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أكـاديـمـي
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رد: third year english student second term
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Mathew Arnold is the third major Victorian poet in this period. He is a well educated scholar. He was born in 1822 and died in 1888. He is a major poet and critic and his influence continued to the following century. Mathew Arnold is the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold the Head master of the Rugby School. He attended college. He enjoyed the life of being a dandy who is well concerned about his appearance, behavior and manners. He was a very intelligent young man, but he enjoyed this kind of a different life that reflected the real person of him. He was interested more in his appearance but he was a very intelligent young man.
Ø After his graduation, he worked as an inspector of schools allover England. He used to travel to different parts of England inspecting schools, following and detecting the curriculum in them and trying to adjust them. During this period of time, he wrote most of his poems. He was interested in reflecting nature. The Victorian period is a period which is marked by rapid change, development, controversial and diversity.
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He was the best poet to represent his age by talking about the theme of faith, doubt and ennui (boredom). In his works, he tried to reflect his age by writing several collections. In these collections of poems, he tried to reflect the characteristics of this time. He was a deep thinker and was very philosophical at the same time. He was not only interested in writing poetry, but also in critical thinking and criticism. He started to develop the ability to be a critic towards the end of his life. He wrote many critical treaties or pamphlets. One of his major works was Culture and Anarchy. This is a very significant work in criticism. In his critical thinking, he tried to show the significance of poetry as something could be a substitute for faith.
Ø Loss of faith was a very important issue that occurred during the Victorian age. People had shaken faith as a result of scientific inventions, astrology discoveries and philosophical thinking. People tend to search for another substitute or a replacement for their faith. Mathew Arnold found that poetry could be like a new religion. He is a religious man, but because of the shaken belief, he felt that poetry could be a substitute for religion. For him, poetry is very significant.
Ø One of his treaties was “The disease of most of modern scientists is depression…”. Another one is “Arnold’s poetry and his poetics form …marks his inner division…not to facilitate…that maybe”. Of course that may have led him to a sense of losing his own faith because of the conflict that happened inside him. When he explicate religion according to him, he says: “It has lighted up morality that it has ..emotion and …for carrying the ordinary man along it ..”.
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We are introduced to a poet who has a critical mind, who has faced himself in a kind of a conflict. The conflict was between his faith towards the traditional Christian faith and to the new changing world. This is what is reflected in the poem. He faces this dilemma of being in this struggle between his own faith and the changing world where he lives in of suspicion, skepticism and all what surround him and how he find a solution for that conflict. He must make a compromise between the two choices or a kind of a balance.
Ø Towards the end of his life, Arnold stopped writing poetry and he concentrated more on criticism. He became a very well established critic. His poems were few in comparison to the other poets. That is because towards 1860 he started to concentrate on criticism.
Ø Dover Beach is one of the significant poems that reflect the Victorian mind. It is a presentation of all the thinking minds in the Victorian period that of the people who faced this dilemma of conflict between the faith and the life during that age. The poem is a dramatic monologue. It is rich with expression and elaborate in its tone. It reflects the Victorian mind of that period.
1The sea is calm to-night.
2The tide is full, the moon lies fair
3Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light
4Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
5Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
6Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
7Only, from the long line of spray
8Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
9Listen! you hear the grating roar
10Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
11At their return, up the high strand,
12Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
13With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
14The eternal note of sadness in.
15Sophocles long ago
16Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
17Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
18Of human misery; we
19Find also in the sound a thought,
20Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
21The Sea of Faith
22Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
23Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
24But now I only hear
25Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
26Retreating, to the breath
27Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
28And naked shingles of the world.
29Ah, love, let us be true
30To one another! for the world, which seems
31To lie before us like a land of dreams,
32So various, so beautiful, so new,
33Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
34Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
35And we are here as on a darkling plain
36Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
37Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Ø Dover is in the southern part of England. ‘strait’ means the narrow passage that make water pass between two different lands. The speaker is the poet himself. The speaker here is melancholic in his tone. This is shown when he talks about the calmness of the sea.
Ø He says “come and listen” so there is some one else. This is a dramatic monologue where we have a speaker who is speaking and there is an audience but the audiences are not responding. He only addresses them “come and listen”.
Ø He talks about the sea of faith. He talks about a critical point. Faith starts to lose its power. It is shaken. The relation between faith and sea is that the sea comes and go, strong and powerful then they retreating back. When the sea is not strong, the waves become slowly and barely come to the beach, and then they retreat.
Ø The mode of the poem is melancholic. In the beginning of the poem, we feel calmness and stability, and then there is the movement of the sea. The speaker here alludes to Sophocles the great Greek tragedian.
15Sophocles long ago
16Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
17Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
18Of human misery; we
Ø The speaker here is in the modern period of Victorian time watching the sea, contemplating. He alludes to Sophocles and Aegean sea. Sophocles talked about the human misery. The human misery is in the past, present and going to be in the future. Sophocles talked about sadness of humanity. Then Mathew moved into the sea of faith.
