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Allott concludes that the notes are probably from around 1849–50. Composition Īccording to Tinker and Lowry, "a draft of the first twenty-eight lines of the poem" was written in pencil "on the back of a folded sheet of paper containing notes on the career of Empedocles". Finally, one critic sees the complexity of the poem's structure resulting in "the first major ' free-verse' poem in the language". One commentator sees the strophe-antistrophe of the ode at work in the poem, with an ending that contains something of the "cata-strophe" of tragedy. Critics have noted the careful diction in the opening description, the overall, spell-binding rhythm and cadence of the poem and its dramatic character. The form of the poem itself has drawn considerable comment.
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Beginning in the present it shifts to the classical age of Greece, then (with its concerns for the sea of faith) it turns to Medieval Europe, before finally returning to the present. The poem's historicism creates another complicating dynamic. The same critic notes that "the poem upends our expectations of metaphor" and sees in this the central power of the poem. Another found the poem "emotionally convincing" even if its logic may be questionable. "Shingles" here means flat beach cobbles, characteristic of some wave-swept coasts. One critic saw the "darkling plain" with which the poem ends as comparable to the "naked shingles of the world". Various solutions to this problem have been proffered. Devoid of love and light the world is a maze of confusion left by 'retreating' faith." Ĭritics have questioned the unity of the poem, noting that the sea of the opening stanza does not appear in the final stanza, while the "darkling plain" of the final line is not apparent in the opening. That lovers may be 'true / To one another' is a precarious notion: love in the modern city momentarily gives peace, but nothing else in a post-medieval society reflects or confirms the faithfulness of lovers. Exploring the dark terror that lies beneath his happiness in love, the speaker resolves to love-and exigencies of history and the nexus between lovers are the poem's real issues.
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"The poem's discourse", Honan tells us, "shifts literally and symbolically from the present, to Sophocles on the Aegean, from Medieval Europe back to the present-and the auditory and visual images are dramatic and mimetic and didactic. Pratt sees the final line as "only metaphor" and thus susceptible to the "uncertainty" of poetic language. Culler calls the "darkling plain" Arnold's "central statement" of the human condition. This final image has also been variously interpreted by the critics. The battle took place at night the attacking army became disoriented while fighting in the darkness and many of their soldiers inadvertently killed each other. He describes an ancient battle that occurred on a similar beach during the Athenian invasion of Sicily. The metaphor with which the poem ends is most likely an allusion to a passage in Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian War (Book 7, 44). Midway between these is one of Arnold's biographers, who describes being "true / To one another" as "a precarious notion" in a world that has become "a maze of confusion". swallowed up by the poem's powerfully dark picture", while another sees in them "a stand against a world of broken faith". Critics have varied in their interpretation of the first two lines one calls them a "perfunctory gesture. The final stanza begins with an appeal to love, then moves on to the famous ending metaphor.
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However, he sees a glimmer of hope through his lover. Being that Arnold was known for his discontent with the current state of society during his time, this poem is coming from the point of view of a man who feels as though society is not as beautiful as it once was. Reflecting the traditional notion that the poem was written during Arnold's honeymoon (see composition section), one critic notes that "the speaker might be talking to his bride". The beach, however, is bare, with only a hint of humanity in a light that "gleams and is gone". Arnold begins with a naturalistic and detailed nightscape of the beach at Dover in which auditory imagery plays a significant role ("Listen! you hear the grating roar"). In Stefan Collini's opinion, "Dover Beach" is a difficult poem to analyze, and some of its passages and metaphors have become so well known that they are hard to see with "fresh eyes".