Introduction:

A period of most wonderful transition- that was how Prince Albert once euphorically characterized the Victorian age. This was a period of intense and prolific activity in literature, especially by novelists, philosophers, essayists and poets. Much of the writing was concerned with contemporary social problems; for instance, the effects of the industrial revolution, the influence of the theory of evolution and movements of political and social reform. Some of the notable British writers of the period are: Tennyson, Robert Browning, Dickens, George Eliot and Mathew Arnold. Mathew Arnold was a British poet and a cultural critic. He was born December 24, 1822 at Laleham, on the Thames River. He became exposed at an early age to the combined influences of liberal studies and contemporary society. Arnolds first volumes of poetry The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems appeared anonymously in 1849. By 1853, Arnold was confident enough to publish his poems under his full name. In the 20 years that followed, however, Arnold wrote very little verse, spending most of his energies on the literary criticism, religious and educational writings for which he is equally famous. He is remembered for his critical essay and for his career as a poet, creating works like Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), along with poetry: "The Forsaken Merman," "To a Friend," "Shakespeare," "To Marguerite," "The Buried Life," "The Scholar Gipsy," and more. One of his most famous works is the poem "Dover Beach." He has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. Like Carlyle, Ruskin and Newman, Matthew Arnold revolted against the materialism of his day. However, Arnold did not seek solace or inspiration from spirituality. Instead, he keeps his eyes on the future. Whether in prose or poetry, Arnolds work reveals his acute sense of mans position in society. This position is that of alienation and isolation which is expressed very explicitly in his poems, for example, Stanzas from Grande Chartreuse and Dover beach. Writing in 1869, Arnold himself identified his verse as the representation of the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, as a product of the social and

historical forces of the mid-Victorian Age. Meditative and rhetorical, Arnold's poetry often wrestles with problems of psychological isolation. Similarly some of his poems link the problem of isolation with what Arnold saw as the dwindling faith of his time. Matthew Arnolds writings, to some extent characterized many of the Victorian beliefs with regard to religious faith and morality. However one significant development in his poetry was that he shared with great clarity his own inner feelings. One important theme which runs through his poetry is the issue of faith and the sense of isolation that man can feel without faith. Despite his own religious doubts, a source of great anxiety for him, in several essays Arnold sought to establish the essential truth of Christianity. His most influential essays, however, were those on literary topics. Arnold's arguments, for a renewed religious faith and an adoption of classical aesthetics and morals, are particularly representative of mainstream Victorian intellectual concerns. He has influenced almost every major English critic including T. S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling, and Harold Bloom. Arnold wrote as a critic of his own society, constantly attempting to correct the exaggeration and one-sidedness which in his view disfigured much of his political and intellectual debate. With some justice, he identified the besetting sins of the public life of Victorian England as parochialism and complacency etc. his response was to try to open up English consciousness to European ideas and perspectives, and to provoke his readers into and uneasy awareness of the limitations of their established mental habits. He did not, therefore, occupy a position that can easily be characterized as radical or conservative, in either intellectual or political terms. His works are simple, clear and full of serious intelligence as well as the intense selfconsciousness which is displayed in his poetry. He could not find any charm in the bourgeois world and wrote primarily for a small group of saddened intellectuals, for whom the dominant world was a wasteland, men who felt heartsick and deprived of some part of their energy by their civilization. At a time when official thought was announcing the Englishmans ascent to the heights of human possibility, Arnold declared that the modern man was crippled and incomplete. His poetry is the exploration of two modern

intellectual traditions which have failed him and his peers, the traditions of romanticism and rationalism, and, moving back and forth between these two strands, it is an attempt to weave them together into a synthesis. Each alone, he feels, is insufficient, but together they promise much. He is not primarily read or remembered for his contribution to the history of what has come to be known as political thought, and at first sight it may seem surprising to find him in such company, literary critic is the label most readily applied to him today; certainly, he did more than any other single figure to endow the role of the critic with the cultural centrality it has come to enjoy in the English-speaking world. . He also wrote extensively and influentially on religion and education, among other topics and left a lasting impress upon subsequent debate about the relation between politics and culture. At the same time his poetry including such frequently anthologized pieces as Dover Beach and The Scholar Gypsy, has earned him a secure place in the canon of English literature. This paper is designed to analyze these two poems of Matthew Arnold i.e. Dover Beach and The Scholar Gypsy in order to find out the major themes and style of his poetic tradition.

