Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Commentary
… like most ‘classic poems’, ‘Dover Beach’ has its share of redeeming features <g>
To tell the truth, Arnold isn’t one of my favourite poets - much of his work is too overtly didactic for my taste. The first and last stanzas of ‘Dover Beach’, however, are not; although I disagree with the philospophy implied by the poem, I can’t help being enchanted by its language… “Where ignorant armies clash by night” has got to be one of the most evocative (and in its way, saddest) lines ever written, right up there with Keats’ “Silent, upon a peak in Darien”…
— Thomas
[Brief Biography]
Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888): English poet and critic. His first two volumes of poems The Strayed Reveller and other Poems (1849) and Empedocles on Etna and other Poems (1852) were published anonymously and with little success. He made his mark with his third volume of poetry Poems: A New Edition (1853-54) which contained ‘The Scholar Gipsy’, ‘Sohrab and Rustum’, and ‘Memorial Verses to Wordsworth’. He reinforced his standing as a poet with New Poems (1867) which included ‘Dover Beach’ and ‘Thyrsis’. He established himself as the leading critic of the age with a number of works including Essays and Criticism (1865, 1888), Culture and Anarchy (1869) and Literature and Dogma (1873).
[Less Brief Biography]
Matthew Arnold was born in Laleham, Surrey. His father was Dr Thomas Arnold, Headmaster of Rugby School. He was educated at Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford where he met another well-known poet of the age, A.H.Clough, and won the Newdigate prize with a poem on Cromwell (1843). In 1845 he was elected a fellow of Oriel, another Oxford college.
After working as private secretary to Lord Landsdowne (1847-51), he became an inspector of schools (1851) and travelled widely in England and the Continent observing how schools were organised and suggesting how they could be improved.
In 1851 he married Fanny Lucy Wightman and part of his famous poem ‘Dover Beach’ (1867) dates from his honeymoon on the Continent. He was to have six children, only three of whom outlived him.
His critical work, most of which was written after 1860, was to have a profound influence on many writers after his death, including the poet T.S.Eliot. In Essays and Criticism (1865) Arnold widened the limits of literary criticism by using it to attack the state of English culture. The focus of this attack was ‘provinciality’, or the narrowness of mind caused by people’s preoccupation with local affairs.
His eagerness to escape the limits of ‘provinciality’ formed the basis of his work as an inspector of schools. He is now seen as having made a valuable contribution to the improvement of education in England.
Show 24 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Amit Chakrabarti · 13 May 1999
Can’t resist mentioning that I disagree with this disagreement with the poem’s philosophy, such as it is.
Jim McDonald · 21 May 2000
The word is “alarums”, not “alarms”, isn’t it? It was in my highschool text, anyway, for what that’s worth.
This poem is one of my touchstones–a poem that etched itself on my memory the minute I first read it forty years ago. For me, it is both an essentially Victorian poem–elegiac, and very broad in its historical vision–and very modern. Maybe the first great modern poem in English, written by a poet who died in the year T. S. Eliot was born.
I don’t think you’ve done us any favours by abbreviating the poem–it’s not that long to start with. And you’ve left out that brilliant line “ . . .we
Find also in the sound a thought,”
Too bad.
Peter H. Schmidt · 4 August 2000
I mean this respectfully, but I feel the poem expresses an essentially juvenile sentiment.
Adolescence looks at itself and the world and despairs - I am unique and alone, no one understands me, and look at this horrible morass. Maturity brings the realization that it is our response to the world that determines our experience. The adolescent unthinkingly responds despairingly. The mature intellect has the strength and experience to seek to respond with joy, even as its appreciation of the dark elements which might otherwise induce despair sharpens.
Nevertheless, the poem is beautiful, and Barber’s setting of it to music truly great.
–Peter
McGillicuddy Colin · 6 February 2001
For a parody of this poem, see “The Dover Bitch” by Tom Wayman.
