Dover Beach Analysis

Kelly Moriarty
Moriarty 1
Mrs.Coppola
Com 131
2 Apr 2015
Dover Beach: A Dark Sea of Doubt
Since the beginning of time, humans have labored to make sense of their existence. The
industrialization and commerce of the 19th century did not lead society to find this greater
purpose, but rather separated them greater. In Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach, he creates a
dramatic monologue of the Victorian Era that depicts the shaken belief in God and religion due
to these advancements. The audience is moved through the poem with the use of multiple figures
of speech, elevating the central theme. In Dover Beach, Arnold chronicles and laments the loss
of faith in God and its dreadful impact on the individual and society.
The solemn tone of Dover beach is developed immediately through the description of
the slow and soft rumbling of sound made by the sea waves as they swing backward and forward
on the pebbly shore. The sea withdraws the pebbles backward, then after a pause, the returning
waves roll them back up to the shore. Arnold suggests the eternal note of sadness in human life
through this heavily referenced melancholy imagery. The word eternal is critical to the tone,
because it shows that this sadness is not an fleeting whim but rather an inescapable, suffocating
infinity. This sadness began in the gradual loss of mans faith in God and Christianity.
The sea is a symbol for the faith in religion that surrounds the world. The sea rises in high
tide, and then slowly recedes with the mournful sound of pebbles grating against each other.
The poet reminds the audience of the world in which there was men who believed in God and
Christianity. Due to industrialization of the 19th century, though, Arnold watched society
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separate themselves from their faith, like the water does to the shore at low tide. The white cliffs,
composed of chalk, a limestone that easily erodes, symbolizes the eroding faith in god as well.
This separation caused great pain and discord within the world.
The passing of faith causes the minds to be isolated in the border between belief and
disbelief, like the narrow strait of Dover, sandwiched between the eroding white cliffs. By
comparing the erosion of human spirituality to the painful withdrawal of the tide, Arnold shows
that, like the tide, the receding of faith is inevitable, and will leave the naked shingles of the
world exposed (28). The idea of naked shingles left in the wake of spiritual recession is a
haunting sort of image. He compares human misery, or a faithless existence, to the turbid ebb
and flow of the retreating sea of faith (17-18). This is an incredibly somber image because it
makes the idea of escaping misery seem so impossible, because of how clouded societies minds
have become by the advancements in technology.
It is a chilly prospect, and it brings into the mind a dreary feeling of helplessness, as
though the mind is left stripped, like the naked shingles of the world (28). Arnold propels the
reader into this misery through an anaphora, or the repetition of a word. A world without God
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain (33-34).
The world has become a selfish, cynical, materialistic battlefield in the industrial revolution, lost
without the guiding light of a faith in God.
The images of sadness, melancholy, and desolation dominate this poem. Arnolds Dover
Beach is not a love poem, but rather a forewarning of the dangers of technological
advancements without a firm foundation in faith. Arnolds tentative solution of true love in a
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short two lines is overwhelmed by the emotional impact and vividness of the final image. The
poet cannot seem to purge from his consciousness his horrifying vision of human life. True love
can not save him or his companion from the darkling plain of the godless society (35). For even
in true love there must exist a reverent belief in God to give meaning to existence.
Through Dover Beach, Arnold reports the effects of industrialization of the 19th century
England through a series of metaphors. The Victorian world was changing very rapidly with the
growth of science and technology. This poem condemns the loss of faith in religion and God.
Life without faith will remain dark and empty, like the shore line at low tide. True love is not
even capable of saving society, for life truly has no real meaning without a belief in God.
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Works Cited
Mays, Kelly J. Dover Beach." The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton,
2006. 73-101. Print.
Moriarty 5
The sea is calm tonight.
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 gean, 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 earths 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.

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Kelly Moriarty

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