Literature Review:
Matthew Arnold initiated his literary tradition with a new essence. Laurence W. Mazzeno (1999) in the book Matthew Arnold: the critical legacy asserts an exclusive quality of Arnold by saying that in Johnsons view Arnolds poetry exhibits better than that of his contemporaries the dilemma of the modern artist, and bears testimony to Arnolds refusal to compromise with the spirit of his era. So far as the style of Arnolds writings is concerned, Carl Dawson (1996) in the book Matthew Arnold: The poetry says, Supreme artist as he is, master of a style pure and chaste as faultless as work of man can be, serves in its simplicity. Antony A Harrison in the book Cultural production of Arnold says that the critics concentrated on the poetry of the Arnold as comprehensive whole. Arnold was considered to be consistently anti-romantic. He consistently relied on the classical themes and ideas as corrective to the excesses of romanticism that bothered him greatly. His poems in spirit, as in form, reflect the moods common to the ancient Hellenes. George E. Woodberry writes; One feels the (Greek) quality, not as a source, but as a presence. In Tennyson Keats, and Shelley there was Greek influence, but in them the result was modern. In Arnold the antiquity remains------in mood, just as in Landor it remains in form. The Greek twilight broods over all his poetry. It is pagan in philosophic spirit, not attic, but of later and stoical time; with the patience, endurance, suffering, not in Christian types, but as they now seem to a post Christian imagination, looking back to the past.

Matthew Arnold (2008) in his book Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems says that even when his poems treat the modern or romantic subjects, one is impressed with the feeling that he presents them with the same quality of imagination as would the Greek master themselves: and in the same form. Matthew Arnold (2008) further differentiates between Matthew Arnold and Wordsworth in terms of their attitude towards nature; In his attitude towards nature Arnold is often compared to Wordsworth. A close study, however, reveals a wide difference, both in way Nature appealed to them and in their mood in her presence. To Arnold she offered a temporary refuge for the doubts and distractions of our modern life, -----a soothing, consoling uplifting power, to Wordsworth she was an inspiration, ---- a presence that disturbed him with the joy of elevated thoughts. James Simpson (1979) in his book Matthew Arnold and Goethe Arnold describes that Matthew Arnold is a poet of ideas; he takes them up and lets them drop, he uses them as the occasion demands without asking whether they contradict other ideas expressed elsewhere. Furthermore, he was fully aware of this and admitted it to his sister Jane in 1849: Fret not yourself to make my poems square in all their parts, but like what you can my darling. The true reason why parts suit you while others do not is that my poems are fragmentsi.e. that I am fragments, while you are a whole.......a person therefore who endeavored to make them accord would only lose his labor. Matthew Arnold and Stefan Collini in their book Culture and anarchy and other writings (1993) express that Matthew was not a complaining man. They noted the claim of the editor of his letters: Self-denial was the law of his life, yet the word never crossed his lips. Likewise, they further notify that in spite of his severe criticism on men, manners, and morals, he early determined, and he never failed, to be scrupulously polite in print.

Lionel Trilling (1949) in his book Matthew Arnold tells that Matthew dealt with the modern times and he received a assorted response; The Times, was grieved that Arnold dealt too much with modern themes, the North British Review was sad because, dealing with the modern age themes, Arnold showed himself unsympathetic with the modern age. Lionel Trilling (1949) in the same book stated about the style of Matthew Arnold that he is so concerned about the style in literature that he speaks of giving up his best friend for not conforming to his ideas of what style should be. The style he says, is the expression of the nobility of the poets character, as the matter is the expression of the richness of his mind. Commenting on his poetry Lionel further says that his (Arnolds) poetry is the exploration of two modern intellectual traditions which have failed him and his peers, the traditions of romanticism and rationalism, and, moving back and forth between these two strands, it is an attempt to weave them together into a synthesis. Each alone, he feels, is insufficient, but together they promise much. The effort of reconciliation produces a body of poetry which is philosophical but not systematic.

Laurence W. Mazzeno(1999) in his book Matthew Arnold: the critical legacy quotes Stange, To appreciate Arnold poetry, requires that one understands the intellectual dimension of his work. His poems often appear to be works of criticism in miniature because his cast of mind and essential interest led him to use poetry as an instrument of critical analysis directed at the poet of consciousness. Mazzeno further states that Stange supports the notion that Arnolds verse is essentially poetry of statement. When he is at his best, Stange argues, Arnold manages to infuse his poetry with a dramatic quality that captures the readers attention and affords insight into human condition. Mazzeno while further commenting upon Arnolds work says;

