"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

In Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," the speaker of the poem links the withdrawal of the waves at Dover on the English coast with the decline of Christianity during the Victorian era.

The long, retreating "roar" of the sea that the speaker hears has an "eternal note of sadness" and is reminiscent of "human misery."

The speaker then urges both themselves and their beloved to treat each other with honesty and sincerity, as the world is devoid of traditional sources of solace and meaning such as "certitude" and "peace."

The poem suggests that love has the potential to fill the absence of meaning brought about by the loss of religious faith.

The speaker begins by describing a sea bathed in the ethereal glow of moonlight near the English Channel.

Their mood is untroubled and serene, much like the "calm" sea before them.

However, all of sudden, the speaker directs their beloved to listen attentively to the sound of the waves dragging the pebbles as they recede or return to the shore.

In their contemplation, the rhythmic and repetitive sound of the waves carries a timeless sense of sorrow.

The speaker posits that the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles must have once heard the same sound on the Aegean long ago and associated it with the "ebb and flow/Of human misery."

From this, they come to the realization that this feeling of sadness is enduring and universal, persisting across time and space.

"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

The long, retreating "roar" of the sea that the speaker hears has an "eternal note of sadness" and is reminiscent of "human misery."

They describe the realm of religious faith as a sea that once surrounded the entire Earth but is now receding to the desolate and bleak edges of the world.

The poem suggests that love has the potential to fill the absence of meaning brought about by the loss of religious faith.

The speaker begins by describing a sea bathed in the ethereal glow of moonlight near the English Channel.

Their mood is untroubled and serene, much like the "calm" sea before them.

However, all of sudden, the speaker directs their beloved to listen attentively to the sound of the waves dragging the pebbles as they recede or return to the shore.

The speaker posits that the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles must have once heard the same sound on the Aegean long ago and associated it with the "ebb and flow/Of human misery."

The long, retreating "roar" of the sea that the speaker hears has an "eternal note of sadness" and is reminiscent of "human misery."

The poem suggests that love has the potential to fill the absence of meaning brought about by the loss of religious faith.

The speaker begins by describing a sea bathed in the ethereal glow of moonlight near the English Channel.

Their mood is untroubled and serene, much like the "calm" sea before them.

However, all of sudden, the speaker directs their beloved to listen attentively to the sound of the waves dragging the pebbles as they recede or return to the shore.

In their contemplation, the rhythmic and repetitive sound of the waves carries a timeless sense of sorrow.

From this, they come to the realization that this feeling of sadness is enduring and universal, persisting across time and space.