21The Sea of Faith
22Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
23Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
24But now I only hear
25Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
26Retreating, to the breath
27Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
28And naked shingles of the world.
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During the Victorian period according all the historic data, faith started to lose its stability and power. During the 16th and 17th century the church dominated the whole kingdom, but now faith is shaken. It is like the sea that is coming and retreating back. At the end he concludes by a resolution that is faith is lost and shaken, how can man survive without faith. He says that honesty and faithfulness could substitute the loss of faith.
1The sea is calm to-night.
2The tide is full, the moon lies fair
3Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light
4Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
5Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Ø Dover beach is located to the southern of England. It is the closest point to face the French coast. The speaker starts in a meditative tone. He meditates deeply about the calm sea. There is serenity and quietness as the waves are not very rough. This mode of calmness encourages one to meditate, speculate and think deeply about life. It is a romantic atmosphere, but at the same time, it helps one to think deeply in a philosophical mood.
Ø The tide is full means that the waves come from the mid of the sea until they reach the shore. The waves usually are originated from the bottom of the sea. Then they reach until they reach the shore. The sea is calm and the moon is bright. The sea is stable which means that nature is stable and calm.
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The speaker wishes to have such calmness and serenity in himself. He is in conflict suffering from something. He could see the French coast. On it he could see the lights gleam then go. Those lights are moving as if they disturb the quietness of this serene nature.
Ø Dover is a mountain area that means it is higher than the French coast. The cliffs of England stand that shows the sense of pride. They are shining because of the light of the moon falling on the sea and the mountains. The mountains contain minerals and rocks could be shining. The French coast disturbs the serene picture of the Dover beach.
Ø In those first five lines, the speaker meditates upon the peaceful tranquil, peaceful nature. This shows that he wishes to have the same peaceful nature.
6Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
7Only, from the long line of spray
8Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
9Listen! you hear the grating roar
10Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
Ø The speaker invites someone else. Arnold after he married his wife, he went to Dover to spend the honey moon with his wife. He invites the companion or his beloved to come. First, he talks about the beautiful nature then he invites another human being. It is like an intrusion. The invitation of the beloved or friend is to share the beauty of nature. It is a very tender appeal from the speaker to his companion.
7Only, from the long line of spray
8Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Ø Those two lines are very romantic. It is like the meeting of lovers. The light of the moon meets the sea. The light meets the surface of the sea. The light on the surface is like a spray or sprinkles of silver or white colour on the sea.
9Listen! you hear the grating roar
10Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
11At their return, up the high strand,
12Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
13With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
14The eternal note of sadness in.
Ø The speaker then addresses his companion again to listen. First, he invited his companion to come and enjoy the fresh air. Then he invites her to hear the loud voice of the sea. Pebbles are the small and tiny stones. When the waves come and reach the shore, they carry those tiny stones with them. When they go forward, they throw the stones upon the shore and this creates the sound of waves. Metaphorically, those small stones make that roar. It is exaggeration. The waves take those pebbles and then through them again. To ‘fling’ is to throw with force. It is a continuous cycle as the waves draw the stones back and then when they return, they return them.
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This cycle of movement is something continuous. It reminds the speaker of sadness. The poet here renders this noise and movement to something wonderful, rich, beautiful and full of meanings. This sadness comes out of the clash between faith and science.
Ø There is always a clash between the waves and the land. When waves are very energetic and strong, they hit the land and take the peddles then they bring them back. It is like a mutual relationship. They are connected together and cannot be separated. The waves, here with their continuous movement, represent the sense of confusion. The sea is powerful and the land is also solid and powerful.
15Sophocles long ago
16Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
17Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
18Of human misery; we
19Find also in the sound a thought,
20Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Ø In this stanza, the speaker here has changed the meditation about the sea and its sound into referring to something back in the history talking about Sophocles the great Greek tragedian. Sophocles heard the sound of waves and it reminded him also of human misery. This sound extends from ages and it is opt to continue for the future. It is immortal in a way. Sophocles heard it a long ago in the Aegean sea. ‘Turbid’ means confuse.
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There is a change of scenery. First we were in England in the northern part of Europe and then the speaker moves to the southern part of Europe. It is not only a transition in location but also in time, but it was smooth not abrupt. Sophocles heard this sound and it reminded him of the ebbs and flows of the human nature. All his tragedies were about the human sadness. There is a movement from the peaceful and tranquil nature that reminded the speaker of the eternal note of sadness to the human history to a figure who also talked about the human the sadness of humanism.
Ø Then the speaker uses the present simple again after using the past. The pronoun ‘we’ shows that it is not only Sophocles who found in this sound a representation of human misery but also modern people in the north and Sophocles is in the south, but they still share the same sadness as they are all human beings. So they share this eternal note of sadness.