In running ones eye down to the table of contents of Mr. Arnolds poetry, one is struck with the tameness of theme, the titles of the early and lyrical poems have the sobriety of the Christian Year, and in the narrative and dramatic poems, wide as is the range from sick Bokharas king to Balder dead, from the doomed Mycerinus to the wounded Tristram famous in Arthurs court of old, we find no choice of subjects where thrilling and romantic are the leading motif. Alan Grob in his book A longing like despair Arnold's poetry of pessimism remarks that Arnold pays a tribute in his poetry to Homer, John Milton, and Epictetus. Not once in his poems, however, does he refer by name to John Keats (although he frequently discusses Keats in his prose work). But Keats was second only to words worth in the power and persistence of his influence on Arnold. Lionel Trilling in the book Matthew Arnold enunciates that Arnold had formed his entire religious theory to supply the lacks of the French Revolution and he had to continue his fight against the Revolutions moral and psychological assumptions even while he fought for its social principles; he had expressly forsworn further writing about religion but literary criticism was as good a field for the battle.

Analysis: 1. Dover Beach

"Dover Beach" is a short lyric poem by English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems. Arnold begins with a naturalistic and detailed nightscape of the beach at Dover in which auditory imagery plays a significant

role. ("Listen! you hear the grating roar"). The beach, however, is bare, with only a hint of humanity in a light that "gleams and is gone. Nature especially the sea is used in order to draw a comparison between the fights of nature and the human misery. The first stanza opens with the description of a nightly scene at the seaside. The lyrical self calls his addressee to the window, to share the visual beauty of the scene. Then he calls her attention to the aural experience, which is somehow less beautiful. This stanza can be divided into two parts. In the first part (line one to line six) the lyrical I describes the motions of the sea in a very positive way. The words to-night, moon and nightair shows that it is night. To create a very harmonious mood the poet utilizes adjectives such as fair, tranquil and calm. Matthew Arnold uses an anaphora (Gleams and Glimmering l.4/5), to underline the harmonious atmosphere of the first six lines. The word only in line seven can be seen as a caesura. After line seven the harmonious mood of the first lines is changing into a sad mood. The word sea is personified by the verb meets in line seven. The personification and the expression moon-blanched land create a mystic atmosphere. With the words of sound listen, hear and roar in line nine Arnold wants to activate the readers perception of senses to involve him in his poem. Also, he involves the readership by using the imperatives come and listen. The verbs begin cease and again begin show that the pebbles motions are a never ending movement. By using the words sadness and tremulous the pebbles motions are illustrated in a woeful and threatening way. The water reflects the image of the moon. In this poem, straits, a narrow body of water that connects two larger bodies of water, refers to the Strait of which connects the English Channel on the south to the North Sea on the north.In the line The cliffs of England stand/Glimmering and vast the cliffs seem to be composed of chalk, a limestone that easily erodes. Like the light from France, they glimmer, further developing the theme of a weakening of the light of faith. The fact that they easily erode supports this theme. The word grating the grating roar of pebbles introduces conflict between the sea and the land and, symbolically, between long-held religious beliefs and the challenges against them. However, it may be an exaggeration that that pebbles cause a grating roar.

The first stanza can be seen as a description of a present status, whereas the second stanza is a reference to the past. This stanza introduces the Greek author Sophocles' idea of "the turbid ebb and flow of human misery". Arnold alludes here to a passage in the ancient Greek play Antigone, by Sophocles an ancient Greek philosopher, in which Sophocles says the gods can visit ruin on people from one generation to the next, like a swelling tide driven by winds. The reference toSophocles shows that the people for a long time thought about a comparison between sea and human misery. The verb hear in line 16 and in line 20 can be regarded as a connection to the words of acoustic perception in the first stanza. The expression distant northern sea is another connecting element between the both stanzas. By mentioning the countries England and France the first stanza is talking about the northern sea. The main topic of the first stanza is the motion of sea. The reader can only guess that it refers to human misery, but the second stanza talks about to the human misery in line 18. A contrast is formed to the scenery of the previous stanza. Sophocles apparently heard the similar sound at the "Aegean" sea (sea between Greece and Turkey) and thus developed his ideas. Arnold then reconnects this idea to the present. Although there is a distance in time and space ("Aegean" -- "northern sea" (L. 20)), the general feeling prevails. The third stanza abstracts the image of the sea and uses it as a metaphor (sea of faith) to show that once (l.22) humanity was more religious. The metaphor of bright girdle furled emphasizes that faith was inseparable to earth. The words But now in line 24 are a caesura. The first three lines of the stanza create a feeling of hope, whereas the last lines sound sad and hopeless. The word only show that the lyrical I feels only the sadness of the world. To amplify the negative mood of the last lines Arnold utilizes words such as melancholy, drear and naked. Having examined the soundscape, Arnold turns to the action of the tide itself and sees in its retreat a metaphor for the loss of faith in the modern age once again expressed in an auditory image ("But now I only hear/Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"). In this stanza, the sea is turned into the "Sea of Faith" , which is a metaphor for a time (probably