Gareth & Emma · 11 February 2001
I am particularly struck by the way the poem gradually shifts from a visual landscape to an entirely aural one as its mood and tone darken; I find that very good. Incidentally, does anyone know if there is any truth in the rumour that Arnold had no idea about sex before his wedding night and was horrified to find out what it entailed?
Supriya Nair · 15 March 2003
“Where ignorant armies clash by night…”
it’s said that the line continues the thread of classical allusion that runs through the poem. Coming after the ‘Antigone’ reference in line 15, this probably refers to Thucydides’ “Battle of Epipolae”, where, in a battle in the dark, the two sides could not distinguish between friend and foe.
Peter H. Schmidt · 4 June 2003
Hi Adam,
Hello Peter, I saw your comment on “dover beach” at the cs.rice.edu webpage. My question to you, as a grade 12 student, is: Isn’t your idea of maturity just another way of saying existentialism?
I think it is fair to say that my idea as expressed is compatible with existential philosophy, though I do not think it encapsulates the breadth of ideas or attitudes which have been labeled existentialist. And while perhaps useful for placing it in a context for further reflection, the act of labeling it as existentialist is not sufficient by itself to grasp it, in my opinion.
My personal philosophy is not existentialist, since I believe in an essential purpose to the Universe. I recognize that my belief arises from a personal aesthetic which is not subject to proof or refutation, and therefore cannot hope to compel others by logic. However, that belief certainly makes it easier to “seek to respond with joy” to the plight of my existence, and I could argue from an existential viewpoint that that is reason enough to hold that belief. Imagine me as Sisyphus, happy because I believe that my rock pushing serves a greater good. It matters not to me whether that is proved or if others agree.
Hoping your email still works,
Thanks for your note – Peter
Adam Glatt · 4 June 2003
Hello Peter, I saw your comment on “dover beach” at the cs.rice.edu webpage. My question to you, as a grade 12 student, is: Isn’t your idea of maturity just another way of saying existentialism?
Hoping your email still works,
Adam Glatt
Saskatoon, SK, Canada
I mean this respectfully, but I feel the poem expresses an essentially juvenile sentiment.
Adolescence looks at itself and the world and despairs - I am unique and alone, no one understands me, and look at this horrible morass. Maturity brings the realization that it is our response to the world that determines our experience. The adolescent unthinkingly responds despairingly. The mature intellect has the strength and experience to seek to respond with joy, even as its appreciation of the dark elements which might otherwise induce despair sharpens.
Nevertheless, the poem is beautiful, and Barber’s setting of it to music truly great.
–Peter
Stanton Wormley Jr · 2 August 2003
Just read your comments on Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Juvenile, huh? Let’s see…“it is our response to the world that determines our experience.” Gee, too bad you weren’t around to share that profound little gem with the inmates at Auschwitz…or the Africans crammed into coffin-sized bunks on slave ships during the Middle Passage. I’d like to have heard how you would have encouraged the naked Jews to be “mature” enough to “seek to respond with joy” as they were crammed like cattle into the “showers”, with the stench of death, excrement and Zyklon B still lingering in the air.
You may describe Arnold’s poem as “juvenile,” but your “philosophy” is smug and simplistic, characteristic of one who has never really experienced suffering. I don’t begrudge those who have been fortunate in life a sense of optimism; that, perhaps, is natural. But with that should come a realization that good fortune is, in most cases, largely the result of luck, not merit, ability, or attitude.
In the end, there is no final justice, no reward for the deserving; there is no master plan which ensures that “all things are for the best.” Chaos rules; the only immutable laws are those that govern the mad dance of quarks and the endless expansion of the universe. God is not dead; He never existed. For those with the intelligence and courage to acknowledge these things, it’s not a stretch to admit that, for much of humankind, the world indeed “hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light…nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.”
True, human existence is not unrelievedly miserable; in even the meanest life are brief episodes of joy and, yes, happiness. Yet I would still infinitely prefer the banal pessimism of adolescence–which at least acknowledges, albeit exaggeratedly, the thread of despair that is ineluctably woven into the fabric of life–than the flatulent and myopic optimism, born of the self-serving complacency of prosperous middle age, which brays that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world–if we just think it so.
