.And
13 Jerome Buckley,The VictorianTemper (Cambridge,1951), pp. 98-105.

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or so years.People musthave foundsome sortof comyetit lasted fifty the granting of one of the pensatingpleasure in it. They found,I think, and of wishes a wish that childhood, strongest persistswith deepest into adult to the fantasy the desire maintain life,namely, greatstrength thatone's parentsbe sexuallypure. Thus,obliquely,"Dover Beach" has led us to at least a hypothesis about themajorVictorian modes of defense.In the termsof intellectual Walter history, Houghtondescribesthem as "a process of deliberately whateverwas unpleasantand pretending it did not exist."In ignoring these defenses are terms, avoidance, denial, psychoanalytic suppression, - all thosedefensive summedup in Mr. Podsnap's repression strategies "I don'twant to knowabout it; I don'tchoose to discussit; I formulaic, don't admitit!" But these defenseshave a positive side as well as the merely to remodelthe world,to negativeone. They lead to the Victorianeffort the beliefin the basic goodnessof humannaearnestness, enthusiasm, an emphasison doing (Arnold's"Hebraism"), ture,dogmatism, rigidity, the gospel of intellectual, moral,and social work,the driveand dutyto succeed. All are ways of emulatinga father conceived of as non-sexual industrial or moraldrive;or of gratifying a mother conceivedin terms of Ruskin's"Goddess of Getting-on," or what Arnoldcalled "Mrs. Gooch's Golden Rule,"hercounselto herson: "My dear Dan ... you shouldlook forward to being some day managerof thatconcern!" As forintellectual we find Mill what described as a "rather more demonlife, generally strative attitudeof belief' than people thoughtnecessary"when their was more complete."We see the Victorianneverpersonal conviction for as thoughone were constantly to find truth, ending quest trying some truth otherthanthe one you have denied and leftbehind you. At thesame time, we find an unwillingness to draw ultimate to conclusions, come to a stoppingplace lest the intellectual end. we Thus, too, quest findpoems like "The Scholar-Gipsy" or Tennyson's"Ulysses"praising forcewithout aim or end,forifone came movement, aspiration, energy, to an end, one mighthave to sit down and thinkabout what was left behind4 - "The BuriedLife,"Arnoldcalled it;
our own onlytrue,deep-buried selves, Being one with which we are one with the whole world.

For those with eyes less open than Arold's, the buried life be14

"For the Victorians,intense activitywas both a rational method of attackingthe anxietiesof the time,and an irrational methodof escapingthem"(Houghton,p. 262). See also Kristian Smidt, "The Intellectual Quest of the VictorianPoets," English XL Studies, (1959), 90-102.

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thefear thatwhatwas underside ofVictorian camethedark optimism: There be on denial the founded and denied return, upset. optimism might come the masses. There from from be a revolution below, might might thepernicious from of,say,Balzac orFlauabroad, writings corruption Abstract ofpoetry." the school the local or even product, "fleshly bert, and love are are and Knowledge contemplation dangerous. thought treatthelight becomes as inBrowning's Paracelsus. antithetical, Levity ofall evil.The devil ofas theoccasion is thought ofevil.Leisure ment foridle hands- and we can guessat thefearofwhatidle work finds and pessimisms Theseare theanxieties, be doing. handsmight doubts, ofVictorian thesuperstructure thatgnawunderneath things optimism, toputdown wouldtry a Carlyle orevenan Arnold that force, George by in progress. or Macaulayby a trust Eliotby a cultofobedience, backed followed towork Doubtanddespair up bya commitment this of what or is, course, Jerome principle by religious philosophic and it ofVictorian conversion," (ch.v) has called"thepattern Buckley for is a psychological WhatI am suggesting is wellknown. paradigm this I actual could it We thisVictorian way: reject my put life-style. I create theworld and itsattitudes). forebears (theeighteenth century this is the but and anew.I thusbecomemyownparent, important such child would wish. I theadult a I a become as deny parent point the of but also indifference, enjoyment easiness, emotions, sexuality, I of I the am Instead, work, enthusiastic, leisure, tolerance uncertainty. two.I deny theadult Andthelaststepscarry I am earnest. outthefirst ofwhatwent therejection before. I busymyand so continue emotions selfand so I create theworldanew.The system closesuponitself and thestable, ofthelongVictorian It is becomes calm. uneasy, style though whole the because circle rests on a a denial that leaves weak uneasy and Paterand Meredith and Hardyand pointat whichSwinburne will Wilde thesystem and breakit down. penetrate

Butwhat doesthis much of history? sayaboutliterary Obviously, ofVictorian thecontent either the frantic affirmations poetry expresses doubts ofVictorian orthecovert culture. Thisis thecontent, however. understood as giving Whataboutdefenses riseto forms and modesof "DoverBeach"cuesus tolookfor three defenses. conFirst, expression? one on a of not as else. a centrating thing way seeing something Second, totry tokeepthings from to divideexperience into tendency mingling, or totalrejection, totalacceptance to avoidcompromise or theacceptanceofimperfection. there-creation ofan adult world Third, according