the Middle Ages) when religion could still be experienced without the doubt that the modern (Victorian) age brought about through Darwinism, the Industrial revolution, Imperialism, a crisis in religion, etc.) Arnold illustrates this by using an image of clothes. When religion was still intact, the world was dressed ("like the folds of a bright girdle furled).Now that this faith is gone, the world lies there stripped naked and bleak. ("the vast edges drear/ and naked shingles of the world"). It can be interpreted from this stanza that there was a time when faith in God was strong and comforting. This faith wrapped itself around us, protecting us from doubt and despair, as the sea wraps itself around the continents and islands of the world. Now, however, the sea of faith has become a sea of doubt. Science challenges the precepts of theology and religion; human misery makes people feel abandoned, lonely. People place their faith in material things. The last stanza refers to the misery of humanity and can be seen as a conclusion of the preceding stanzas. The fourth and final stanza begins with a dramatic pledge by the lyrical self. He asks his love to be "true" (l.29), meaning faithful, to him, "Ah, love, let us be true /To one another! For the beautiful scenery that presents itself to them, "for the world, which seems/ To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new" is really not what it seems to be. On the contrary, as he accentuates with a series of denials, this world does not contain any basic human values. These have disappeared, along with the light and religion and left humanity in darkness. The lyrical I compares the world to a land of dreams which is various beautiful and new. This means that the world and the people who live on it might be happy and live together in peace. To underline the positive mood, the lyrical I uses the word love at the beginning of the stanza. The verb seems shows that it is only a dream or an illusion of the lyrical I which can never become reality. Line 33 is a caesura, wherefrom the lyrical I describes his real life. The enumeration in line 33 and 34 nor love, nor light, nor peace" shows the cruelness of the world. The plural form us and we illustrates that not only the lyrical I but also many other people feel the cruelness. The words sweep and clash by night both together form an allusion to the preceding stanzas. The motions of the sea are used to clarify the bad relations between other people.

The poem illustrates the contrast between hope and reality. There are many caesuras in the poem, which definitely show the changing mood of the lyrical I. It wishes a peaceful world, but it also knows that it is almost impossible. Maybe Matthew Arnold refers to the industrial revolution which was a big change of life for everybody. Many people were very unhappy with their new life.

"We" in the line And we are here as on a darkling plain could just refer to the lyrical self and his love, but it could also be interpreted as the lyrical self addressing humanity. The pleasant scenery turns into a "darkling plain" (l. 35), where only hostile, frightening sounds of fighting armies can be heard, i.e. Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/ Where ignorant armies clash by night." According to Ian Hamilton, this refers to a passage in Thucydides, The Battle of Epipolae, where - in a night encounter -- the two sides could not distinguish friend from foe". Brown and Bailey further observe that the line "suggests the confusion of mid-Victorian values of all kinds. So far as the theme of this poem is concerned, this poem deals mainly with the theme of the loss of faith. But it is also about the industrialization and the changes in the cities that were occurring in the Victorian age. Arnold, who was deeply religious, lamented the dying of the light of faith, as symbolized by the light he sees in Dover Beach on the coast of France, which gleams one moment and is gone the next. Arnolds central message is this: Challenges to the validity of long-standing theological and moral precepts have shaken the faith of people in God and religion. The tone of the poem is mournful. One finds personal intensity of a dramatic monologue in the poem. The meter and rhyme vary from line to line, therefore, the poem is said to be in free verse. Similarly, the poet/persona uses first-, second-, and third-person point of view in the poem. Arnold used the motif of sea in a diverse way in the poem. In the first stanza it is presented in a positive way that is fair, tranquil and calm. In the second stanza, the idea of sadness is associated with of the sea through the mention of Sophocles. Here, the

sadness of sea is compared to human misery. Whereas, in the third stanza the sea is called the Sea of faith in order to show that once humanity was more religious but the scenario is changing rapidly which gives a sense of hopelessness. Arnold employed many rhetorical devices in the poem such as anaphora i.e. Gleams and glimmering, symbols i.e. "Sea of Faith" a symbol for a time when religion could still be experienced without the doubts brought about by progress and science, simile i.e. The Sea of Faith./Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

