Dover Beach Essays (1364 words) - Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach Dover Beach: Beauty Hides Pain Poet, Matthew Arnold, presents a very real theme of love in his poem, Dover Beach. Where he creates a scene of beauty among the sea and shores, mixed with night and moonlight, he also is presenting us with the underlying misery, which is easily over looked and disregarded. Arnold writes, really, of love and loss, and relates it to beauty with hidden misery. The first stanza of the poem paints a picture for the reader of beautiful nighttime off the shores of England and France, where the water and the moonlight reflect each other's beauty. ?The sea is calm tonight / The tide is full, the moon lies fair / Upon the straits;? (1-3). But, as the poem goes on, Arnold reveals the same secret misery to the reader that the scene eventually reveals to the speaker. He talks of the surface beauty of the world that disguises what has happened in the past. This is Arnold's way of expressing to us that love is ?love? because of all it's beauty, happiness, and perfection. But, only certain loves are true, so in other words, like the world holds much sadness in its' history, love as well becomes saddened or lost, or holds great potentials to be saddened or lost. on the French coast the light / Gleams and is gone;? (3-4). The French coast has a sadder history because of the French defeat in the battles, which Arnold writes of. The coast of England has the same sad essence because of the losses of life, but the English were not defeated, so, in turn, the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay? (4-5). Like the light on the French coast ?Gleams and is gone,? so does love that ends. It shines and brightens people's loves until it fades out. In the other situation, the shores of England maintain their brightness, glimmering forever over a calm bay. This is a love that never dies, but always shines, forever, over ?tranquil? times; this is a relationship that lasts and manages itself without rough waters or times. The speaker in this poem is afraid to lose his love. It is evident that he loves his woman greatly, but as he looks out over the beautiful scene, which hides so much that is not beautiful, he is afraid that his great love for her does, too, hold a hidden sadness that will one day end. 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, (29-33) What the eye sees should be true, but that is not always the case. When two people have love, or are in love, it also should be true, but that as well is not always the case. The speaker is pleading with his lover to be true in love with him. He feels somewhat let down by the fact that two things in this world, which should be true ? what one sees, and love, can very easily not be true. He is afraid. The entire structure of the poem goes from true beauty and peace gradually out to fake beauty and fake peace. It begins with beautiful scenery and ends with the vision of clashing armies. It is the deterioration from something great into something that isn't. This in itself represents the fading-out of love. Love begins so intense and untainted, and gradually deteriorates outward or downward to nothing. The turning point in the poem begins to appear where Arnold writes: 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. (9-14) This is also the turning point in love when it goes sour. This is a serene scene shattered by a disturbing noise, which doesn't seem to fit the picture of beauty that he is looking at. This goes for love, too. Arnold writes, ?Listen!? because for two people in love, it is easy to miss the small hints of bad times arising, unless