Comparing Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Gerard Manley Hopkins'God's Grandeur

     Fahrenheit 451 is a well-written book that tells a story of a dream world and one man who wakes up from that dream. Montag, the protagonist of the story, brings home a book of poetry one day and begins to read the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold to his wife and her guests. Many critics think that Bradbury picked this poem because it paralleled life in his book. The poem Dover Beach can be compared to Fahrenheit 451 because both pieces of writing talk about themes of true love, fantasy and allover hopelessness.

At first glance, Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 and Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach may not have anything in common however the inclusion of Dover Beach in Fahrenheit 451 begs to differ. Both were written during a period of change. Arnold wrote Dover Beach during the Industrial Revolution and Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 shortly after World War 2. Although Dover Beach was written a century earlier, they both consider the problems within society; the effects of an ever changing world. The essay will attempt to consider “In what ways does Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach relate to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in terms of criticism of society?”

B. Explanation of the allusion: Dover Beach was a poem by Matthew Arnold which was published in 1867. He wrote the poem while honeymooning with his wife at Dover Beach. Although it contained only 37 lines, it described the beauty of nature on a beach in Dover England as well as the worldly issues of the decline of religious faith. With metaphors and alliteration, Arnold effectively expressed his views and opinions making this most famous work ("Dover").

At first glance, Anthony Hecht's "Dover Bitch" is not only funnier than Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach", but also describes a more "liberated" relationship; the poem is as free from what some would consider stuffy Victorian morals as it is from references to Sophocles. Hecht's urbane and flippant persona tends to win over its audience, whether they find irony in the poem that adds to their appreciation of "Dover Beach", appreciate the poem as a criticism of Victorian morals, or laugh at Arnold's apparent inability to give his girl "a good time." "Dover Bitch" also seems to give more power to the lover, who is kept behind the scenes in Arnold, by bringing "her" opinions and wishes into the foreground of the poem. However, on closer

This use of artistic descriptive words creates an image of beauty and peace. Both of these feelings are shown to have been lost by the time he is a

He states, “Indifference after all is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger at times can be creative… But indifference is never creative…

Albert Einstein spoke of nature and its value when he said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” As Einstein pointed out, by looking into nature you could discover something new about yourself and the world around you. John Muir and William Wordsworth both discovered joy when they looked deep into nature. This joy gave them a new perspective on nature and life and they each expressed this joy through different works of writing. Both authors have a unique outlook on nature and its impact as well as different thoughts on how to share their relationships; Muir used diction and connotation to show his relationship in his essay “The Calypso Borealis” where Wordsworth used tone and syntax in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.

Disgusted, the speaker sees how society has morally degraded itself in exchange for wealth and greed. The frustrated tone of the poem becomes further elevated when the speaker exclaims, "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" (4). Blinded by the daily drudgeries of life, people have become impervious to nature, despite some of the grand displays that one can behold. The speaker describes beautiful images of nature such as the sea, howling winds, and flowers that no longer create an emotional response in people. Since the world has become so out of touch with nature, mankind is no longer able to appreciate the drama that takes place between the wind and the moon. Additionally, the speaker claims that society has become so indifferent to nature that, "Little we see in Nature that is ours;" (3).

In the fourth stanza, the speaker unexpectedly begins talking to another party who was previously never mentioned. Up until this point, the reader is led to believe that the speaker is simply philosophizing alone. It is possible that this poem was written during Arnold's honeymoon in 1851, therefore,

Again, the author selects a new set of imagery, such as stars, moon, sun, ocean, and wood to remind of the heaven in which the speaker used to live, and then to sweep it off right away. The last statement “For nothing now can ever come to any good” (16) finally reinforces the speaker’s loss and unhappiness. In loneliness, the speaker’s love becomes fiercer and more truthful. It is the fierceness and truthfulness that lead the speaker to the last stair of hopelessness. The end of the poem is also the hopeless end of the speaker’s life because of “nothing …good.”

He goes on to say, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean...publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion” (74). In this rather long passage, he outlines his true sentiment about life and living. He puts his feelings in very plain, broad terms, claiming that in order to know what life has to offer, one must do all that they can to “experience” it, and then judge for themselves. One cannot have lived if they have not confronted the true “essential facts of life,” whether they may be sweet or bitter.

Finally, in relation to the present day, there is a sense of the immense possibilities (“anything can be made, any sentence begun”). This is contained in the words that may inspire others to action that may bring such a love closer toward reality. From disunity (“walking past each other”) to blindly “walk[ing] into that which we cannot yet see,” this poem now suggests the alternative of “walking forward in that light” guided by a new vision of a love that may unite us.

Equality, however, was the universal theme, because he emphasized that anybody’s opinion deserved the same amount of respect as his. He also stated that everyone’s death is inevitable, thus everyone is the same. It can also be said that he wanted to preserve the Earth as well, because technically the whole planet is a sacred burial ground where generations of people and other living entities have passed away.

Matthew Arnold is one of the many famous and prolific writers from the nineteenth century. Two of his best known works are entitled Dover Beach and The Buried Life. Although the exact date of composition is unknown, clearly they were both written in the early 1850s. The two poems have in common various characteristics, such as the theme and style. The feelings of the speakers of the poem also resemble each other significantly. The poems are concerned with the thoughts and feelings of humans living in an uncertain world. Even though Arnold wrote Dover Beach and The Buried Life around the same time, the

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”