Scribd
Upload
98 views2 pages

Critical Appreciation of Dover Beach

Dover Beach, published in 1867 by Mathew Arnold, critiques the loss of faith in humanity during the Victorian era marked by industrialization and materialism. The poem emphasizes the coexistence of happiness and sadness, urging a return to faith amidst societal chaos and conflict driven by capitalism and communism. Arnold employs various literary devices such as personification, metaphor, and enjambment to illustrate the diminishing faith and the harsh realities of the world.

Uploaded by

piyushvermaenglish
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
98 views2 pages

Critical Appreciation of Dover Beach

Dover Beach, published in 1867 by Mathew Arnold, critiques the loss of faith in humanity during the Victorian era marked by industrialization and materialism. The poem emphasizes the coexistence of happiness and sadness, urging a return to faith amidst societal chaos and conflict driven by capitalism and communism. Arnold employs various literary devices such as personification, metaphor, and enjambment to illustrate the diminishing faith and the harsh realities of the world.

Uploaded by

piyushvermaenglish
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Critical Appreciation of ‘Dover Beach’

Introduction - Dover Beach was published in 1867. It was one of the most famous
poems of Mathew Arnold. Poem attacks on the developments in Victorian society
and resultantly loss of faith in human being. It was the period of Industrial
revolution and urbanisation. People were running after wealth. Whole world was
divided into two prominent ideologies i.e. Capitalism and Communism.

Central Idea - World is full of miseries. Happiness and sadness is part and parcel
of this world, but human should have faith in both humanity and the supreme
power. Victorian age was losing on the part of faith and people were running after
wealth and empires. They were fighting blindly with each other on these
transitory things. Poet is focussing on this change in the society which once was
full of faith but now that faith is diminishing like receding water during low tide.

Figure of Speech
A) Personification- There is usage of personification in the first two lines of poem.
'Sea' and 'Moon' are personified.
B) Consonance - 'Long Line' has consonance as after repetition of /L/ consonant
there is change in vowel in both words.
C) Pathetic Fallacy - 'Listen! you hear the grating roar, Of pebbles...' has pathetic
fallacy as emotions like irritation, annoyance is attributed to pebbles.
D) Enjambment - There is enjambment used at several place in the poem.
Enjambment is continuation of sentence in the next line of poem. There is an
example of it-
'Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling
E) Metaphor - 'The Sea of Faith' has metaphor used for abundance of faith in the
world.
F) Alliteration - 'To lie before us like a land of dreams' has repetition of consonant
/L/ hence there is alliteration in it.
G) Polysyndeton - 'Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain'. There is another
example of it in the poem -
' Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

©OurGuruji
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring'
If there is repetition of conjunctions like Nor, And, But, if, or etc then it is
polysyndeton. Here in the first instance 'Nor' is used in repetition. And in second
example 'And' is repeated.
F) Simile - There is simile used for the illusionary world in this line- 'To lie before
us like a land of dreams'

Reality of World- Arnold revealed the reality of this world where people are
moving towards materialism and forgetting faith. Arnold put Victorian society in
the background and showed how different ideologies are making people fight
with each other and money has become such a strong factor that faith in country
life is diminished and people are running for cities. This land may seem to us as
land of dreams but in reality there is chaos here. Everybody is fighting with other
and peace and faith are long gone.

Structure and Rhyme Scheme - There is not regular arrangement of rhyme in the
poem. Every stanza has different rhyme scheme hence we will call it no rhyme
scheme. At the other hand stanzas have irregular number of lines.

©OurGuruji

You might also like