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Dover Beach: Matthew Arnold - Summary and Critical Analysis

In Dover Beach Matthew Arnold is describing the slow and solemn rumbling sound made by the
sea waves as they swing backward and forward on the pebbly shore. One can clearly hear this
monotonous sound all the time. The withdrawing waves roll the pebbles back towards the sea,
and then after a pause, the returning waves roll them up the shore.

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

There is a low tremulous sound swinging backward and forward all the time. The poet implies
that this sound suggests the eternal note of sadness in human life. Arnold in 'Dover Beach'
notes how the pebbles of the sea rolled by the sea-waves bring into the mind the “eternal note
of sadness.” Here he points out that in ancient times Sophocles heard the same sound of the
pebbles on the shore, and it reminded him of the ebb and flow of human misery. In his
Antigone Sophocles expressed this thought. Now this poet hears the sound of this Dover Beach,
and he finds in it the same thought.

The poet explains the gradual loss of man’s faith in a grand and suggestive simile. He compares
faith in religion to a sea that surrounds the world. The sea has its full tide, and then it ebbs away
with the mournful music over the pebbles and the grating of the pebbles brings the “eternal
note of sadness in”. The poet reminds the world in which there was full of faith and men
believed in religion. But now that faith is gradually passing away and men’s minds are like
pebbles on the shore. The passing of faith causes the minds to be isolated in the border
between belief and disbelief. It is a sad melancholy state. When the poet hears the grating roar
of pebbles of the sea, he is reminded of the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of faith as it
retreats from men’s minds. It is a chilly prospect, like the breath of the night wind, and it brings
into the mind a dreary feeling of helplessness, as though the mind is left stripped and bare on
the vast and dreary edges of an unknown land.

The lines from 'Dover Beach' give bitter expression of Arnold’s loss of faith, his growing
pessimism. The world seemed to be strangely unreal, without anything real to cling to on grasp.
It has variety, beauty and freshness. But it is all blind negation: there is in it neither love nor joy
nor light nor peace. There is nothing certain in it. Therefore he compares men struggling in the
world with armies struggling on a plain at night. There is a sound of confused alarms and
struggles, but the soldiers are ignorant as to what they are fighting for and why.

'Dover Beach' is one of Arnold’s typical poems. It expresses frequently the lack of faith and
certitude which was the principal disease of the Victorian age. The first stanza opens with a
calm, bright moonlit sea which reflects the serene, peaceful, receptive mood of the poet. He
calls upon his companion to share the sweetness and tranquility of the night air and even as he
does so, he is conscious of ‘the grating roar’ a harsh sound which disturbs the peace, the calm
and the sweet music. The stanza ends on a ‘note of eternal sadness’, that ‘still sad music of
humanity’ disturbs the calmness of mind and spirit as much as the calm bay. Here he points out
that in ancient times Sophocles heard the same sound of the pebbles on the shore, and it
reminded him of the ebb and flow of human misery. In his Antigone, Sophocles expressed this
thought. Now Arnold hears the sound of this Dover Beach, and he finds in it the same thought.

In the second stanza the poet effectively uses a metaphor where the ebb and flow of human
misery is compared to the tides of the sea. The fortunes of Oedipus are like the ebb and flow of
the sea sand and the retreating tide is a symbol of the loss of faith. Arnold describes the slow
and solemn rumbling sound made by the sea waves as they swing backward and forward on the
pebbly shore. The poet implies that this sound suggests the eternal note of sadness in human
life.

The poem falls into two parts. In the first part, Arnold speaks of the resonances of sea-waves on
the pebbly shore. In the second he speaks of armies struggling ignorantly at night. There is
perhaps not very clear connection between the earlier and the latter part. Yet the poem reads
well because it is held together by a unity of sentiment. The two descriptive analogies are
drawn from classical sources, but the unifying sentiment is romantic in its haunting pessimism
and lack of faith.

Arnold through 'Dover Beach' describes the effects of industrialization of the 19th century
England. Victorian world was changing very rapidly with the growth of science and technology.
This poem condemns the loss of faith, religion and the meaning of life resulting from the
industrialization and advancement in science and technology.

