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Ministry of Higher Education and  

Scientific Research 
Faculty of Imam Kadhim 
Department of Englis  
The morning study 
Third stage 

 
 
search potry 
subject *-* Theme (love ] of Dover Beach and 
summary 
by Matthew Arnold 
Supervisor///Mrs.Howrah Fadel 
Noor Alhuda abbas 
 

 
 
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Table of contents 
 
title -----------------------------------1 
Table of contents------------------2 
introduction-------------------3-4 
Theme of love-----------------567 
summary---------------------7.8.9 
reference-----------------------10 
 
 
 
 
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introduction *-+* 
 
Dover Beach Introduction 
Matthew Arnold was a pretty serious dude. He 
believed in the Power and Beauty of Art with a 
capital P, and was all about the value of really 
understanding the past and the great tradition of 
literature. He was a poet, a scholar, a critic, and one 
of the big-name literary figures of the Victorian era. 
Sounds like the recipe for a great career, right? 
 
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But he was also living in an uncertain time. The 

winds of change were blowing, and he lets us hear 
them whipping by in his poetry. See, in the decades 
before he wrote this poem, England had gone 
through rapid industrialization, which in many ways 
upended a way of life that had been stable for 
centuries. The British empire was beginning to 
expand its reach across the globe, and the conflicts 
that would come with that expansion were picking 
up steam as well. In other words, Arnold was a man 
on the brink between the old world and the new, 
right on the edge of the modern era, and he has a 
really cool, visionary sense of what that means. 
 
"Dover Beach" is one of his most famous poems, 
although he wrote many more. It's still included in 
anthologies and memorized by school kids today, 
almost 150 years after it was published in 1867. Why 
that staying power? Well, we think this poem does a 
brilliant job of capturing just how lonely it can be to 
live in the modern world. 
 
You know what we're talking about. As family ties 
rupture, as old systems of faith diminish, it's easy to 
feel as if we've been abandoned on "a darkling plain" 
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(35) without friends or hope. What's cool about this 

poem is that it both describes this suffering and 
helps to make it better. It tackles the pain and the 
uncertainty of living in the modern world, but does it 
in a way that leaves us feeling like poetry can still 
matter, even in our times. In that way, Arnold fuses 
the literary tradition he loved with the new world 
that he could see coming—the one we're living in 
right now. 
 

 
 
 
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Theme of love *''''''*** 
 
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The Theme of Love in Dover Beach by Matthew

Arnold….

Dover Beach Themes- ‘Love as the soul’s solace‘

According to the poet, in a world that has lost its true

meaning, a world composed of sadness, dullness and
grief, the only alternative to spiritual and religious faith
can be true love. The poet laments the fact that loss of
faith has left people hopeless and purposeless. In the
last paragraph, the poet turns to his beloved for comfort
from the pain of the thought of human misery and fate.
According to him, only sincere and genuine love can
offer some relief to people living in a treacherous
world. Arnold feels that without the love of his
beloved, life is futile. In this world where “ignorant
armies” are always ready to clash, only love can restore
life’s meaning. Arnold, thus, depicts the ultimate power
of love in soothing the soul. The only solace that the
poet seeks from this dark, dead world is love. In a world
that offers nothing but illusions, in a world that lies and
deceives, where there is no place for joy, love, hope,
light, peace, and certainty, the comforting arms of the
beloved comes to the rescue.
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Love
Although the word love does not appear until the final
stanza, its use reveals the poem has all along been
addressed to the speaker's love: "Ah, love, let us be true
/ To one another!" It is the speaker's love whom he calls
to the window to hear and see the waves crash upon the
shore. And it is fidelity between the two lovers that will
provide the only possible respite from the chaos and
misery of the world. The final image—of two people
standing together on a "darkling plain" surrounded by
"struggle and flight"—shows love's persistence despite
its embattled state.

In contrast to the image of the two lovers, united by

their bond and standing against the suffering of the
world, is the statement in the final stanza that the world
"hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light." This
statement suggests the world may appear beautiful, but
its beauty is an illusion: it only "seems" to be a "land of
dreams." For the speaker, the significance of love is not
only where it can be found but also that it can be found
at.

.
Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!
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Narrator
This is the second time the speaker directly addresses
his love. In Stanza 1 he invites her to enjoy the
sweetness of the night air, but here he is more
imploring, asking her to stand with him against the
confusion of the world

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
summary *-+*

“Dover Beach” Summary

The speaker looks out upon a calm sea, and observes
the fullness of the tide and the moon reflecting on the
water. Looking across the English channel, the speaker
sees the lights of the French coast fade away, while the
cliffs of the English coast stand tall and bright, and the
bay seems calm. Suddenly, the speaker addresses
someone else, and implores this person to come and
look at what the speaker is looking at, and to enjoy the
night's pleasant air. The speaker senses something is not
quite right, and describes the spray where the water
meets the moonlit land. The speaker instructs the other
person to listen to the sound of the pebbles as the waves
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shift them back and forth, up the beach and down again.
The speaker notes this slow repeating action, and
identifies it with eternal sadness.

All of a sudden, the speaker thinks about the ancient

Greek playwright, Sophocles, and imagines Sophocles
hearing the same sadness in the Aegean Sea as the
speaker hears now on the English coast. Sophocles, in
the mind of the speaker, likens the sad sound of the
waves to the general sorrow of humanity, which moves
like the waves. The speaker then notices another
thought that comes with the sound of the sea.

Explaining this next thought, the speaker describes

religious faith as a sea that was once full like the tide.
At that time, it reached around the earth like a girdle.
Now, though, the speaker just hears that sea's sad
retreat. As the Sea of Faith becomes smaller, says the
speaker, it disappears into the atmosphere and leaves
the edges of the world naked.

The speaker suddenly addresses the companion as

"love," and states desperately that the two of them need
to treat each other with honesty and authenticity. This is
because the world, though it has a dream-like quality of
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variety, beauty and newness, doesn't actually offer joy,

love or clarity. Neither, claims the speaker, can it
provide certainty, peace, or relief from pain. The
speaker then compares their collective situation to
standing on a flat and dark piece of land, which is
caught up in the chaos of fighting. Here, battles
between unknowing groups continue under the cover of
darkness

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Reference +++:::

1. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=we
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guides/poetry/dover-beach&ved=2ahUKEwiar
6r5iqPqAhWEmIsKHTP0AngQFjAaegQIDB
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&usg=AOvVaw3Rcgh9M0swmoFgXa7afcZw
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3. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=we
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matthew-arnold-0j3l7f5V&ved=2ahUKEwia4r
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