Peter Carlson · 18 August 2003
Stanton Wormley, Jr.:
Perhaps you have not read or choose to dismiss Viktor Frankl’s seminal work “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Ironically, Frankl was indeed in Auschwitz and ultimately survived the holocaust. It was his experience in the holocaust that spurred the development of Frankl’s Logotherapy, which ultimately become known as “The Third School of Viennese Psychoanalysis” following in the wake of Freud and Adler. Logotherapy focuses on the “will to meaning,” or perhaps even, the “will to life.” According to Frankl, one’s purpose and meaning is the greatest determining factor in how he or she responds to those conditions around them, be those conditions nazi Germany, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, or an elitist intellectual tower.
That you can simplistically dismiss as “smug” the idea that self-determinism plays some role in our individual and collective existence may encourage you to pat yourself on the back for your great “courage.” However, please spare us the rhetorical snobbery dictating anyone who doesn’t hold your worldview as unintelligent. My guess is that you yourself have experienced precious little physical or material hardship, but rather have found a bored intellect and existence. Frankl termed this lack of meaning an “existential vacuum.”
Not everyone lives within this vacuum, Mr. Wormly, much less all those who go through the extremist of hardships. You do the despairing no favors by pretending they do.
David Mulloy · 31 August 2003
Sorry for the discontinuity,( I had to try to resolve teenage differences) but to briefly add some few thoughts. A “Personal aesthetic which is not subject to proof or refutation….” I would venture to suggest that any set of thoughts, aesthetic or otherwise which cannot be proved is surely open to refutation. To progess, possibly. I may well be incorrect in analysing what I see as an interesting assumption; this being that because I really feel this to be the case, it must be true. It does seem to me that there is a very interesting inner conviction on your part that certain types of philosophy (existentialist it seems …..though neither Sartre nor Camus nor Heidegger would ever have said that this was a philosophy or anything to do with that awful subject,) are somehow subsumed within your belief system or rejected….you seem to be saying both things simultaneously. To come back to the poem in question, when Arnold finally admits to himself and his new wife that his faith has drained away and there is nothing but violence, ignorance and blind stupidity in the world in which we find ouselves, I cannot for one moment interpret this as a juvenile statement. In the world that I experience, well over one hundred years since this poem was published, a world in which I would suggest, most people are afraid or at least apprehensive, I think it is a sign of real maturity that people carry on going to work in high rise buildings or fly in airplanes knowing that they have to come to terms with the possible lunatic. And as we know, the majority of these worthy people, who sometimes pay some form of lip service to one god or another, do not Really think that some supernatural entity actually decides or influences which young woman and her little child will be destroyed in the inferno of a twin towers outrage. It is this profound maturity of thought that creates the terrible sadness of the poem and deftly links it to the universal theme of impotence and despair( not in itself something to be shunned or castigated) so understood by the great Sophocles.
David Mulloy · 31 August 2003
“It matters not to me whether that is proved or if others agree.”
Can you please explain this way of thinking a little more fully. I am very interested.
Peter H. Schmidt · 26 September 2003
Well, that doesn’t follow. A belief might be both provable and refutable (e.g. I can sprint 50 yards faster than you can), refutable but not provable (e.g. I am the fastest sprinter ever born), or neither (e.g. my late grandfather was the fastest sprinter ever born).
My beliefs stem ultimately from an aesthetic preference for a Universe in which I cannot cease to exist. It may be possible that science and technology will advance to the point of being able to refute my belief (i.e. demonstrate that I definitely will not continue to exist after death), or even be able to prove I’m right, but as of now, this belief is beyond the reach of either.
Actually, it’s “since it is currently impossible to prove it one way or the other, and I prefer to believe it is true, I will go ahead and do so.” Others may make the opposite choice, but it is a choice, and thus ultimately a matter of preference and hence fundamentally an aesthetic issue.
Subsumed in that I agree there is nothing that can compel a person to belief in an essential nature of any aspect of the Universe, rejected in that I think they got all balled up in despairing over the potential absurdity of this, when the truly mature response is to seek to rejoice anyway, and that joy is (at least, and enough if you are an existentialist) reward enough for the effort.
