“Dover Beach”

"The sea is calm tonight. 

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 Ægean, 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." 

~Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold

1 Explain the poem's central analogy. Do you agree with the scholars who call it an elegy?
The poem’s central analogy in the poem is between the Ocean and the sad fleeting world.

Hmmmmm…. I am not sure it counts as an elegy… It definitely is definitely depressed, but I am not sure it is talking about the deceased. What do you all think??

2 Discuss the tone of the poem. How is it achieved?’
The tone is one of “human misery” and is achieved through use of careful and “melancholy” diction.

3 As believers, do we agree with the speaker's view of “the world,” as expressed in the fourth stanza? What is our response to his assessment?
No, we cannot agree fully. The world does have love and light, because we still have hope, but it is becoming a darker drearier place and I think we need to recognize this.