Page 368 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

Unit 30: Tennyson, Arnold and Yeats

(28-33). In these emotionally charged lines Arnold pleas that they cling to each other against a land Notes
that is beautiful as only an exterior to an unfeeling, Godless world. The beautiful world, the world
of the Romantic, is a lie; there is only the callous Modern world, devoid of answered hopes or
prayers. Matthew Arnold writes in a very similar fashion to William Wordsworth, “we are here as
on a darkling plain” (34), to convey how we stand in the darkness of our contemporary lifestyle and
must now suffer with our realization of secular doctrine and the destruction of God.
Matthew Arnold’s modern sensibility shines through like a poetic eulogy, a poignant lamentation
for the future of mankind in a world without spirituality. The beauty of the Dover Beach, that
Matthew Arnold describes serves as only a momentary elation that soon descends into an ominous
melancholia of understanding that none of the emotion that he finds in the landscape is real.

To Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach is sour manna, poisoning his creativity as it
feeds it.

Summary

The Poet, Mathew Arnold is standing by the seashore and watching the gentle waves splashing the
sandy shores of the Straits. There is a weak breeze that blows gently and the sea looks calm for the
night. The tide is full of potential yet under self control and the moon looks bright as it shines its
beams on the quiet sea. From the French Coast across the English Channel to the high sea cliffs of
England, the light shines pleasantly and softly, and gets weakened towards the tranquil bay of England.
The poet tells his companion to come to the window of his cabin and enjoy the sweet aroma of the
night air. Watching the seashore from this height, one can only witness the waters of the sea that
acts as a catalyst when they touch the moonlit blended Colour of the sands. Sometimes they hear
the roar of the sea when the pebbles cross over to the high sandy beaches and move back suddenly
with the withdrawing waves. This phenomenon continues every evening throughout the night with
a slow trembling note and the presence of melancholy is felt.
The poet makes his reference to ‘Sophocles’ a famous Greek dramatist long ago, of the 5th Century
B.C. to a passage in his play ‘Antigone’(line-583). Here the same eternal note of sadness can be
heard on the ‘Aegaean’: an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea, between Southern
Balkans and Anatolia. This brought to the dramatist’s mind the muddy movement of the tide away
from the land and its flow, the tide of misfortune that rules human misery. That same similar sound
can be heard in the thoughts from the distant sea in the north.
The mighty sea was once a beholder of faith with its vastness that touches all the shores of the earth
around the globe, lay folded like a bright girdle cord worn around the waist and rolled up fastened
and firm. Yet now, the sounds of the waves in the sea are only notes of melancholy; long drawn;
advancing and retreating at the breath of the night wind that blows down the vast yet dull and
gloomy edges of the bare shingles of the world, the beaches that are covered with coarse sand and
large stones.
The poet finally appeals to his beloved companion to be honest with each other, for the world that
they live in, which looks so beautiful and new, and lay before them like a land of dreams, does not
have joy, love or spiritual light. There is no certainty for help in times of trouble and peace. All the
mortals live in this world in a dark state of mind and the struggle for survival is no less different
from ignorant armies that fight throughout the night.

30.2.2 Theme and Subject

The first stanza opens with the description of a nightly scene at the seaside. The lyrical self calls his
addressee to the window, to share the visual beauty of the scene. Then he calls her attention to the

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