The Ruined Image In Anthony Hecht's The Dover Bitch

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

Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.

mind. It suggest the poet see it as love or nothing and that he was

Poets have written love poems for centuries with the first said to be around 1000BC. But what is love? It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘ to have attachment to and affection for’. However, after studying various love poems, I have found that love is portrayed in many different ways. It can be possessive, hateful and pure and the fact that William Shakespeare said ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ suggests that love is more complicated than a simple dictionary definition.

1862 England (Victorian Era) was somewhat of an uptight society, especially compared to today. The majority of people, especially those in the upper class, were expected to be utmostly prim and proper and follow societal norms at all times. This included love, or what love was defined as during the period. George Meredith, in his poem aptly titled “Modern Love”, sets a scene where a husband and wife are sleeping side by side, both reflecting sorrowfully on their melancholy marriage. Meredith argues in this poem that the institution of modern love is inherently flawed, by exposing to the reader that while the husband and wife still care for each other, they want to leave each other because they are both scared of “modern love”. By doing so, Meredith is able to justify his overarching message that applies to all: love is a feeling that cannot be artificially replicated, and attempting to do so is only a detriment.

People have different perceptions and ways to show love. In the poems “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “Magic of Love” by Helen Ferries, the poets describe love in two different ways. These two poems have differences and similarities. Both poems have the same theme which is love; however, they have different uses of imagery and dissimilar tones. The first poem “Those Winter Sundays” defines the meaning of love and describes the love the son has for his father 's; on the other hand, the second poem “Magic of Love” looks at love as a gift of heaven. I think the second poem “Magic of Love” is more powerful than the first poem “Those Winter Sundays” because has a beautiful sense of what is love.

As coined by the Father of His Country, “It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” This is doubly appropriate as love is nothing more than a series of traumatic and disappointing events. Certain authors utilize their works to portray love from their perspective and/or experience. In “Love Song, with Two Goldfish” by Grace Chua, the author illustrates rejection in the most heartbreaking way possible. In the poem “What Love Isn’t” by Yrsa Daley-Ward, she depicts love as unbearable and somber rather than the joyful and wholesome experience consistently shown throughout pop culture. In the short story, “Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant, the narrator grieves the loss of his beloved only to have his feelings of woe amplified by betrayal. Through their illustrations, the authors show that love is an extraordinary experience that is often filled with pain, distrust, and despair.

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

A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and that often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure. In her poem, “Variations of the Word ‘“love”’,” Margaret Atwood introduces to her audience the word “love” from many different perspectives. Google defines “love” as “an intense feeling of deep affection”, or “having a deep feeling or sexual attachment to (someone).” But “love” is not something that can easily be described. Atwood goes on to present and portray the word through different illustrations, beginning with cliché examples and ending with her own personal scenarios. The author’s tone and metaphorical language effectively conveys her perspective of “love”.

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.

Nature's power can be felt in our souls. Which is a perfect theme for the poem “Dover Beach”. It is a perfect theme because nature distracts you when you are at the beach. Listening to the sea is calming, for example: “ The sea is calm tonight”. Which reading this quote makes you calm because in your soul you know what a beach sounds like which is calming and relaxing.

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

In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot and Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold the poets utilizes poetic devices to convey their respective themes. Through use of symbols and metaphors, the speaker in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock displays his fears of the changes brought with the younger generation, and isolation from the changing society. The speaker in Dover Beach, utilizes symbols, metaphors, and similes to state that the younger generation has less faith than the older, and society must regain faith to stop the world from fighting. The younger generation needs to bridge the generation gap and remember to value and include the older generation, as they still can help the younger. If they do, they can stop the chaos in the world that stems from the isolation and loss of faith.

In the poem "Dover Beach",witten in 1867 Matthew Arnold creates the mood of the poem through the usage of different types of imagery. He uses a dramatic plot in the form of a soliloquy. Arnold also uses descriptive adjectives, similes and metaphors to create the mood. Through the use of these literary elements, Arnold portrays the man standing before the window pondering the sound of the pebbles tossing in the waves as representation of human suffering. The man arrives at the vision of humanity being helpless against nature. Arnold creates the mood by suggesting mental pictures, actions, sights and sounds the man sees. Some examples are "folds of a bright girdle furled", "lie before us like a land of dreams"