Arnold describes the difference between the appearance and reality of the Victorian world. It
looks new and beautiful like a land of dreams but in reality this world does not really have joy,
love, light, peace, certitude or any help for pain. He describes the world as a dark plain which is
becoming even darker as the time passes. He compares the people struggling and running in
their ambitions to the armies fighting at night, unknown of why and with whom they are
fighting.

Although, this poem had shown the loss of faith, religion and love of 19th century it is similar in
the context of the 21st century as well. People have lost their faith in God. They are engaged in
commerce. They have become materialistic which has decreased their satisfaction in life. They
are more isolated and lonely. Now, they have forgotten “us” and only remember “I”. So, the
poet wants to aware all the human being from this disaster created by the sufferings, sorrows
and melancholy. The only way out of this disaster according to Arnold is to love and to have a
faith in one another and do believe in God and live in reality rather than the land of dreams.

Arnold’s skillful use of elaborate similes and lively images has made the message of the poem
even more poignant

***

Summary

One night, the speaker of "Dover Beach" sits with a woman inside a house, looking out over the
English Channel near the town of Dover. They see the lights on the coast of France just twenty
miles away, and the sea is quiet and calm.

When the light over in France suddenly extinguishes, the speaker focuses on the English side,
which remains tranquil. He trades visual imagery for aural imagery, describing the "grating roar"
of the pebbles being pulled out by the waves. He finishes the first stanza by calling the music of
the world an "eternal note of sadness."

The next stanza flashes back to ancient Greece, where Sophocles heard this same sound on the
Aegean Sea, and was inspired by it to write his plays about human misery.

Stanza three introduces the poem's main metaphor, with: "The Sea of Faith/Was once, too, at
the full, and round earth's shore." The phrase suggests that faith is fading from society like the
tide is from the shore. The speaker laments this decline of faith through melancholy diction.
In the final stanza, the speaker directly addresses his beloved who sits next to him, asking that
they always be true to one another and to the world that is laid out before them. He warns,
however, that the world's beauty is only an illusion, since it is in fact a battlefield full of people
fighting in absolute darkness.

***

Summary

Stanza 1

The speaker stands at the window, looking out over the beach at Dover, situated on the Strait of
Dover, which connects to the English Channel. It is night, and the water is calm at high tide. The
moon shines on the water, and a light pulses across the channel on the French shore. The
speaker can see the white cliffs along England's coast, large and shining with reflected
moonlight.

The speaker calls his love to the window to take in the fresh air and watch the water splash as it
comes into contact with the shore. The waves come in and go out, making a loud sound each
time they flow back toward the sea over the pebbles of the strand, or shore. "Listen!" the
speaker says to his love, and hear this "grating roar." Over and over the waves move up and
back on the shore, creating a slow rhythm. As he listens, the speaker detects in that grating
sound and slow rhythm the "eternal note of sadness."

Stanza 2

Long ago, the speaker says, Sophocles, the ancient Greek tragedian, heard this same rhythmic
sound on the shores of the Ægean Sea. It made him think of the "ebb and flow / Of human
misery"—how it comes and goes, comes and goes. Like Sophocles, the speaker finds a
metaphor in the way the waves advance and recede at the shore.

Stanza 3

The speaker likens the sound of waves pulling back from shore to the "melancholy ... roar" of a
withdrawing "Sea of Faith." Once, he says, the Sea of Faith was at its fullest point—like a strong
wave at high tide—and clothed the world in beauty like a shining belt encircling the entire
Earth. Now it retreats from shore, leaving the edges of the world bare.
Stanza 4

Addressing his love, the speaker says, "let us be true / To one another!" because the world,
which seems so beautiful and magical, is neither beautiful nor magical. Rather, it is devoid of
joy, love, light, peace, or comfort. The speaker and his love are like two people standing on a
dark plain amidst the noise and confusion of battling armies.

