Information AboutDover Beach |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DOVER BEACH | |
| british poems | |
| victorian poetry | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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"Dover Beach" is the most famous poem by and the unsettling revolution of Darwinism (although the poem was apparently written in 1851 , 8 years before the publication of the Origin Of Species ). In the first six lines, Arnold evokes the moonlit seascape of the English Channel , tranquil and sweet, and the reassuring "cliffs of England" of the Strait Of Dover . "Only," opening the seventh line, begins the transition, unfolding through the "tremulous cadence" of the waves to the "eternal note of sadness." The Anglo-Grecian connections of Sophocles and the Aegean are only momentarily relevant "by this distant northern sea," for this is the Sea of Faith — or was, and that image withdraws in its turn and the vision turns windy, vast, naked and drear. "Ah love..." here the accumulated poetry conveys the momentary view that love is the bulwark against the uncertainties of the modern ( Victorian ) world — the solution the Victorian reader expected — ''"only"'' Arnold then undercuts this declaration with a despairing litany of the failure of culture, to end with the prophetic imagery of the last three lines. REFERENCES TO "DOVER BEACH"
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