2. oFrom 1837-1901 during the reign of Queen Victoria.
oLink between periods.
oHigh literary point.
oWorks tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives.
oFamous Novelists and Poets include: Charles Dickens, William
Thackeray, Lord Tennyson.
oThe style became more complex as the century progressed.
3. o Born in 1822 and died in 1888.
o Notable Works: “Dover Beach”, “The scholar-gipsy” and “Literature and Dogma”
o Called the Third Great Victorian Poet, along with Alfred Tennyson and Robert
Browning.
o In 1869 he stated:
“I have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less
intellectual vigor than Browning; because I have more fusion and
regularity applied to the main line of the modern development.”
o In 1867 he wrote “Dover Beach” considered the first example of the modern
sensibility. The use of symbolic landscapes was typical of the Romantic era, while his
pessimistic perspective was typical of the modern era.
4.
5. The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
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.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
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 I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
6. The poet uses 1st, 2nd and 3rd person point of view in the poem. Generally, the poem is
presented in 3rd person but it shifts to 2nd person when he addresses his beloved. Again,
he shifts to 1st person when he includes his beloved.
•We (v18)
•Us (v29 and v31)
1st
•Come (v6)
•Listen! You (v9)
•Let (v29)2nd
•Most Verses3rd
The person addressed in the poem is
Matthew Arnold’s wife, Frances Lucy.
However since the poem expresses an
universal message we can say that the
listener is any woman.
The poem is a almost a dramatic monologue in which a man is telling his observations
to a woman.
Tone: mournful tone -> e.g. Verse 14 “The eternal note of sadness in”
Mood: Sadness, mournful. The mood created matches the tone.
7. -37 Verses divided in 4 stanzas, each with a variable number of verses.
-Because the meter and rhyme vary from line to line, the poem is said to be free in
verse.
-The last stanza has an “ABBACDDC” assonant rhyme.
8.
9. The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
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.
Repetition of “is” to
illustrate the scene.
Alliteration
Auditory Imagery
and Hyperbole.
Metaphor:
conflict between
sea and land (old
religious belief vs.
modernism)
Metaphor (faith
as it comes and
retreats)
Visual Imagery
Metaphor: foreshadows
the message of later
lines (the light of faith
in god and religion,
once strong, now
flickers.
Only hint of humanity.
10. Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Allusion –
Sophocles heard the
similar sound at the
“Aegean” sea
The eternal note of
sadness
Metaphor, In the sea,
the lyrics speaker hears
a thought that disturbs
him as did the one
heard by Sophocles.The Turbid human misery
11. 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 I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Metaphor: religion
could still be
experienced
without any doubt
and full of faith.
Allusion with
clothes: When the
religion was full of
faith it is bright (like
the folds…), Now
that the faith is
gone, the world lies
helpless.
Aural Imagery:
It’s too late
now the lyrics
speaker just
hears
melancholy.
Girdle: a belt, cord, sash, or the like, worn about the waist.
Shingles: gravel on the beach.
Simile of the sea
with a girdle
Personification: the wind can’t breath.
12. Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Metaphor: “please
let us be true” is a
response of what
the world has
become.
Anaphora,
repetition of So.
Anaphora
(nor):
Without faith
and full of
doubts the
world has
become:
selfish, cynical,
amoral, etc.
There is no
more guiding
light as we saw
in Stanza 1.
All these are
human values,
this raises the
question of
what remains
at all.
Darkling: dark, obscure, dim, menacing, dangerous.
Allusion: Peloponnesian War, soldiers were confused at night and killed their
teammates.
Contrast: Land of Dream with the love of the opening verse and the darkling
plain (change of scenario)
Human values
disappeared as
well as the
religion and
light, leaving
humanity in
darkness
13.
14. Sea: The sea is both a symbol and metaphor, referencing the “eternal note of sadness”
as well as the “Sea of faith”. The sea shows the fact that man float in their life on a
series of waves that move up and down, that bring us close to happiness but only to
pull us out again.
Dove: a dove is a white bird that is often used as a symbol of peace. Arnold could turn
this noun and symbol into an adjective, “Dover” -> The Peaceful beach. This fact
highlights the idea of God’s light and white cliff of the Dover strait.