Analysis

Imagery and Pace: A Calm Beginning, a Violent Conclusion

The poem begins calmly, with the line "The sea is calm tonight." The visual image as observed
by the speaker through the window glows in the moon's reflected light. The sense of smell also
evokes something calm and pleasant: "sweet is the night-air." The scene gently pulses with the
regular rhythm of the waves—a rhythm echoed in the syntax of lines 2–6, which each contain a
punctuated pause in the middle of the line. These wave-like pulsations come and go in the
poem's lines (for example, lines 11–12 and 26–27), reminding readers of the rhythm of the
water.

In stark contrast to the opening image and rhythm are the image and rhythm of the final stanza.
The gentle, wave-like cadence of the opening begins to break apart at the end of the stanza.
Eventually it gives way to the forward-moving list in lines 32–33, which quickly picks up speed as
it tumbles headlong into the final lines of the poem. This list resembles more the flow of a swift
river than the pulsation of the ocean, and it leads directly into the poem's final image. In this
image, the speaker and his love stand in the dark amidst "confused alarms of struggle and
flight" and the sound of "ignorant armies" fighting. The peaceful calm of the poem's opening
images has disappeared over the course of the poem, leaving only the violence of armies
fighting in the dark.

The poem, built on this contrast, also laments violence. The opening image in its calm beauty is,
the speaker says, only an illusion: it only "seems" to be a "land of dreams." The real state of the
world, revealed in the final stanza, is a result of the withdrawal of faith from the world. The
poem calls for romantic alliance in the face of a chaotic world.

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Matthew Arnold: Poems Summary and Analysis of "The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853)

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Summary
The speaker of "The Scholar-Gipsy" describes a beautiful rural setting in the pastures, with the
town of Oxford lying in the distance. He watches the shepherd and reapers working amongst
the field, and then tells the shepherd that he will remain out there until sundown, enjoying the
scenery and studying the towers of Oxford. All the while, he will keep his book beside him.

His book tells the famous story by Joseph Glanvill, about an impoverished Oxford student who
leaves his studies to join a band of gypsies. Once he was immersed within their community, he
learned the secrets of their trade.

After a while, two of the Scholar-Gipsy's Oxford associates found him, and he told them about
the traditional gypsy style of learning, which emphasizes powerful imagination. His plan was to
remain with the gypsies until he learned everything he could, and then to tell their secrets to
the world.

Regularly interjecting his own wonder into the telling, the speaker continues the scholar-gipsy's
story. Every once in a while, people would claim to have seen him in the Berkshire moors. The
speaker imagines him as a shadowy figure who is waiting for the "spark from heaven," just like
everyone else on Earth is. The speaker even claims to have seen the scholar-gipsy himself once,
even though it has been over two hundred years since his story first resonated through the halls
of Oxford.

Despite that length of time, the speaker does not believe the scholar-gipsy could have died,
since he had renounced the life of mortal man, including those things that wear men out to
death: "repeated shocks, again, again/exhaust the energy of strongest souls." Having chosen to
repudiate this style of life, the scholar-gipsy does not suffer from such "shocks," but instead is
"free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt." He has escaped the perils of modern life, which
are slowly creeping up and destroying men like a "strange disease."

The speaker finishes by imploring that the scholar-gipsy avoid everyone who suffers from this
"disease," lest he become infected as well.

Analysis
Though this poem explores one of Arnold's signature themes - the depressing monotony and
toil of modern life - it is unique in that it works through a narrative. There are in fact two levels
of storytelling at work in the poem: that of the scholar-gipsy, and that of the speaker who is
grappling with the ideas poised by that singular figure.

Both levels of story relay the same message: the scholar-gipsy has transcended life by escaping
modern life. As he usually does, Arnold here criticizes modern life as wearing down even the
strongest of men. His choice of the word "disease" is telling, since it implies that this lifestyle is
contagious. Even those who try to avoid modern life will eventually become infected.

