Dover Beach - a poem

by Matthew Arnold

Genres: Poetry, Classics

Unknown Binding

About the author

Poems, such as "Dover Beach" (1867), of British critic Matthew Arnold express moral and religious doubts alongside his Culture and Anarchy , a polemic of 1869 against Victorian materialism.

Matthew Arnold, an English sage writer, worked as an inspector of schools. Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of rugby school, fathered him and and Tom Arnold, his brother and literary professor, alongside William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew...

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I sit here musing tonight, still with a feeling of fullness after feasting on a small strip of sirloin, and for some reason wistful that another weekend has passed, leaving me bereft of my gainfully employed GR alumni, I am lost in my thoughts upon this - my melancholy masterpiece of a classic, Dover Beach.

These lines "the sea is calm tonight" were in the past a rabbit hole door leading to another lost wonderland: the Victorian milieu of the gentle and good Matthew Arnold. In Culture and Anarchy he lamented that the classical world of sweetness and light was dying a dusty death:

And now we are there. The sweetness of sharing our world together in a New Age of harmony that we hippies foresaw in our visions has vanished.

As Adorno tells us elsewhere, we are back to our age-old hatreds and conflicts.

Today Hamas unleashed an unannounced Blitzkrieg on Israel. I guess that's the reason I've had to battle depression all day. Have we made no human progress?

Arnold writes "the sea of faith was once as high as this," and it once surrounded us.

Well, what about the plethora of internecine conflicts that then attended it?

And here I had become quite contented to be an isolated 70's Jesus Freak!

So, yes, Matthew, you were right in a way.

But why did you never recoil at Conrad's "the horror, the Horror?"

Too much sweetness and light can blind a man.

https://youtu.be/tuR3n0eU-ak

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess I will confess I do not willingly read things that I sharply disagree with or know I won't like. On the same admission I do not usually like things I do not like-this will be an exception.
Dover Beach is a different poem for me because I think it is one of the most beautiful written in the english language and I disagree and/or am troubled with some, if not all, of what it is saying.

I first heard of this poem in class over a year ago and I thought to myself well that was in interesting piece before putting it out of my mind and moving on to either The Death of Ivan Ilyich or The Metamorphosis. Than a few months ago I happened upon Samuel Barber's setting of the poem to music which put the poem firmly back in my mind to dwell from then on. So now I will give my two cents on it.

Matthew Arnold composed this while at the beach of the same name and while the opening lines describe the beach, the poem itself is about something else entirely. It is Arnold's brooding contemplation/lament on the state of the world(read Europe) and society that has come up post-enlightenment and in the early/middle period of the industrial revolution. It is around this point that one of the two most famous parts of the poem come up and which were I "haz a sad" along with Arnold but unlike him I don't throw my hands up:

"Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, 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 furl'd.
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."


He begs his "love" in the last stanza to be true to him and he to her because the world they are end is "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;" which shows us he is not of "Team Optimist". Then we reach the last three lines of the poem which brings us to the second famous part: "
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
What good poem to uplift (on to a scaffold).

So as you can imagine despite this being written between 1851-1867 it became very popular in the years between the two world wars (which was when Barber set it to music). The use of english and the descriptions in this poem are nothing short of incredible and well enough "romantic" (like the era) but now I must put a rebuttal to the theme Mr. Arnold leaves us.
He says, like many in the decades proceeding this poem would say, that the world has fallen apart and gone mad and if there is any more proof to be had just look at the loss of faith and the more frequent and frivolous wars being waged all the time; we should be real with each other and realize it is all fucked up and pointless. I wonder if this sounds familiar.
My response to him is that while it does look bad now any careful reading of history will tell you that it has always been like this and as much as there has been evil there has been good and a reason to hope and have faith. No it won't be easy but reality-check, it never was. Ignorant armies have always clashed by night and will continue to but the only way the "sea of faith" gets smaller is if you become afraid of that water and all the creature, good and bad, that are in there and decide to run in-land...to the land of dreams (and yet I will admit that he was right in the sense that as far as Europe was concerned,he called it honestly). You can't live out in the world if all you're going to is throw your hands up at it...Mr. Arnold.

Well I guess I know just to stick to Virginia Beach from now on.


P.S.: If you want to play a "fun" game compare this poem to the much longer Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.

[Nisha Chandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who ordered a yapachino?

[Emilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing Victorian shit I love it

[Shihab Uddin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Matthew Arnold' একজন Melancholic/ Elegiac (দুঃখবাদী কবি)। বাংলা সাহিত্যের দুঃখবাদী কবি - যতীন্দ্রনাথ সেনগুপ্ত।

'Dover Beach' কবিতায় কবি ডোভার সমুদ্রের শান্ত সৌন্দর্যের নির্মল আনন্দ উপভোগ করতে পারেননি মনে একরাশ ক্লেদ থাকার ফলে। কবির মনে আনন্দ, ভালোবাসা,আলো, শান্তি সব কিছুরই অনুপস্থিত ভাব পরিলক্ষিত হয়। অন্ধকারের মধ্যে চলছে অজ্ঞতার হানাহানি। কবি বলেন -
'And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.'

27.05.24

[J9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisite and melancholy poem that starts hopeful, as if the reader is at peace, then quickly turns sad, as the tumultuous sea that used to be full at the shore roars its lament. We end with the author noting the lack of love, joy, and light in the world, so we must be true to each other. A somber poem for the sorrowful. Loved it.

[Ally Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars ⭐️ Whenever there is a moon in a poem, I go feral. Everything else was mid

[ally douglas? · Rating 4 out of 5]

ignorance of humans

[Sakuraxhana · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite poem ❤️