2. Analysis of the poem The Scholar-Gipsy By Matthew Arnold

The poem The Scholar-Gipsy is about a certain spiritual crisis, a crisis of faith, experienced by Matthew Arnold and many other sensitive minds of the Victorian period. One of the major causes for the crisis was the retreat of traditional religious faith and belief, resulting in a dizzy feeling of uncertainty and fluctuation regarding the meaning

and significance of life, a stifling sense of living in a spiritual vacuum, of loneliness and nostalgia. If in Dover Beach he is concerned mainly with his personal and subjective experience of the crisis, in The Scholar-Gipsy, it may be said, he is preoccupied with his experience as well as that of his generation. To write poetry in the context of his times, Arnold felt, was not easy. In the absence of a community of belief and of a unifying reference for the religious, cultural and social life of man, the poet was driven to be a lonely artist functioning in isolation, and to address himself to a society for which poetry did not seem to matter. Further, Arnold realized that his poetry, to be true to his sensibility, had to be different from that of the great Romantic predecessors, in spite of his admiration for them, especially for Wordsworth and Keats. Skeptical as he was, he could not share the confident faith of the Romantic poets in imagination and intuition. These factors largely explain the form and structure of The Scholar-Gipsy. which seems an amalgam of different poetic modes. Though classified by Arnold himself as an elegyand Arnolds temper was always at home in the elegiacthe poem has for its components landscape description, narration, romantic dream vision in a pastoral landscape, elegiac argument, and finally epic simile. This fact has to be borne in mind while examining the different parts of the poem and the different functions they are made to serve. Arnold exhibits considerable skill in structuring them into a unified poem. The Scholar-Gipsy develops along a sort of dialectical pattern. Broadly speaking, it juxtaposes two diametrically opposed worlds, the idyllic world of the Scholar-Gipsy and the sick and inert world of the poet-speaker. The tension of the poem springs from this juxtaposition. The poem falls into recognizable sections and grows by discernible stages. The opening section of three stanzas presents a mellow rural scene of quiet and restful peace near Oxford, as viewed by the poet from a vantage point, from this nook over the high, half-reaped field. At the end of the description, he settles down to read the oftread tale of the Gipsy-Scholar from Glanvils book. Andrew Farmer finds this opening description confusing and indirect and thinks that it does not seem...to serve any special purpose although it is effective in itself. But, in fact, it is intended to serve, and it

does serve, a specific though limited function; namely, it serves as a symbolic back-drop for the rest of the poem. Arnold uses such landscapes in many of his other poems for a similar purpose. The very details of the landscapethe high fields dark corner, the bleating of the folded flocks borne from uplands far away, the distant cries of reapers etc., and the inter-play of light and shade in the landscapeall these together with the slow elegiac movement of the verse create a sense of restful calm and quiet relaxation, of disengagement and withdrawal from the world of brisk activity and from all that might distract ones attention, and induce in the poet and the reader alike the mood appropriate to the elegiac meditation that is to follow very shortly in the poem. Even the apparent ambiguity regarding the time in the description, whether it is afternoon or evening the poet here refers to, contributes to this mood. Further the sense of imaginative withdrawal and disengagement from the immediate and actual is found in the poem. The question regarding the identity of the shepherd addressed in the first line of the poem And on the beach undid his corded bales, whether it is Clough or someone else, seems irrelevant. For, addressing a fellow shepherd is a part of the pastoral convention, which Arnold adopts here. This shepherd is asked to go back to his bleating flock for the present, and pursue his quest some other time, for two obvious reasons. Firstly, the poet wants to be left alone so that undisturbed he can read the oft-read tale of the Oxford Scholar and meditate on it. Secondly, he wants to introduce into the poem the theme of quest. The quest is for a spiritual order or pattern, for an integrated ideal, for something that would make life meaningful and purposeful. Arnold makes his Scholar a person of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain. While he is allowed to retain his interest in magical powers, he has to wait for heaven-sent moments to acquire the gipsy art. Arnolds Scholar is very much a solitary, isolated from his fellow human beings including the gypsies even from the start, and he is seen only by rare glimpses pensive and tongue-tied, his gipsy dress only emphasizing his isolation.

