"Dover Bitch" and "Dover Beach" Comparisons

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").

The most controversial aspect of Chaucer’s opinion of feminism is his figurative spectrum of the embodiment of a woman. His depiction of a woman goes from one extreme to the next with no middle ground. Women in the sense of The Canterbury Tales are either perfect and or outrageously flawed. Chaucer creates character in the theme of absolutes, both physically and emotionally. Women are also considered to be either young and beautiful or old and ugly. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a knight rapes a young maiden and the queen wants to decide his fate. She gives him a year to find out what women truly want in life. He finds the answer from an old ugly woman who agrees only to help if he marries her. When he does, she gives him the option of either having her as a young and beautiful wife who will not be faithful or as an old and ugly wife who will be loyal. He tells her that because she is his wife, that the decision belongs to her, but the only reason he agrees to this trade-off in power is because of his newfound resignation. He is solemn because he thinks he cannot have the “ideal” wife: young, beautiful, and loyal. In the end of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, she eventually gives him this “perfect” significant other, which only undermines the theme of sovereignty and makes readers question whether he truly learned his lesson or not.

In society, gender is a real struggle by reason of people do not believe that men and women should be treated as equals. Gender, although not directly mentioned is still a part of the story. In “The Minister’s Black Veil” (Hawthorne 28), the author indirectly mentions gender with,“The black veil, though it covers only our pastor’s face throws its influence over his whole person.” Like the black veil, gender is a prospect that individuals are fully judged based upon. Gender is an effective way

“The courtly lady…possesses a curiously hybrid gender. While maintaining stereotypically female sexuality, she also holds, in principle at least, the status of a feudal lord.” Burns’ statement insinuates a reversal of power dynamics between man and woman in the courtly love lyric, implying that the woman’s stereotypical beauty and sexuality in courtship, is a gateway to subverting and overpowering the lovesick male, making her a superior lord. The Amour Courtois lyric is deemed inconsistent with the representation of woman as an empowered “feudal lord” due to the sheer objectification of femininity and beauty. Poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Dunbar commend a woman’s aesthetic appeal or satirise the lack of it, thus elevating medieval misogynistic expectations of physical beauty as a feminine necessity that objectifies women under the control of man’s advances. Throughout courtly love lyrics female beauty is a purely frivolous and superficial trait lacking predominant depth, to render woman as a “lord” would be poetically conflicting as the only power exemplified by female subjects in courtship is through the idolisation and sexual lust of the male devotee.

Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Dover Beach” does a great job at portraying what love is talked up to be. He starts the poem by saying, “The sea is calm tonight / The tide is full the moon lies fair / the cliffs of England stand / Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.” (1-2, 4-5.) giving off a peaceful and tranquil tone and adding on to that in the following lines of the stanza. Th importance of the setting of the poem is that it paints a beautiful landscape which gives breath to the idea

Not just does this represent the inferiority of women to men, it likewise expresses that ladies are seen as a commodity to be given, transported and purchased. Moreover, it highlights the characterisation of Desdemona and how submissive she is. This accentuates that Shakespeare was a man who saw ladies simply the same as a man. His emphasis on gender equality permits viewers to get a look at how ladies are dealt within society and how men ought to treat ladies. He underscores that gender equality should be valued in society.

With a syllabus centered around woman poets, students would be exposed to more socioeconomically diverse group of poets. While the ‘major’ poets of the English 125 syllabus were all born into some degree of wealth, the women who acted as supplementary readings for the course were of more varied backgrounds. Isabella Whitney, for example, was born to a lower class English family. Her experiences in life are reflected in her poetry, and starkly contrast the poetry of the ‘major’ men. While the traditional male poets may not have had the same views, they were privy to a lot of similar experiences due to their class standing, and therefore tackled some of the same issues. To have a different viewpoint and style of writing in terms of not only gender, but of class, is crucial in the development of an English major. The current syllabus requires students to be complacent with the multitude under-developed female characters that are created through the eyes of men, and satisfied with the few women who are given deeper personalities, like the Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Such confining works lead to conversation that automatically focuses on the negative when it comes to gender—that women are disregarded and often powerless when depicted from the male point of view, unless they are overtly sexualized. From a modern stance, this is seen as a sexist and unfair representation, but based on the current material offered in English 125, it seems as though it is an injustice that must be dealt with to understand the nuances of pivotal English poetry. However, a deeper focus on women poets would eliminate, or at least add dimension to, this type of conversation. There is no reason why students cannot “recognize the powerful interactions of form and content” between Isabella Whitney’s “To her Inconstant Lover” and Shakespeare’s

