Dover Beach, Arnold’s most well-known poem, makes a statement that is recurrent. Despite its short length, it arguably covers Matthews subjects. Like many of his previous poems, it conveys the idea that modernism has diminished the sense of mystery in the world. But in this instance, the decline is portrayed as erratic, gloomy, and unstable. One evening, the speaker of Dover Beach in particular sits with a woman inside a home and looks out over the English Channel close to Dover. Twenty miles off, they can see the lights on the French coast, and the water seems serene.
The speaker keeps calm and concentrates on the English side while the light abruptly goes out in France. He exchanges auditory for visual imagery, expressing the sensation of the stones being dragged out by the waves as a “grating roar.” He refers to the world’s music as an “eternal note of sadness” as he closes the first line. The following stanza transports the reader to ancient Greece, where Sophocles wrote his plays on human suffering after hearing a similar sound near the Aegean Sea.
The poem’s primary metaphor is introduced in stanza three, which reads, “The Sea of Faith/Was once, too, at the full, and round Earth’s shore.” The phrases imply that, similar to the tide receding from the shore, faith is vanishing from society. The speaker uses somber language to bemoan this loss of faith. The speaker addresses his partner directly in the final verse, pleading with them to always be true to each other and to the world that is set before them. But he cautions that the world’s beauty is merely an illusion because, in reality, it is a battlefield where people are engaged in combat in complete darkness.
The poem’s force is further enhanced by the poet’s secular romantic tendency. He mentions the “Sea of Faith” without associating it with any god or heaven. This’religion’ has a highly humanist undertone; it appears to have once guided choices and mitigated global issues, binding people together in a significant way. It is no coincidence that the scene evoking these kinds of thoughts is one of pristine nature, virtually devoid of human interference. The speaker’s genuine contemplation commences as the light over France goes out, marking the end of all life. Arnold is exhibiting an intrinsic trait, a predisposition towards beauty.