Arnold next makes his Scholar wander in the neighborhood of Oxford, and follows him in a dream vision through all the seasons of the year. In his lone wanderings, David L. Eggenschwiler observes, the Scholar is seen usually by maidens, shepherds, children, or mowers and his typical actionstrailing his fingers in a cool stream or listening to nightingalesare more appropriate to a pastoral character than to Glanvils Scholar... What Arnold is attempting to do here is to fuse together, as a part of his poetic strategy, the Arcadian world of classical pastoral poetry and the romantic dream vision. The idyllic countryside through which the Scholar wanders and quests is very vividly and feelingly described. The description of the pastoral landscape in the dream vision is universally and justly appreciated for its charm, its visual accuracy and fidelity to nature. Admiration of this section, almost to the exclusion of the rest of the poem, has been for long the stock response to the poem. Arnolds idiom succeeds admirably in capturing and recreating authentically the unique beauty and feel of the countryside in the neighborhood of Oxford, which he knew intimately and loved. There is a view of the poem, based obviously on this section, that Arnold indulges here his nostalgic longings for his undergraduate days at Oxford, and that the poem offers only a very delightful pastoral week-end. This criticism implies that this section stands apart from the rest of the poem and is not integral to the poems total meaning. But, in truth, there is in the dream vision much more than mere nostalgia and indulgence in nature description. It presents one wing of the poems dialectic. Arnold presents here an idyllic world of innocence, simplicity, health and quiet, which is the extreme opposite of the oppressive world of actuality presented in the immediately following section, and thus establishes the poems dialectic. Even if one is tempted to view Arnolds description of the pastoral world by itself, it cannot be imputed that Arnold is indulging in escapism. When the poet says in stanza 14 after the dream vision, that the Scholar-Gipsy must have gone the way of all flesh, it seems as though he is repudiating the dream vision, its protagonist and its substance. But in Arnolds poem, whose objective is different, the Scholar, after a fleeting return to mortality, is resurrected and given not just a new lease of life but immortality. This is done by recreating him on a different plane, without

rejecting the essence of the dream vision. In this new phase of the Scholar-Gipsys career, some new traits are introduced into his personality without any loss to his essential pastoral character already established. From now on he is seen in complete contrast to the men of the modern world. As a representative of his times and spokesman for his society, the poet presents an elaborate account of their predicament. He sees his society as spiritually sick and incapacitated, his contemporaries and himself as benumbed creatures, incapable of any decision or action or even strong feelings, yet fluctuating idly without term or scope, and feebly striving not knowing for what. In total contrast the Scholar-Gipsy and his world appear healthy and vigorous. Unlike the vacillating Victorians, who in spite of their anxiety to believe in something are only light half-believers of casual creeds, the Scholar is now seen to have one aim, one business, one desire and unconquerable hope which is the reason for his immortal lot. He is now endowed with unclouded joy and glad perennial youth. Whereas in the dream vision he appears very much of a passive quester, patiently awaiting the spark from heaven to fall, now he becomes an active seeker, and a symbol of spiritual health and activity, not affected by place and time. Commenting on this situation in the poem, A. E. Dyson says, Arnold never commits himself to the gipsy..but..he is aware of him all the time as the embodiment of an illusion. His argument implies that in asking the Scholar to flee, Arnold in effect rejects him, but, in his attempt to impose a Positivist interpretation on the poem Dyson disregards totally the evolution of the image of the Scholar-Gipsy in the poem, how from a quasi-legendary figure he grows into an enduring and valid symbol of necessary qualities, which are difficult of achievement in modern times and therefore all the more desirable. It is to be noticed that the Scholar and the poet remain distinct from each other. In his searching analysis of the poem, A. Dwight Culler draws attention to the remarkable alteration in the language of this section, to the fact that it is starkly, almost bleakly, abstract in contrast to the beautifully imaginative language or the pastoral section of the poem. But the relevant question here is not whether the language used is poetic or not, but whether it is adequate to Arnolds poetic purpose, that is, to present a convincing picture of his society in terms of appropriate image and metaphor