In this way, the poem makes a comment on the perils of conformity, as other poems in this
collection do. What make the scholar-gipsy so powerful is not only that he wishes to avoid
modern life - many wish to do that. More importantly, he is willing to entirely repudiate normal
society for the sake of his transcendence. There is a slightly pessimistic worldview implicit in
that idea, since it is clearly not possible to revel in true individuality and still be a part of society.
The scholar-gipsy has had to turn his back entirely on Oxford, which represents learning and
modernity here, in order to become this great figure. And yet the poem overall is much more
optimistic than many of Arnold's works, precisely because it suggests that we can transcend if
we are willing to pay that cost. This makes it different from a poem like "A Summer Night,"
which explores the same theme but laments the cost of separation that individuality requires.

For all his admiration, the speaker clearly has not yet mustered the strength to repudiate the
world. The setting helps establish his contradictory feelings. The poem begins with images of
peaceful, serene rural life, a place where men act as they always have. They have been
untouched by the perils of modernity. Pastoral imagery has always been associated in poetry
with a type of innocence and purity, unfiltered humanity in touch with nature. The speaker is
out in the field contemplating this type of life, the possibility of acting as the scholar-gipsy did.

And yet he is also studying the towers of Oxford, which (as mentioned above) represents the
rapidly changing, strictly structured world that the scholar-gipsy renounced. Arnold deftly
expresses the speaker's split priorities through this juxtaposition. At the same time that he
admires the scholar-gipsy, he cannot fully turn his back on the modern world. It is the same
contradiction that plagues the speaker of "A Summer Night."
Thus, the poem overall represents Arnold's inner conflict, his desire to live a transcendent life
but inability to totally eschew society. At this point in his life, Arnold felt pulled in different
directions by the world's demands. He was trying to resist the infection of modernization, but it
was creeping up on him nevertheless, and the pressure to conform was negatively affecting his
poetry. Undoubtedly, Arnold wished he could escape in the way the scholar-gipsy did; however,
he was too tied down by responsibilities to ever dream of doing so.

***

The Scholar Gypsy is about a student’s escape from the Victorian style of living to Oxford, in that
utilitarianism actually meant nothing to him – or to Matthew Arnold. Line 151 is not indented,
and is the main point of this paragraph, in that the scholar gypsy has not lived in a mortal way,
by hurrying through life so fast only to perish in the end. We ask why this man has not
“perished” (?) (line 151), and it is because he had “one aim, one business, one desire” (line 152)
(qtd. in Greenblatt et. al. 1385), with emphasis on the term ‘one’ showing uniformity in his
desire to seek life. The language in the paragraph is molded in a repetitive pattern, for instance,
lines 151, 152, 153 are in an A-B-C pattern, slowly etching in like steps; with line 153 wholly
indented, because Arnold makes it evident the scholar Gypsy has “one” main purpose (line 152),
and that if he had not taken this path, the consequence of choosing not to live life would be
joining the dead (line 153) (qtd. in Greenblatt et. al. 1385).

In another example of patterned language, Arnold uses a pattern like A-B-B, in lines 157, 158,
159, when he mentions immortality in line 157 the A-line, going on to say that the Scholar
Gypsy’s path is exempted from death in the B-line (line 158), and that his exemption ends in
living the desirable life of “Glanvill” on the next B-line (line 159) (qtd. in Greenblatt et. al. 1385).
These patterns allow the reader to view lines in different positions, noticing the emphasis in
expression, or evidently what matters to Arnold. His use of vivid imagery like ‘immortal’, ‘dead’,
‘perish’, all symbolise his need to get closer to the reader, where Arnold encourages a reader to
take his words seriously in a paranormal sense.

The use of rhyming couplets is also fairly obvious in The Scholar Gypsy. For instance, The Scholar
Gypsy could have given all his “fire” to a mortal life – but this was not his choice (qtd. in
Greenblatt et. al. 1385). In terms of language here, the rhyming couplet “desire” (line 152),
which is the emotive imagery showing the yearning of the Scholar Gypsy, is compared to the
vivid imagery of “fire” (line 154), a coal or fuel like substance so many people wasted on life,
never seeing the benefit. Another rhyming couplet is “age” (line 158) and “page” (line 159) (qtd.
in Greenblatt et. al. 1385); in these lines, we are shown the Scholar Gypsy is exempt from this
mortal life that is limited in “age”, as he did not join this path, but the “immortal” (qtd. in
Greenblatt et. al. 1385). Here was a man seeking LIFE, and if he had been like countless others,
he would have been caught up in a rat race, endlessly trying to prove himself to others, finally
joining their dead.