When analysing these two plays under a gender or feminist lense it becomes obvious that feminism was not only present,

Hecht’s poem employs the use of a framed narrative to tell the perspective of the woman in the room. It is from her perspective that allows the reader to see where the title of the poem, The Dover Bitch, comes into play. The speaker says, “…[she] really felt sad, thinking about all the wine and enormous beds…and then she got really angry. To have been brought all the way down from London, and then be addressed as a sort of mournful cosmic last resort…” (Hecht, lines 13-18). From here, the reader is led to understand that the woman could really care less about what the speaker from Dover Beach was saying. She was more preoccupied with missing her materialistic lifestyle in London, or being so close to France and all of the extravagancies it has to offer. In Dover Beach the speaker pleads to the woman, “…let us be true to one another! For the world…hath really neither joy, nor love…” (Arnold, 29-33). The speaker of The Dover Bitch, at the end of the poem, claims to see the woman from time to time, suggesting that he is secretly her lover. By doing this Hecht, sets up a type of dramatic irony between the two poems. The speaker asked her to be true to him, and unbeknownst to him she was cheating with the speaker of The Dover Bitch. Thus, a critical analysis of The Dover Bitch can conclude that Hecht was criticizing the idea of Arnold’s poem that love can overcome the sadness and hurt that the world produces, because in the end love can be just as hurtful

At the beginning of the poem, the teacher feels preposterous with one simple and naïve question from his student. While teaching his student about "Dover Beach" (1), the young freshman girl questions whether the Sea of Faith is palpable. The question either naïve or foolish when what they are discussing about is just a "figurative language" (6). She wonders if it an actual physic sea that people can see on the maps. Along with the questioning tone and the words "real" repeat three times in line 8,9, and 12 shows that she doesn't understand the lesson or the difference between figurative language and literally. It is absurd for the teacher that she has the nerve to ask such and simple yet reckless question. In addition, he feels so juvenile when their conversation is about a thing which everybody knows is real, yet it is not concrete real.

Gender can be defined as “the state of being a male or female” (Oxford). Of course, that is the text book or basic definition. In today’s society the definition of gender may mean something different to each and every person. The authors both base their poems off of a certain gender in the poems “Bitch” and “Men at Forty”. “Bitch” is based off of a view point coming from a woman, and “Men at Forty” is based off of the view point of a middle aged man.

Gender plays a major role in this excerpt from Sergeant's Shadow Shapes. The author refers to gender many times throughout the piece. This easier seen when looking at the

Dover Beach intrigued me as soon as I read the title. I have a great love of beaches, so I feel a connection with the speaker as he or she stands on the cliffs of Dover, looking out at the sea and reflecting on life. Arnold successfully captures the mystical beauty of the ocean as it echoes human existence and the struggles of life. The moods of the speaker throughout the poem change dramatically as do the moods of the sea. The irregular, unordered rhyme is representative of these inharmonious moods and struggles. In this case, the speaker seems to be struggling with the relationship with his or her partner.

Matthew Arnold’s “Dover beach” describe the way in which perceptions are mislead society. The use of metaphors, symbolisms, allusiveness, technical quantities, and imagery assist the speaker’s thought regards between what is seen and what is real. Dover beach was written during Victorian era. Which brought civilization based on industry, value and money. This is the time which people start questioning the existence of God. The speaker observed the plight of Victorian era. And he sought an answer to the problems which he and world faced with. Arnold express the dejection of lost civilization, anticipate its future, and try to acquire its solution

The poem entails opposite sex, the male and female. They were lovers and the man showed and expresses his sexual desires. The opposition in the text is obviously the side of the man who is the speaker and the female who have been describe in the poem as