Who is the listener in dover beach

We'll be the first to admit that we don't have some basic facts about this speaker. We don't even have a name or a gender for this dude. For the sake of convenience in cases like this, we use the same gender for the speaker and the poet, although it's important to remember that they aren't the same person. We don't know how old he is, or what he looks like. So, what do we know? Well, we know that he's standing in a room in Dover, England with his lover, and listening to the ocean.

He's also educated enough to be able to drop a quick allusion to Sophocles. Trying to put your finger on what precisely troubles the speaker so profoundly is difficult. Despite the calm , assured opening, it soon feels like the foundations of the earth are not solid, that things we take for granted — things that seem permanent, like those vast white cliffs of England across the bay — are in fact intangible and could disappear from under our feet at any moment.

The poem is epic in scope: we meet warriors who fight on the side of reason and certitude Sophocles , cross oceans, evoke history, and watch as the walls of the fortress of reason collapse. By the end of the poem the world has become a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night. The image is nothing short of apocalyptic. Expressed in that most clear and obvious of grammatical structures — subject plus verb — the whole line, and especially the word is, conveys certainty, security and trust.

Look around and see the tide is full and the moon lies fair. At first glance, everything is exactly as it should be. Over there is the French coast separated from the cliffs of England by a semi-colon , a deliberate break or pause in a line of poetry is called a caesura just as the Channel separates these two countries in the real world.

The most obvious uses of pathetic fallacy can be seen in romantic movies when lovers argue in the rain and kiss against the backdrop of a setting sun. In Dover Beach , light imagery is a form of pathetic fallacy, by which the shift from psychological certainty the poem gives us the word certitude to despair is mirrored by the shift from light to dark in the world around the speaker. The opening stanza, then, gradually chips away at the supposedly firm foundations of reality and reveals that, actually, the world is a fragile construct indeed.

Things seem permanent — surely those huge white cliffs will always be there? But time and tides will eventually erode them away to dust. Elements of nature are not unchanging. Tides go in and out, the moon waxes and wanes. The word lies is polysemic — it has more than one given meaning. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen!

Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another!

At this early moment this is as yet nothing but a statement, waiting for the rest of the work to give it meaning. The statement bodes of the significance the sea is going to play as an image in the poem. As yet, there is no emotion or thought, only images, quiet. By the fourth line, already, something has changed.

How are they moving? Out and in, returning ever, a cycle unending. When nothing can be done at the social level, even a small step at the individual level is significant and necessary to solve difficult problems. Its main theme is the loss of religious faith and its effect on the minds of the people. The poet notes with concern that the loss of faith has resulted in doubts and uncertainties. People have lost peace of mind. There is no joy, love, light of knowledge or any certainty about anything.

Arnold beautifully brings out the confusions, doubts and uncertainties that prevailed in his age:. And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. In this world of uncertainties , no one can do anything. The only thing which is possible is that as individual human beings we should love one another. This is what Arnold seems to suggest to his beloved, whose presence is felt in the poem:.

A note of melancholy is easily discernible. The rhythmic sound of the waves strikes the poet as sad. The world, according to him,. The description of the Dover Beach — the calm sea, the full tide, shining moon at night, the twinkling lights on the French coast, the cliffs of England in the bay, the sweet breeze — provides a vivid visual image. The description of the sound of waves as they rise and fall, carrying away pebbles, throwing them up against the beach is quite accurate.

The lines are so arranged as to provide an impression of the movement of sea waves. The use of alliteration is skilful and adds to the music of the poem. It is still relevant because of its lyrical facility, brilliant imagery and the note of melancholy. Discuss with close references to the text. It is beautifully structured to convey the idea of the loss of religious faith in the Victorian era. The poem opens on a vivid description of the sea at Dover Beach.

This part of the poem is descriptive. The sound of sea waves reminding the poet of Sophocles and the eternal misery of mankind forms the second part, which clearly shows a movement rom description to reflection.

The third and the last part is a pure reflection on the state of the present-day world reeling under the ill-effects of the loss of faith. The poem opens with the description of moonlit scene at Dover Beach. The sea is calm and the tide is full. The moon shines brightly on the Dover Strait, while the light on the French coast becomes dimmer and dimmer and then disappears totally.

On the English side the rocky cliffs stand firm, bathed in the moonlight. A long line of water drops rises up where the sea touches the land. The beloved who is present on the scene is asked to listen to the harsh sound of pebbles as they strike against the shore with the retreat of the waves. This melancholy note of the sea reminds the poet of a similar sad note that Sophocles, a Greek dramatist, must have heard on the shore of the Aegean Sea.

He must have found in the sad music of the sea the meaning of human misery and expressed it in his tragic plays. Here the sea acquires symbolic value, it being the symbol of eternal note of sadness. In the last part, the poet becomes totally reflective.

The sea is now used as a symbol of faith. Once the Sea of Faith encircled the whole earth and sustained mankind.