Dover Beach by mathew Arnold

lntroduction To The Dover Beach

The Dover Beach was published in 1867 in Victorian England when the country was torn between romanticism and classicism,between Science and Religion, and between meterialism and classicism.In the Dover Beach,Arnold exploits a symbolic landscape in the service of his deeper,Empedoclean impulse.We have to imagine the poet standing at the window of a house near the sea shore, moon blanched and melancholy. The sound of the waves strikes him as being sad.It is symbolic of the dying faith of human beings in Christianity. He hears the waves and is reminded of the atmosphere of spiritual doubt and uncertainty which prevails in the world. Here the poet refers to the atheism and scepticism of Victorian England.It was the result of scientific advancement the worlds noise,hurry and scurry could be lessened if there were true love and sincerity.

                     

The Theme of the Poem

      Dover Beach deals with Arnold's favourite and recurrent theme of the loss of faith and religious values in a world where materialism has become deeply rooted. 'The sea of faith' is shown  'retreating' and producing 'its melancholy, long, with-drawing roar'. The negative vision of the contemporary world also forms a theme in the poem. Then there is the contrast between the 'various' and 'beautiful' world of dreams or of the past, and the joyless, loveless, dark and painful real or present world which is presented as 'dark lung plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight'. In the past,Sophocles could hear the murmurings of the sea of faith,and muse over human misery in this world; but now in a society divided against itself because of the distinction based on class and creed, and the advances made by science and Reason, that faith has receded and become a thing of the past. The turmoil caused by this loss of faith, and conflict between various creeds and classes in contemporary society, have been presented through the image of a ' darkling plain' where 'ignorant armies clash by night'. Thus,the Victorian distrust of reason, scientific advancement and material progress ,is well expressed in this poem.

Thus, Dover Beach nicely blends the personal theme of love and a sense of loss, with the universal theme cantering round the unhappy lot of humanity in general on this earth. It combines an expression of subjective experience with the observation of objective facts about life.