Originally published in TheScoop2017.
Words and Literary Devices Used in Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold, in “Dover Beach,” uses figurative language to paint a picture of the volatile clash of views between the Enlightenment Era and the centuries-old Judeo/Christian belief in God. He masterfully intertwines the aspects of the sea, with all its changing characteristics and potential destructiveness, to represent the discussion and subsequent change of thought that occurred in the late 19th century. Arnold employs such words as “sea,” “tide,” “grating,” “roar,” and “clash” to create a picture that mirrors the ideological struggle in society. He concludes his poem with a call to love, since that is all one really knows is true, leaving the reader with a sense of the uncertainty everyone must have felt during that time period. His final line seems to be a mocking rebuke to the two opposing camps.
“Dover Beach” opens with “The sea is calm tonight…” Arnold uses the imagery of the sea to create a sense of change, or fluidity, since a sea is ever changing. The concrete Dover Cliffs serve as contrasting imagery for the moving, fluid sea. The sea, then, is a metonymy standing in for ideas that can change over time. The sea is a powerful force that can change the geological landscape, and Arnold is using the sea to show the power that rhetoric has to change the landscape of a culture’s point of view. The Dover Cliffs can also represent the seemingly strong and proud arguments the people would have been hearing from the scientific community since the cliffs are looking over the sea and can stand in for the geological changes resulting from the sea’s power. While the sea represents the change of ideas, the tide represents one ideology coming in and another going out.
Arnold’s next few words, “The tide is full,” provides another imagery where “tide” represents the new ideology that has taken root in society. Arnold uses cacophony as he invites his readers to listen to the harshness of the “grating roar,” caused by the tide taking the pebbles on shore and flinging them around helplessly. “Grating,” and “roar” are examples of onomatopoeia, and are used to show the tension that the ideology of faith in God was encountering, and that faith, like the pebbles, was being tossed around, seemingly without any control, while the age-old concept of a belief in God was being thrown out. By the middle of the poem, “(t)he Sea of Faith,” who once was full, now has its tide “(r)etreating to…the night wind,” leaving the world “naked,” which is what you would expect after the tide goes out. With this concept of naked, Arnold begs the question, “What is left to believe in?”
Arnold concludes that we should hold onto love since we do not know what is true anymore. He uses onomatopoeia, in clash, to show how opposed the two views were and to give a more tangible sound to the struggle. There is a reproof when he says the two opposing views are battling blindly and without knowledge, in the phrase “ignorant armies clash by night,” leaving life, once so beautiful and full of hope, now reduced to a confused struggle.
Dover Beach comes to life with the use of figurative and imagery language. Arnold adds to the reader’s experience by utilizing onomatopoeia and cacophony to create a more tangible feeling of the struggle going on. The diction in this poem is formal and, at first, hard to decipher. However, once the reader understands the background, the poem makes such clear sense that it is a joy to unlock all the hidden gems buried with the words Arnold chooses.