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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 likeAntigone, 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.

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.