Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach: Specimen of Modernity, Meditation and Elegiac Tone

Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach: Specimen of Modernity, Meditation and Elegiac
Tone
Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach (1867) is a finest specimen of modernity,

meditation and elegiac tone. Arnolds Dover Beach presents the ephemeral
human feeling of sadness through the image of the sea. Though a dramatic
monologue, Dover Beach presents Arnolds philosophy of life. In his essay
The Study of Poetry Arnold uses the two words poetry and criticism. He
boldly affirms that poetry should be a criticism of life. By the words criticism
of life Arnold means the affairs of life. And by the word poetry he means
poetic beauty. So the expression criticism of life means poetic beauty and
poetic truth. In other words, every good poem, according to Arnold, must be
a reflection of life diffusing the poetic beauty and poetic truth. In no way,
poetry should be divorced form life. Arnolds Dover Beach stands out as a
glaring manifestation of this criticism of life in the form of poetry.
The poem begins with a beautiful description of nocturnal beauty:
The sea is calm to-night
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;.......
Presumably, the poet is overwhelmed by the fascinating beauty of the
landscape, the seascape and skyscape. He asks the lady love to come to the
window and enjoy the sweetness of the surrounding:
Sweet is the night-air!
But at the next moment, Arnold returns to his own self and feels the
inherent meaning of the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back
and fling. Though the landscape is externally beautiful, Arnold can penetrate
the outward and sees the meaning of life within. He can hear the eternal
note of Sadness in:
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.
In the next stanza, this note of pensive melancholy gets the upper hand,
unfolding Arnolds essentially classical bent of mind. He immediately plunges
into the world of the great Greek poet Sophocles who in his great tragedies
articulates the harrowing spectacles of human suffering. The poet thinks that
as he now stands on the sea shore of Dover and listens to the Sad music of
humanity, Sophocles too might have stood on the profound tragic thought
to shape his great tragedies like Antigone, Oedipus the king etc. Here the
suggestion uppermost is that suffering and human life is, as if wedded to
each other from long antiquity. Here Arnold echoes the message of Goethe
who declares that the other name of life is suffering. So also is the case with
Sophocles for whom misery and human situation in this sordid earth are
synonymous. Physically the poet stands on the Dover Beach and upon which
the moon shines fairly. But the moment he hearts the tremulous cadence
created by the constant proceeding and reseeding of the pebbles, he can
realize the underlying tragic import of every human situation. Theturbid ebb
and flows of human-miseries was first felt by Sophocles whom Arnold
adores and admires as champion of the classical poets in portraying human
misery in his poetry. This is how, Arnold finds a close affinity between
himself and this great Greek scholar in realizing the meaning of life and
articulating the same in poetry.
Sea of Sadness
The third stanza of the poem provides a scatting criticism of society Arnold
lives in. Arnold is a brilliant exponent of the late Victorian society. But he is
not a Browning or Tennyson who finds faith in life. Contrary to faith and
optimism, it is pessimism- deep and dark that shapes and colours Arnolds
philosophy of life. The later of Victorian society is marked by a vehement
crisis of confidence. Symbolically, it presents a state of chaos and disorder in
the state of affairs. The old social order based on religion, conviction and
dogma passes away and a new social order yet to be born. Unlike
Wordsworth who considers nature as mother and guide, Arnold being awfully
disturbed by the acute spiritual crisis of the people of the age hears only
melancholy strain of nature:
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
This earth, however beautiful, ceases to appear to the poet. On the other
hand it brings in a message of hopelessness and blank despair. Even the
night wind seems to be a dirge to Arnold. In such an atmosphere of
complete negation and ennui the poet seeks to find a shape, anchorage in
love:
Ah, love let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems.
Addressing the beloved the poet-speaker stresses the trueness and
constancy in love which may afford him sort of solace and comfort, for he
finds hope nowhere. The world lies before him looks like a land of dream,
ready to deceive its dwellers:
So various, so beautiful, so new
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude nor peace nor help for pain.
With the faith withered away, men during Arnolds time have become devoid
of any love or joy or intellectual en-light. What dominate the mental ethos
of a Victorian man is incertitude, ignorance and restlessness. This human
situation of late Victorian society is best articulated in the last lines.

Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach: Specimen of Modernity, Meditation and Elegiac Tone

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Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach: Specimen of Modernity, Meditation and Elegiac

Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach (1867) is a finest specimen of modernity,

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