I won’t disagree completely, but it is not what I would call a fully mature response. It isn’t the paralysis of complete despair, but it does to my mind focus unreasonably on the glass as half-empty, just as Arnold’s poem does. There are things to make one despair, but there are things to rejoice about also. The challenge is to seek (to choose, knowing the choice will require a continuing effort) to respond with joy to the whole of the Universe and to one’s existence in it.
Regards – Peter
Ian Baillieu · 13 February 2004
Tom Wayman didn’t write ‘The Dover Bitch’. It was Anthony Hecht.
Anna Brandberg · 23 March 2004
hi,
i am a form 5 student (equivalent to grade 11) who’s studying dover beach right now, and was just looking for some information on the poem and came across this site. firstly, i wanted to say that i really enjoyed the second and third paragraphs of stanton wormley’s response, even though i dont fully agree with them.
secondly, i wanted to give my own theory on this poem. this poem was written soon after darwin came up with the evolution theory, and so my thought was that this destroyed the wonderful little christian world that people were living in at the time. people believed that they were made specially and uniquely by god, and then darwin came along and ruined everything by telling them that humans descended from monkeys, and that life didnt actually have any meaning. there was no god, and there was no purpose in life. this is what depressed arnold in this way, as he had believed that he was created for some unique purpose, but then the religious crisis strikes as his “sea of faith [which] was once … full” empties and he “only hear[s] its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” thus leading to the “confused alarm;” a poem in which he states that “the world hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” he even reinforces his statement by speaking of sophocles, as if he’s thinking that even sophocles got it right, over two millennia ago, but they were too blind, too stupid to see. they were so blinded by their “beautiful” “dreams” that they didn’t see the truth.
just a thought… what do you think?? (email me directly with your opinions as i most probably wont be checking this site again… the address is )
Carm · 7 July 2004
Dover Beach’s philosophy concerns the “loss of faith” in an age of scientific enlightenment. Arnold laments the impossiibility of faith in a world where science dictates what man is and ought to be. A negative vision of life emerges when the “naked shingles” of the Sea of Faith withdraw. Sophocles saw the importance of eternal verities, stressing how tragic life can be without adherence to supernatural dictums. The romantic view of life is reduced to harsh realities of survival and death; not the stuff of poetry, but of a skeptical view of the world through a Darwinian purview.
Carmelo
Caspar Briault · 12 January 2006
The comments made above all deeply interest me as i have a personal attachment to this poem, i do not believe this poem however to entirely negative, if there are none of the things in the world which he states in his moment of sadness, why does he still call his partner “Love”? Why does he wish to cling to her? Surely this is where he has found those things he claims the world lacks
Dirut · 5 June 2006
I just happened to see your comments about Dover Beach. I wanted to tell you how much I relate to what I believe seems to be your view that what happens in the world or to us is understood best by how we speak to ourselves about the event. We can’t control the event or the things people do to us, but we can control how we make sense of it. Is this what you are trying to say? Diana
Leif Smith · 12 July 2006
A fine and honest response. -leif smith, explorers foundation, denver
Just read your comments on Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Juvenile, huh? Let’s see…“it is our response to the world that determines our experience.” Gee, too bad you weren’t around to share that profound little gem with the inmates at Auschwitz…or the Africans crammed into coffin-sized bunks on slave ships during the Middle Passage. I’d like to have heard how you would have encouraged the naked Jews to be “mature” enough to “seek to respond with joy” as they were crammed like cattle into the “showers”, with the stench of death, excrement and Zyklon B still lingering in the air.
You may describe Arnold’s poem as “juvenile,” but your “philosophy” is smug and simplistic, characteristic of one who has never really experienced suffering. I don’t begrudge those who have been fortunate in life a sense of optimism; that, perhaps, is natural. But with that should come a realization that good fortune is, in most cases, largely the result of luck, not merit, ability, or attitude.