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to a child'swish forperfection, thathis parentsbe sexually specifically, If our is these mustgiveriseto at least defenses correct, hypothesis pure. some of the forms and stylesof Victorianliterature. And so, it seems to me, theydo. Many criticshave pointedto a kind of divided allegiance in Victorianpoetry: the poet as a public, social spokesman,but with a buried self; a pervasive dichotomybetween social and moral subjects and personal ones. In psychoanalytic we recognizeone of the "Dover Beach" defenses,concentrating terms, on one thingso as not to see another, or, as E. D. H. Johnson puts it, "The expressedcontenthas a dark companion."'5The same defense showsin the way the Victorian poet relieson a naturalscene. "Arnold," notes Truss,"typically an grafted idea to a landscape, and he triedto make the landscape do his talkingforhim."Trilling's is kinder phrasing when he speaks of "Arnold's bold dramaticway of using greatobjects, oftengreatgeographicalor topographical objects,in relationto which the subjectivestatesof the poem organizethemselves and seem themselves to acquire an objectiveactuality."16 The massivelandscape takes our attention the poet. away from Another form of the period distancesthe same way: the popular dramaticmonologue affirms an externalrealityat the expense of the Smidthas shown, the distancpoet'ssubjectivestate (thoughas Kristian often into an or collapses ing "oblique" "diagonal" point of view in which the poet blurs into his spokesman- the denial breaks down).17 we findin criticism a tendency to Along withthe dramaticmonologue, look at the eventsdescribedby a workof artrather thanat the workof art itself, to treatShakespeareancharacters as real people, forexample. enables the Victorian to concentrate on one thingas a way of This,too, not seeing something else his own emotionalreaction. If "Dover Beach" is quintessentially we shouldbe able Victorian, to findin Victorianforms the second of its defenses, generally namely, dividingthe world intoblack and white,yea and nay. Thus, when the Victorianstyle began, poetic imageryshiftedaway fromthe growth and profusion of the Romantics, unitingwith the world,to images of and tension,dividingoneselffromthe world or dividingthe polarity world itself,as Arnold does in "Dover Beach" (Johnson, 1961, p. 2).
15 E. D. H. Johnson, The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry (Princeton, 1952), p. 217. " 16 Tom J. Truss, "Arnold's 'Shakespeare,' Explicator, XIX (1961), 56. Lionel Trilling, ed., The Portable Matthew Arnold (New York, 1949), p. 39. See also Marshall McLuhan, "The Aesthetic Moment in Landscape Poetry," in Alan S. Downer, ed., English Institute Essays 1951 (New York, 1952), pp. 168-181. 17 Kristian Smidt,"Pointof View in Victorian Poetry," EnglishStudies,XXXVIII
1-12.

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In thissense,the pervasivedichotomy in Victorianpoetrybetween social and moral subjects and personal ones becomes anotherway of world createdfromchild-like and the polarizingthe external optimism darker,more adult emotionswithin.Arnold,in particular,came into feelthata naturalor generallaw proscribed the expression creasingly - for ofhis own deep feelings18 law" we can read thepervasive "general defense of the man and his culture.Again, we findVictorianpoetry to poetic diction,a kind of fulfillment of Bentham's heavilycommitted view of the arts.Poetic dictionservesas a way of distinguishing poetry fromnormaladult speech, an optimizing of ordinary language, reconit in termsof a wish forperfection-akindof extremely adult structing baby-talk. We can see both these "Dover Beach" defenses, forexample,in the pre-Raphaelitestyle.Both the concentration on visual detail and the heavy use of emblemand allegoryservethe Victoriandenial much as Arnold's at one thing, viewingoftheseascape does. We look intensely at one meaningor sight, and so we avoid seeing something else. Heavy and allegory;a retreat to Greek,Biblical,medieval,or exotic symbolism ofvisual details- theseare present to some legend;theample rendering extentin all Victorianpoetry, but these various overstatements in the serviceof denial fuse in the pre-Raphaelite make to it, too, style quinVictorian. tessentially But poetry, of course,was not the greatestformin the period. The outputmay have been vast, but the quality was sharplylimited, perhaps because poetryas the expressionof personal feelingsdid not suit an age dedicated to the denial of certainkey feelings.The "Spasmodic school" suggeststhe troublepoets got into when they tried to unshieldedby dramaticmonologueor landexpressfeelingsdirectly, The novel needs better, the wish to scape. expressedVictorian notably, concentrate on one thingas a way of not seeinganother. Just as, on the stage, theatrical spectacle and declamatoryacting shiftedattention so the great away fromthe lack of realisticemotionin the characters, shift ofthe Englishnovel from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century is a growing attention to the largersocial environment the surrounding centralcharacters. At the same time,the usual Victoriannovel offered its readers adult emotionsover-simplified and desexualized. The Victorian like Victorian novel, commerce, soughtto orderthecomplexadult world by the wishes of a child. As JosephSchumpeter has shown,in Victoriancommerce,the industrialist became paternalistic, a father;
18 John M. Wallace, "Landscape and 'The General Law': The Poetry of Matthew Arnold," Boston University Studies in English, V (1961), 9-10o6.