and to enable the reader to get a feel of its complex spiritual condition. Even though Arnold does employ images of ill-health and disease in this long section, and some of the memorable phrases of the poem such as this strange disease of modern life and light half-believers or casual creeds come from it, he seems unequal to his task. To appreciate the point made here, one may contrast this section with the relevant portions of The Waste Land of T. S. Eliot, which also explores a similar territory of experience as Arnolds poem does. With the long-tailed simile with which the poem concludes, an altogether new element is introduced into the poem. It is not only one of the most sustained of epic similes ever attempted by Arnold, but it is one of the most poetic passages in the entire range of his poetry. His creative powers, which seemed to flag and falter in the preceding section, now are energetically restored. As he conjures up in the simile a panoramic view of the ancient world, there is a triumphant return to the earlier sensuously rich and expressive idiom. Yet this simile has remained the most controversial part of the poem. It raises many questions regarding its meaning and significance, and its relation to the rest of the poem. The surface meaning of the simile, however, is clear. The Scholar-Gipsy is asked to flee as the Tyrian trader did as soon as he espied the new masters of the waves intruding on his ancient home. The similarity between the Scholar and the Tyrian is at once apparent. But it is equally apparent that there is only a contrast between the confident, energetic, and enterprising young Greeks who master the seas and the timorous and unfixed Victorians who hesitate and falter life away. It will not help to see an analogy between the young Greeks and the smock-frocked boors from whom the Scholar flees (St. 6). For it also implies a parallel between the boors and the sick and fatigued Victorians. There seems to be nothing in the poem to establish a one-to-one correspondence with all the details of this long-tailed simile. According to Andrew Farmer, the simile merely repeats the feelings of the first section in different terms: something fresh to set against the strange disease of modern life. Arnold, it is contended, allows himself the indulgence of an elaborate picture; but as it yields good poetry one hardly regrets it. However, Wilson Knight and Dwight Culler, among others, see in the simile a resolution of the tension generated earlier in the poem.

The critic sees the poems total meaning as striving towards a fusion of the two traditions, Western and Eastern. The Scholar-Gipsy holds Arnolds attention, ultimately because he has one aim, one business, one desire, perennial youth and gladness, and not because he finds any knowledge, although it is very much time that he is sent on a quest for it. It is to be noted that Arnold is not able to be more specific than saying vaguely that the Scholar is waiting for the heaven-sent moment to catch the spark from heaven. Unable to find a tangible goal for the quest, his own as well as that of the Scholarfor nothing seems to be in sightArnold has to be content with finding the right temper and frame of mind to endure and live through the present difficulty and uncertainty. In other words, having set out to find an epistemological solution, the poet is able to find, in the context of the poem, only a psychological and moral solution. The pastoral machinery, as he uses it in the poem, enables him to suggest the validity of such a solution. At the end of his criticism of the contemporary crisis, the poet realizes that there is no cure for it except a moral and psychological one for the present. His frantic appeal to the Scholar to flee amply shows how desperate his situation is. Had the poem been closed at this point, it would have been abrupt, and marred the poems construction, its structural integrity. Because it would have only a beginning and a middle, but no end. Therefore to give the poem an end, a formal close, so that it becomes an aesthetically satisfying whole, and to induce in himself and the reader a measure of calm of mind after so much of turbulence, the poet introduces this deliberately elaborate simile. There is also the consolation of hope implied, since the Tyrian in the simile reaches at long last the Iberian coast. By a deliberate change of mood, then, the tension of the poem is only temporarily resolved. And the poem ends on a note of objective calm. There is a certain obvious functional similarity between the opening and concluding sections of the poem, with this difference that the opening stanzas induce a mood of subjective withdrawal necessary for the poets meditation, while the concluding passage induces in him a mood of objective calm and thus enables him to pull himself away from the brink of suicidal despair.

Scholar Gipsy is full of the atmosphere of Oxford and of youth. The music, freshness an reality interests all readers. The scenery of the academic city with all its spires and towers, the centre of all thought, the fresh and fragment hillsides and dewy fields surrounding it: the mild mystery of the wandering scholar, a musing and pensive shadow to be half seen by dreaming eyes about all those familiar haunts, are set before us with many beautiful touches. The vision is entirely harmonious with the scene; there is no conflict in it, or force of opposing life, no tragedy, no passion. The shade of the Scholar Gipsy is not one that expiates any doom. He roams about the places he loved, pondering the past, amid all the soft reflections of the evening, dim, pensive, but not unhappy, a wanderer by choice, fulfilling the gentle dream of fate that pleased him best. This poem is remarkable for unity and completeness of conception-for that harmoniousness of composition which at once stirs and soothes, excites and satisfies the readers mind, and which is the object and criterion of art. Persistence in the face of the change serves as a fundamental theme of the poem. The implication of the poem is that the scholar who has joined the Gypsy band will forever be a part of the landscape around Oxford. Like the landscape, the scholar gypsy outlasts death and enters the realm of the eternal. The scholar gypsy outlives the self, just as this world outlast human emotions in Resignation, yet Arnold can through his figure find a vicarious salvation. The scholar gypsy is a figure of autobiography who fuses self and other in an ambiguous figure that inhabits both a private and a public real.

