Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach Essay

Poems consist of a variation of different techniques in order to convey a message or idea to readers. Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, Adrienne Rich, Bruce Dawe and Robert Browning are great poets who explore these issues, conveying their emotions, which influences a perception of an issue. In each of their poems they express the hidden message of hope, along with their main message. They use similar techniques to express their ideas, which illustrates their purpose to the reader.

Montag compares Mildred’s friends to plaster saints he saw in a church when he was young, because they were silent and he did not understand them. Montag goes to meet Faber, and he brings a copy of the Bible. When he begins his journey to meet Beatty Faber reads him the book of Job to comfort him. The biggest quote from the Bible is said by Montag at the end of the book. He is contemplating what to share with his new acquaintances, when he remembers the verse Revelations 22:2 “And on the other side of the river was there a tree of life...and the leaves of the tree were the healing of the nations” (Page 158). This verse implies a renewal or a cycle, in which hope is given after a disaster. Bombs destroyed the city, but now the leaves (perhaps books, or knowledge) will heal the survivors. The Bible is timeless, so by including quotes and references in the novel, Bradbury implies that the power of books is also timeless. After meeting with Faber, Montag makes his way to the firehouse, but first stops at his home. He finds Mildred and her friends, and becomes unraveled when interacting with them. Montag balks at their ignorance and nonchalance, so he recites a poem that he hopes they’ll react to. Dover Beach is a poem by Matthew Arnold, written in 1867. In the poem he laments the values that were lost in his society. Montag angrily reads it to the women, and they become visibly upset, one of them even crying. The poem forces

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 contrast serves to communicate the scattered nature of our consciousness with the unity, elegance and fluidity of our subconscious. Furthermore, these drawn out sounds serve to also further the imagery of the tide’s “uninterrupted sweep” which is particularly effective in conveying the image of the wave rushing to envelope the shore, the word “uninterrupted” conveying this sense that the wave of inspiration is all smooth and relentless. This imagery is furthered by the 3 line-long segment, uninterrupted by punctuation. Yet, the central point made in these four lines is when the speaker states that “(he) heard” the waves. The description of the sea gives you a mental image, but Longfellow stresses upon the fact that the speaker only hears the tide, as this can be seen reflected in the title of the poem “The Sound of the Sea”. Hearing is an auditory action that allows one to be aware of the presence of the object through the sound, but not visually or physically grasp it. This suggests that inspiration is similar, in the sense that one can be aware of it but cannot consciously grasp, control or dominate it.

In the romantic era, British authors and poets focused on nature and its influence. Two of those poets, Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, wrote many pieces on the beauty of nature and their personal experiences with the beaches of England. In “Far on the sands” and “It is a beauteous evening,” Smith and Wordsworth describe their respective experiences on the shore at sunset. Both authors use structure, theme, allusions, and imagery to effectively convey their perceptions of nature. While the sonnets share a setting and the topics of nature and tranquility, Smith’s has a focus on introspection and Wordsworth’s is centered around religion. These have different focuses which achieve different effects on the reader.

The poem I will be analysing today is Song of the Surf by Dan Ashlin. Ashlin is a born and bred Australian poet who writes modern poems. I believe that I have a strong connection with this poem because of how much I personally love the beach with the soft sand and the ferocious waves. In my opinion this poem isn’t just about the waves in the ocean, but how the ocean has its own life and story to tell.

The second most important image is the “surf-tormented shore”(line 13) as the speaker himself is standing next to one, and is unable to control the waves, thus becoming a metaphor again for time and life. The unpredictable quality of life and the chaos within his life demonstrate how little he can do to manipulate it as a very inactive verb “standing” is used. In the following lines as he loses the “golden sand” (line 15), the “pitiless waves”(line 22) represent life again as he’s asking God why he can’t do anything to stop these “pitiless waves”(line 22) that he knows are pitiless because they will not stop for him. This extended metaphor conveys the deeper meaning of life that passes by really fast and is just an illusion. These metaphors lead back to the main argument of life being nothing more than a dream, meaning the outer dream, which is what we see is life, and the inner dream, which is what we seem is our memories, and are all just dreams and illusions that we are unable to manipulate.

symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

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.

poem is not merely a static, decorative creation, but that it is an act of communication between the poet and

What does the language and structure of the opening sequence of ‘On Chesil Beach’, reveal about the two protagonists characters.

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 style of writing is quite repetitive; this is a typical trait of Ernest Hemmingway. It gives sense of rhythm to the text. “Anyway, I want a cat,’ she said, ‘I want a cat. I want a cat now,” or, “The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain.” The last quote is beautiful. It is simple and minimalistic. Hemmingway could easily have used many adjectives to describe the sea, but he chooses to use verbs and repetition, to emphasize the style of

This photograph was taken on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2015. It was taken during sunset and as the tide had gone out, revealing a wider coastline. The world-famous beach is manmade and since 1951, over 80,000 cubic meters of sand has been imported to replace sand lost through erosion from heavy rainfall, sea swells, wind and tropical storms.