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The the colonial took on the burdens of his 'little brown brother."19 larger political and economic world was to be organized in termsof And so the novelist family by the formof his novel often responsibility. - Bleak House is the obvious and best example- that the suggested was simplyto re-createthe cure forthe ills of the adult environment child in the world at world of a large. family The Victorian novelpolarizedtheworldintoa largeenvironment and a family of centralcharacters, just as Victoriandramapolarized its world into elaborate visual spectacle and a star or two. Yet the novel the decline we can understand whilethedramadeclined.I think thrived of the drama as a case in which a genre found itselfcaught between modesofdefense.On theone hand,thereis theavoidance twoVictorian of one thingby lookingat another, in visual givingrise to the interest and as not see to the central characspectacle declamatory acting ways On the otherhand,therewas the wish to see adult terstoo realistically. emotionsthrougha child's eyes. Thus, Hazlitt could say of Joanna men as littlegirlstreattheirdolls."We can hergrown Baillie,"She treats in fiction; characters we can acaccept what E. M. Forstercalls "flat" the for novelist can the world of the whole cept sentimentality, adjust in this case, the re-creation novel to fithis myth, of a denial through a child'swishes.But sentimentalism worldto fit harder to when is accept setbeforeus on a stagethatso insists on physicalrealities and physically visual exactnessas the Victoriantheatredid, indeed as thatwhole age thatinventedphotography did. I have not yet mentionedthe greatestof all genresin the Victorianperiod: nonsense,which was the most admirablysuited to the Victorian Lear and Carrolloffered defensive a reassuring form strategy. one thatdid not "treatevil lightly," of humor, one thatwas not "levity, and idle babble and insincerity, (to give Carlyle'slist of play-acting" Lear and did the Victorian Carroll sins). Rather, thingdirectly: truly the world of an adult through the eyes of a re-created they explicitly child.

So far,our hypothesis holds. "Dover Beach" cued us to look in modes fora pattern of defense: Victoriancultureand Victorianliterary
19 Imperialism and Social Classes, trans.Heinz Norden,ed. Paul M. Sweezy (New York, de novo to breakthe class barrier to do something fora family analysisof the necessity fromthe quite alien point and his conceptof "patrimonialization" strikingly confirm, I am advancingabout Victorian of view of economics,the psychoanalytic hypothesis England.
1951), pp. 153-159, 169-170,
190-205,

and 220-221.

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an adultworld to whata child theuse ofdenialto re-create according dramatic adults wouldbe.20 wishes poetic Allegory, diction, monologue, in drama, nonand spectacle infiction sentimentality landscape poetry, literature we havelooked andstyles ofVictorian forms sense all these will thehypothesis ourhypothesis. Whether at so fartendto confirm have have would to time tell. one further will stand Obviously, testing, it to proveor disprove works of literary manymoreanalyses many, themethodological Themore one,stands. point, finally. though, general and at a the historian can offer hypothesis, least, literary Psychoanalysis act analoforms evena fullunderstanding ofthewayliterary perhaps needsof a culture. the meet defenses to to psychological gously For can else: sympathy. add I think something psychoanalysis he as in Arnold writes "Dover Beach" expected though actually example, to supply theworld certitude, peace,helpfor pain,and joy,love,light,
- am puzzled. My world has I- a creatureof the twentieth century

thecoldwar- frankly, WarII, Auschwitz, World beenthedepression, I In another from buttrouble. I expect sense, though, myworld nothing was smaller whenmyworld can think back,to a time back,experience in New in a smallapartment and a father and consisted of a mother and couldexpect Thenwas a timewhenI, likeArnold, York. getwhatbatterings despite joy,love,light, helpforpain.And,therefore, enter and experience can have I thatsenseof basic trust taken, may can love Arnold's I Arnold's poem. quitealienkindofworld. is not to literary can bring whatpsychoanalysis In short, history can also It forms. the of uses about bring literary onlyhypotheses the feelings of an ability to call back to lifein ourselves sympathy, literthe sends andageslonggone.The message writers psychoanalysis the write if wish to to this: down historian comes literary you simply ary the Victorian seek not do of Victorian (like simply England, history and hope or namesand datesback there. withforks Carroll's snark) in yourself. LookfortheVictorian Institute Massachusetts ofTechnology

20 Obviously,throughout this essay, I have been using the term"Victorian"in a broad, or a poem and say,"That's attributive way,as if I were to look at a houseor an attitude then,explicatesthe word. Equally obviously, pattern, quite Victorian."The defensive Victorianisms: thereare manyparticular highand low, early,middle,and late, though, out the the techniquedevelopedin thisessay by sketching and so on. One could refine to kind of thingdenotedby the more specificterm"high Victorian"and then trying defenses.If this essay is coranalyze thatkind of thingas analogousto psychological formof the general should turnout to be a narrower Victorianism rect,each specific of impulseand defensehere suggested. pattern

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