Ø This stanza is like an interlude. There is a change in the scenery. In the Aegean sea, we have a scene of past human misery. We feel that the past, the present as well as the future all share the same human misery.
21The Sea of Faith
22Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
23Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
24But now I only hear
25Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
26Retreating, to the breath
27Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
28And naked shingles of the world.
Ø This is the climatic stanza in the poem. “sea of faith” is symbolic here. The sea is symbolized by faith. It is sometimes strong and sometimes retreats. It is like faith in human beings. It is changing according to people according to their belief and acceptance. When he talks about the sea of faith, he says that the sea was strong in the past by dominating man’s life. Reflecting the Victorian mind, he says that faith now is shaken by sciences, discoveries and theory of revolution and continuing, frustrating change. Now, life became very fast, so there are a lot of changes that man can not absorb.
Ø He uses past tense when he says that in the past, faith was strong. The idea of the image is that faith in the past was like the circle that circles the diamond and holds it. It was surrounding the earth like the sea surrounding the earth. There is a simile here that the sea was very close to the shore. The word ‘girdle’ is like a belt to roll up tight or like a diamond ring that one has to circle it or put holders to hold it. In the past, faith was holding man’s life controlling and forming it. The sea of faith was once at the full and rounded earth shore, but now it is weakening similar to the weak waves.
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When it is the ebb of the waves, one could see the shore hidden under the water and species crawling because they are exposed as there is no water after retreating back. The sea of faith was surrounding earth in the past like ring or belt but now the speaker only hears the water retreats back that means that faith has become weak.
Ø There is a slow movement of the speaker’s tone which reveals the withdrawal of the sea of faith. It is not strong as it was before. The sea of faith is a symbol of time when religion was very strong without conflict or doubt, it was holding man’s life. Unfortunately, now it has become weak because of the change. This brings a point that modernity unfortunately, weakens faith or religion.
Ø What happens actually is that the religious faith is retreating. Here, he means by faith any kind of ideas that can make life meaningful. So man is losing meaning of his life, because life without faith is meaningless and it could bring doubt into life.
Ø This stanza is the core or the heart of the poem. One could feel many things in this stanza like the feeling of pain, mutability. There is the theme of faith and theme of mutability.
Ø The speaker through his meditation and elaborate comments on the world that he lives in, that he is convinced that Christianity is fading away and weakening. Once it was very strong, it was dominating the universe. Now it is weakening by the power of science. That is because of man without strong faith whose faith is always shaken.
29Ah, love, let us be true
30To one another! for the world, which seems
31To lie before us like a land of dreams,
32So various, so beautiful, so new,
33Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
34Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
35And we are here as on a darkling plain
36Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
37Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Ø This is the resolution of this problem after this melancholic meditation about how faith is losing its power which is honesty. Then there is a direct invitation to his beloved to be honest and truthful to each other. He appeals to her with great emotional honesty to be truthful to one another. He gives reason that is they live in the land of dreams. These lands of dreams are so attractive but they are full of diversity. It is full of attractions and beauty and new things. However this land has no joy, love, light, certitude, peace or reality. They are living on this land as if living in a dark place. A world with no faith is a dark world. They are confusing and fighting.
Ø Arnold here is alluding to a Greek episode about two armies. Each one was retreating to its camp and because of the wavy sea, one of the soldiers heard the sound of peddles against the shore and though that it was the enemy. He announced the alarm that the enemy was coming and it was at night. It was the same army fighting each others thinking it was the enemy in the dark. It was a tragedy. It is a historical allusion.
Ø The use of the allusion here is that man in this life without a fate is going to be lost as there is no guidance. Without faith, man is misled.
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He appeals to his beloved to be honest to each other because this honesty will support them and sustain this changing world. The allusion to the battle is also to show that man can not survive alone, but he needs help from other humans to support him.
Ø The speaker’s tone changes from a melancholic one to an appealing tone. In this dramatic monologue, Arnold meditates in a very philosophical mood upon the calm nature which suggests the meaningless struggle and loss of faith that is found in his society.
Ø The poem reveals the poet in a conflict and loss of faith. At the beginning, there was a temporary vision of peaceful mood, but the sounds of the ocean reminded him of human sadness.
Ø This poem is of four stanzas and they are not the same. The first is 14 lines, the second is 6 lines, the third is 8 lines and the last one is 9 lines. That is because the speaker is in a state of meditation. The imagery is very significant. The rhythm is very slow. In lines 9, 10 and 11 they are fast. The tone in general is melancholic, but towards the end, the tone tends to be an appealing one.
Ø A critic called Petman considers the stanzas of this poem as sonnets but incomplete sonnets. Notice the exclamation marks in 6, 9 to give an opposite effect. In 6 the exclamation is not for auditory only but also to visual for the beauty of nature. In 9 the concentration is to listen of the roar.
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