The Scholar Gypsy is living like Glanvill, taking the path that human beings have chosen not to
contemplate, he is choosing not to sell his soul to society’s utilitarian and mechanistic ways.
Arnold manifests the comparison of mortal to immortal, as the Scholar Gypsy is an immortalised
soul, unlike others who refused to open their eyes, and walk away from the Victorian lifestyle.
Today’s lifestyle is still typical of Victorian ideas, such as utilitarianism and mechanism. With
unemployment on the rise, people are at threat of losing their jobs, and are controlled by their
managers. Workers are constantly overworked, and give their last breath of life, or fire in their
souls – for their jobs. But the Scholar Gypsy shows us that there is some hope, and we can break
away from this oppression if we want to.

In Australia, people are shifting away from main cities, and in Britain people move to the
country side. This is all because people want a more suitable lifestyle where they have more
time to enjoy their lives, and want to leave the stress of the main hustle and bustle behind to
refocus their energies. Even though Christianity is not Arnold’s avenue, there has to be some
implications in the Scholar Gypsy. The fact that he is looking for meaning in life, shows that he is
seeking wisdom of the heart, in a day and age where people were skeptical about Christianity.
This era is no different to the Victorian era, but The Scholar Gypsy shows us that it is possible to
seek a new life, to get in touch with matters of the heart, and break away from the dead.

***

The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold’s poem, The Scholar Gipsy, which is taken from a 17th century Oxford story
found in Joseph Glanvill’s The Vanity of Dogmatizing. It has, on many occasions, been called one
of the finest and most popular of Arnold’s poems.

The Scholar Gipsy by Matthew ArnoldThe Scholar Gipsy by Matthew Arnold

The way the poem is introduced is an extract from Glanvill, which weaves around the story of an
impecunious Oxford student who left his studies to join a band of gypsies. He sucked up to them
who eventually told him many of the secrets of their trade.

As time passed, he was discovered and identified by two of his former Oxford associates, who
ascertained from him that the gypsies, “had a traditional kind of learning among them, and
could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others.” When he
had gained the knowledge of all that the gypsies had taught him he said, he would leave them
and reveal those secrets to the world.
This poem is described as a pastoral poem. In the twenty-five ten-line stanzas, Matthew Arnold
provides the indispensable elements of the legend in lines 31 through 56 of the poem. A
pleasant August afternoon is how the poem opens, with the poet-shepherd sending away his
companion shepherd to take care of his usual pastoral errands, bidding him to return in the
evening when the shepherd and his companion will refurbish their quest.

Not only was the of the Cumner country in “The Scholar-Gipsy”, a great accomplishment, but is
also a significant aspect of the poem.

The very lucid depiction of the pastoral landscape in the dream vision is generally and justly
appreciated for its charm, its visual accuracy, and fidelity to nature. Admiration of this section,
almost to the exclusion of the rest of the poem, has been long the stock response to the poem.

Arnold’s idiom succeeds admirably in capturing and recreating authentically the unique beauty
and feel of the countryside in the neigbbourhood of Oxford, which he knew intimately and
loved. There is a view of the poem, based obviously on this section, that Arnold indulges here
his nostalgic longings for his undergraduate days at Oxford, and that the poem offers only “a
very delightful pastoral week-end.”

While examining the different parts of the poem, and the different functions they are made to
serve, this fact has to be kept in mind. Arnold exhibits a substantial amount of skill in structuring
them into a unified poem.

It has been argued that Matthew Arnold’s poem `The Scholar-Gipsy’ entails little optimism and
belongs to Arnold’s poetry of negation. The background information on the spirit of the era
during which the poem was born was the principle reason for the poet’s interest in a tale from
Glanvill. An uncharacteristic resemblance to the poems of Keats is very noticeable.