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Name: Afshin begam

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Paper no-104
Topic- ‘Dover Beach’ as an elegy
 ‘Dover Beach’ as an elegy

The writers, as a rule, unite in speaking of the Laureate’s most popular

production as an elegy, and in coupling it with such poems as ‘’Lycidas,’’

‘’Adonais,’’ ‘’Dover Beach.’’ But obviously, if these poems are elegies, the

term has a very wide and vague signification. Naturally the elegies of this class

will be less simple and spontaneous, but more dramatic, more artistic, full of

splendid power, than those of the lyrists; still we must hold that elegiac poetry

falls properly fused with narrative or epic notes. In other words, the elegy ranks

as a subdivision of lyric poetry, with the ode, the song, and the sonnet. Elegy is

a key element in Arnold's poem and is also a part of his moral and intellectual

approach to life as known to and seen by him in the wake of the Industrial

Revolution, that was so impressive an affair in the Victorian world yet

confounding, chaotic, and degenerating in the ultimate turn of events. Arnold's

elegiac note is also predominant in "Dover Beach" as usual. The poet is found to

lament here not for the death of any person, but for the loss of the simple faith

and for the loss of beauty and culture in the prevalent situation. He laments

deeply for this state of the present age that has

neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

The genuine Arnold was an elegist of deep tenderness and solemnity, a stoic

poet of high seriousness, his poetry was entirely reflective. He does not shine in

constructing a story. He can express melancholy feeling with rare purity and,

when he chooses, even with an emotion that is sometimes poignant. To quote

Walker Hugh

Nothing in Arnold’s verse is more arresting than its elegiac element. It is not

too much to say that there is no other English poet in whom the elegiac spirit so

reigns as it does in him; he found in the elegy the outlet, of his native

melancholy of the ‘Virgilian cry’ over the mournfulness of mortal destiny. It is

the natural tone of an agnostic who is not jubilant, but regretful of its beauty,

regretful of the lost promise (337).

Although the elegy originated as a very formal lament for the loss of a friend or

an important public or cultural person, in its broader sense, the elegy also

laments the loss of something important to the world. In ‘Dover Beach’, Arnold

writes about the loss of faith in the world at large.

‘Dover Beach’ was published in 1867 when the country England was torn

between science and religion, between Romanticism and Classicism, between

materialism and spiritualism. This poem us a vehement picture of the poet's

melancholic view of life as well as the representation of Victorian loss of faith

as a consequence of the rapid growth of science and commerce with the

publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species" in 1859. In "Dover Beach",

Arnold's melancholic view is distinct, penetrative, yet tender. Set against the

scenic charm of the Northern sea near Dover Beach, the poem contains a good

deal of gloomy reflections of modern life. But here, in this poem the sea is not

merely a background, but a symbol of religious faith and its 'grating roar'

symbolizes the decline of the faith. Being a Victorian pessimist to the core, the

poet perceives the crumbling away of religious faith during his time. He now

hears 'the eternal note of sadness'. He mourns the fact that

The sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled

But now he hears only

Its melancholy.

Nothing could be more profoundly melancholy than the present poem "Dover

Beach", "yet there is nothing maudlin, nothing unmanly about it. The poem
begins with very positive image. 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 it. This note of pensive melancholy gets the

upper hand, unfolding Arnold’s 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”, 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. 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. The‘ turbid 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. 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. 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. With the

faith withered away, men during Arnold’s 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.

In the concluding remark, we can remember what Stefan Collini says about

Dover Beach that the whole poem popularly bears some stock explanations

which are difficult to supersede. However, the overall tone is elegiac meditation

and the treatment is purely modern surpassing Victorian time. One vital point

regarding Arnold’s melancholy is that it is not the melancholy that dejects and

depresses. It is not that melancholy that sucks ones strength and spirit, the

melancholy that palls with pessimism and leaves one with despair, but a wistful

feeling.