Here's a few things that I enjoyed while reading "Dover Beach":
1. Notice that the poem's stanzas do not follow any recognizable pattern. 14-6-8-9. The rhyme scheme and meter follows suit, having no pattern either. At first we might think that this is the mark of an inferior poem, but wait! Let's think about
why Matthew Arnold might have chosen to write the poem in this way. When we do so, we realize that the lack of conventional patterns actually serves the purpose of his poem, which is to lament the world's cultural chaos. If Arnold had written the poem within a tightly formalized scheme, a sonnet for instance, it would actually
lack continuity. Even so, the words of the poem are obviously chosen with care and precision. Consider, for example, the line "Begin, and cease, and then
again begin," which could have easily been rendered "Begin, and cease, and then
begin again," but without the symmetry that Arnold includes when he starts and ends his line with "begin".
2. Notice the way that Arnold utilizes imagery to surround us with the feeling of chaos, which contrasts with the "tranquil bay". We remember that he is standing on the
Strait of Dover in England, gazing across the English Channel with his beloved. One of my professors told me in a class that if you visit the Dover Straits, the "pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling," are decent sized stones, maybe about the size of half-a-fist. So imagine yourself gazing across the English Channel, hearing the surf crash against the high walls of the straits, with thousands of these stones randomly smashing into one another. What Arnold has masterfully done, in other words, is to provide not simply a powerful image, but a metaphor that encapsulates the mood of his entire poem: chaotic conflict. Quite an accomplishment!
3. Notice also what many others point out concerning the poem, namely, sea as a metaphor of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern culture. Sophocles, a Greek tragedian of Athens in the 5th century B.C., is most famous for his Oedipus cycle, which set the standard for tragedy ever since. By gazing upon the English Channel, then, we discover a spiritual kinship that transcends space and time. Though physically on the Straits of Dover, we are also in Athens; though temporally in the 19th century, we are also in the 5th century B.C. The Sea provides this mystical connection.
The same things apply to "the Sea of Faith," a reference to Christendom's Medieval dominance, which Arnold describes as "the folds of a bright girdle furled." But consider the continuity that Arnold attributes to Christianity, as it provides a beautiful garment that covers the entire world. But again, the poem is a lament, and so we discover that this garment, like the tide, is "Retreating, to the breath / Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear /
And naked shingles of the world."
3. Arnold's last stanza contains a beautiful statement of love's defiance in the face of a world devoid of "joy", "love", "light", "certitude", "peace", and "help for pain." In such a world, Arnold suggests, must cling to one's beloved. Arnold's stanza thus becomes an eery existentialist prophecy that seems to intuit the coming of World War One, when disillusionment followed the clashing of "ignorant armies."
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See what I mean when I say that poetry is one of the greatest pleasures we can enjoy? Through a poet's eyes, we can take a single moment and actualize the potential of its multivalent significance. In other words, we do not just see the picturesque, we perceive the sacramental.