In the end, there is no final justice, no reward for the deserving; there is no master plan which ensures that “all things are for the best.” Chaos rules; the only immutable laws are those that govern the mad dance of quarks and the endless expansion of the universe. God is not dead; He never existed. For those with the intelligence and courage to acknowledge these things, it’s not a stretch to admit that, for much of humankind, the world indeed “hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light…nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.”
True, human existence is not unrelievedly miserable; in even the meanest life are brief episodes of joy and, yes, happiness. Yet I would still infinitely prefer the banal pessimism of adolescence–which at least acknowledges, albeit exaggeratedly, the thread of despair that is ineluctably woven into the fabric of life–than the flatulent and myopic optimism, born of the self-serving complacency of prosperous middle age, which brays that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world–if we just think it so.
Howard Leigh · 18 October 2006
I enjoyed this poem, perhaps as much as any that I have read from the period. It seems to me that its content rings true today. Allow me to take it literally:
· Many a time along America and Canada’s eastern seaboard I have called my wife to the window to listen to and to see the shimmer of surf and moonlight on the ocean. What a joy!.
· While the setting my lift one’s spirits, but reflecting beyond one’s fortunate existence, may lay bare the “naked shingles” of our own time.
· However, I was when Arnold’s final verse “threw in the towel” ! On the one hand, he appeard overjoyed with love, on the other his world, a bit like our own, seems be beset with international strife!
Anyway nice poem.
IsaRevived · 29 December 2006
Regarding Dover Beach, I became acquainted with it thanks to Samuel Barber’s 1931 setting of it for baritone and string quartet. There is a marvelous recording of it on CBS Masterworks with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau accompanied by the Juilliard String Quartet but you know the lines towards the beginning, “ … the moon lies fair / Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light / Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand … “ Well, poor Fi-Di, his excellent voice and diction notwithstanding, actually sings that passage, “the French toast …” An unfortunate gaffé but still a beautiful performance.
Dover Beach is, if anything, a poem with great musical potential and Barber always chose lyrics that had such quality if nothing else. Love it or hate it, the verses beg to be sung.
Eric Koenig
petermurphy · 12 January 2007
The poet is expressing the view that the genuine understanding of the real world that scientific inquiry leads to is somehow inferior to the mass gullibility and ignorance of supernatural explanations of the world. He prefers the poetic waffle of superstitious belief to knowledge, mumbo-jumbo to mathematics, witchcraft to medecine. The Sea of Faith he pines for is nothing more than a puddle - lifeless, muddy and shallow.
Lillian Sopina · 12 April 2007
I am inclined to agree to disagree with your statement.
It appears that you are implying that questioning ones disparity is juvenile. Or that one is not “mature” until they have the ability to “respond with joy” or accept the adversity that life presents. I find that a rather ignorant statement, perhaps of a person who has never known what true dispair really is. Or one who has never questioned their existence or faith. The poem in my opinion shows quite vividly how life can shift from light into a “dark plain” filled with “struggle and flight”. One does not need to be an adolescent to express such feelings, as I am sure that there many people across the world this very second wondering the exact same thing. Does that make them juvenile? Suffering knows not age nor mercy, nor is it controlled by time. Experience may somehow prepare you, but it cannot shield you.
Or perhaps your opinion comes across this way because you have indeed never experienced these thoughts or have somehow found yourself in a quintessential state of being. If that is the case then you are indeed fortunate. Either way it is slightly ignorant of you to assume that the sentiments of this poem are expressed in juvenile manner, for it implies that the rest on man-kind is juvenile for pondering over their own existence.
I’m sorry, but it imtimates a very simplistic view and one that indeed seems to lack the experience that you are trying to express in your opinion.
Frederic A. Moritz · 22 December 2007
There are so many ways to respond to life….and to the changes that history brings.
Need the adolescent always be pessimistic. Not in my experience.
Need the adult always be joyous and free of doubt. Not in my experience.
Arnold illuminates one part of the human experience at one point in history.
Thank you, Matthew – for your song on faith and doubt, love amidst the seas of change.
You may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
That’s alright.
Fred