Conclusion:
During the Victorian age Arnold people began questioning religion and turning to Darwinism. Industrialism led mankind towards materialism and they turned their back towards spirituality which led humanity towards the world of darkness. The themes of isolation, loss of faith and persistence in the face of change are dominant in his poems which render an elegiac hue to his poems. Both the poems i.e. Dover Beach and Scholar Gypsy reflect the prevalent status-quo in the Victorian Age precisely.

References:
R. A. JAYANTHA University College, Tirupati

http://www.h4x3d.com/analysis-dover-beach-by-matthew-arnold-1822-1888

1. Matthew Arnold: the critical legacy By Laurence W. Mazzeno (1999) 2. Matthew Arnold: The poetry By Carl Dawson 1996 3. Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems By Matthew Arnold 2008 4.

Matthew Arnold and Goethe By James Simpson(146) 5. Culture and anarchy and other writings By Matthew Arnold, Stefan Collini (1993)

6. Matthew Arnold By Lionel Trilling (1949) 7. Matthew Arnold: the critical legacy By Laurence W. Mazzeno (1999) 8. A longing like despair Arnold's poetry of pessimism By Alan Grob

Annexure: Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night

The scholar Gypsy by Matthew Arnold

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head. But when the fields are still, And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, And only the white sheep are sometimes seen Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched green, Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! Here, where the reaper was at work of late In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use Here will I sit and wait, While to my ear from uplands far away The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, With distant cries of reapers in the corn All the live murmur of a summer's day Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped field, And here till sundown, shepherd! will I be. Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; And air-swept lindens yield Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, And bower me from the August sun with shade; And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! The story of the Oxford scholar poor, Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, One summer-morn forsook His friends, and went to learn the gypsy-lore, And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood, And came, as most men deemed, to little good,

But came to Oxford and his friends no more. But once, years after, in the country lanes, Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, Met him, and of his way of life enquired; Whereat he answered, that the gypsy-crew, His mates, had arts to rule as they desired The workings of men's brains, And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. "And I," he said, "the secret of their art, When fully learned, will to the world impart; But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." This said, he left them, and returned no more. But rumours hung about the countryside, That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, The same the gypsies wore. Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors Had found him seated at their entering, But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. And I myself seem half to know thy looks, And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place; Or in my boat I lie Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats, 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, As the punt's rope chops round; And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Plucked in the shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,

And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. And then they land, and thou art seen no more! Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, Or cross a stile into the public way. Oft thou hast given them store Of flowersthe frail-leafed white anemony, Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves But none hath words she can report of thee. And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames, To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass, Have often passed thee near Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; Marked thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, Where at her open door the housewife darns, Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. Children, who early range these slopes and late For cresses from the rills, Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day, The springing pastures and the feeding kine; And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine, Through the long dewy grass move slow away. In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood Where most the gypsies by the turf-edged way Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey, Above the forest-ground called Thessaly The blackbird, picking food, Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; So often has he known thee past him stray, Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray, And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge, Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow, Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge? And thou hast climbed the hill, And gained the white brow of the Cumner range; Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange. But whatI dream! Two hundred years are flown Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe That thou wert wandered from the studious walls To learn strange arts, and join a gypsy-tribe; And thou from earth art gone Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. - No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers. Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our worn-out life, and arewhat we have been. Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so? Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire; Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead! Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! The generations of thy peers are fled, And we ourselves shall go; But thou possessest an immortal lot, And we imagine thee exempt from age And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, Because thou hadstwhat we, alas! have not. For early didst thou leave the world, with powers

Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. O life unlike to ours! Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives; Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too? Yes, we await it!but it still delays, And then we suffer! and amongst us one, Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne; And all his store of sad experience he Lays bare of wretched days; Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, And how the dying spark of hope was fed, And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, And all his hourly varied anodynes. This for our wisest! and we others pine, And wish the long unhappy dream would end, And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; With close-lipped patience for our only friend, Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair But none has hope like thine! Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, Roaming the countryside, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away. O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life,

With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife Fly hence, our contact fear! Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silvered branches of the glade Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, On some mild pastoral slope Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales Freshen thy flowers as in former years With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, From the dark dingles, to the nightingales! But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! For strong the infection of out mental strife, Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, Adn thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! - As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, Descried at sunrise and emerging prow Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily, The fringes of a southward-facing brow Among the Aegaean isles; And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, Green, bursting figs and tunnies steeped in brine And knew the intruders on his ancient home, The young light-hearted masters of the waves And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail; And day and night held on indignantly O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,

To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits; and unbent sails There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; And on the beach undid his corded bales.