| Term Paper Title | Dover Beach |
| # of Words | 628 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 2.51 |
Dover Beach
How can life or anything be so wonderful, but at times seem
so unbearable? This is a question that Matthew Arnold may
have asked himself one day, while writing "Dover Beach".
This is a poem about a sea and a beach that is truly beautiful,
but hold much deeper meaning than what meets the eye. The
poem is written in free verse with no particular meter or
rhyme scheme, although some of the words do rhyme.
Arnold is the speaker speaking to someone he loves. As the
poem progresses, the reader sees why Arnold poses the
question stated above, and why life seems to be the way it
is. During the first part of the poem Arnold states, "The Sea
is calm tonight" and in line 7, "Only, from the long line of
spray". In this way, Arnold is setting the mood or scene so
the reader can understand the point he is trying to portray. In
lines 1-6 he is talking about a very peaceful night on the ever
so calm sea, with the moonlight shining so intensely on the
land. Then he states how the moonlight "gleams and is gone"
because the "cliffs of England" are standing at their highest
peaks, which are blocking the light of the moon. Next, the
waves come roaring into the picture, as they "draw back and
fling the pebbles" onto the shore and back out to sea again.
Arnold also mentions that the shore brings "the eternal note
of sadness in", maybe representing the cycles of life and
repetition. Arnold then starts describing the history of
Sophocle's idea of the "Aegean's turbid ebb and flow". The
sea is starting to become rougher and all agitated. Also the
mention of "human misery" implies that life begins and ends,
but it can still be full of happiness, and unfortunately, at the
same time, sadness. "The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the
full, and round earth's shore." The key word in that stanza is
once, because it implies that he (Arnold) used to look at the
sea in a different way than he does now. Throughout the
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