Matthew Arnold – Dover Beach
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Matthew Arnold — Dover Beach
Biography
First of all, we are start with the biography of the poet. Because most information is not really required to understand the poem, we are going to cut it short.
Matthew Arnold, born in 1822, went to the Rugby School when he was four years old. His father, who was headmaster of that school, died in 1842. Matthew changed school in 1844. He went to Balliol College in Oxford. As from the years he went to school, he was obsessed by poetry and making poems.
After his school career, he became private secretary to Lord Lansdowne.
His literary career began in 1849 with the publication of The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems.
In 1851, he married Frances Lucy Wightman, daughter of a judge. In order to support his family, he took up a job as school inspector. And in 1857 he became professor of poetry at Oxford, a position he will keep for ten years. During these years, he published several books containing literary criticism.
He also published many books of criticism and poetry during his career as an inspector and as a professor of poetry. When he was about sixty years old, he even toured in America.
In 1888, he died of a heart attack. He was buried at Laleham beside his three sons.
Necessary for the poem:
* Matthew went to Dover Beach, cfr. the title of the poem, twice. Dover is a town on the south coast of England. It is the place where you can take a ferry to Calais in France
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The first time he went there was in June 1851. He and his wife spent the last night of their honeymoon in Dover
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The second journey to Dover took place on the first of September 1851. He and his wife took a ferry from Dover to Calais (he also wrote a poem “Calais sands” !) and they travelled on to Paris. It is not clear whether the poem “Dover Beach” was written on 1 September, or whether Arnold had already written a draft of it earlier.
Structure
The poem consists of four stanzas:
First stanza: 14 lines
Second stanza: 6 lines
Third stanza: 8 lines
Fourth stanza: 9 lines.
Some people claim that the poem can be seen as “a series of incomplete sonnets”, because the first stanza consists of 14 lines (cfr. a sonnet!). And, as the second + the third stanza happen to be a sextet and an octave, these make 14 lines as well. Sometimes, the rhyme scheme is comparable to that of a sonnet, but not all the time! (an example where there is a similar rhyme scheme: second stanza: aba cbc.)
The last stanza has 9 lines, which unlike in a sonnet. However, the rhyme scheme comes near to a sonnet’s. The rhyme scheme is: abba cddc(c). and it has twice an inserted rhyme!
So as you see, some characteristics of a sonnet can be found, although it maybe seem far-fetched.
Analysis
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Stanza 1
In the first five lines (1 — 5) there is a description of a nightly scene (= sea at night), which he sees:
Line one and two don’t cause problems, I think. It is night, the moon is coming up, the tide is high and the sea is calm.
The third and fourth line: He’s talking about the FRENCH coast, but we know he is in England. But on the other side of the Straits of Dover, there is France. He doesn’t see France, he just sees the horizon, and the light of the moon is shining upon the water. (and as the sea goes up and down a little, the light seems to moving => “gleams and is gone”)
He also talks about the cliffs of ENGLAND on Dover beach, where he is. He gives a description of what he sees.
From line five to fourteen (5 — 14) he starts to use imperatives (come and listen). He’s apparently talking to someone.
First, the lyrical self calls another person who’s in the room, to the window, to share the visual beauty of the scene (come!). (And also the feeling aspect is present => “sweet is the night-air”)
Later on, the lyrical self calls the other person’s attention to the aural impressions (listen).
Somehow, the sounds of the sea cause an emotion of “sadness” in the lyrical person. You can derive that from his description which is less positive:
– grating roar
– tremulous cadence
– eternal note of sadness.
They are using their senses to take up the environment.
The eternal note of sadness is the sound that you hear on the beach when the sound of the waves comes up and fades