Professor DC's video: Dover Beach ENGLISH Explanation Matthew Arnold ISC Poem Line Wise Summary Vocabulary

For HINDI Explanation, click on this link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbrEv8TSi0&t=14s ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold was published in 1867 in the volume entitled New Poems. This piece is made up of four stanzas containing a variable number of lines. They range in length from fourteen to six lines in length. There is no consistent rhyme scheme but there are a number of random end rhymes such as “-and” and “-ay” throughout the poem and it is written in irregular iambic pentameter. “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold is dramatic monologue lamenting the loss of true Christian faith in England during the mid 1800’s as science captured the minds of the public. The poet’s speaker, considered to be Matthew Arnold himself, begins by describing a calm and quiet sea out in the English Channel. He stands on the Dover coast and looks across to France where a small light can be seen briefly, and then vanishes. This light represents the diminishing faith of the English people, and those the world round. Throughout this poem the speaker/Arnold crafts an image of the sea receding and returning to land with the faith of the world as it changes throughout time. At this point in time though, the sea is not returning. It is receding farther out into the strait. Faith used to encompass the whole world, holding the populous tight in its embrace. Now though, it is losing ground to the sciences, particularly those related to evolution (The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was published in 1859). The poem concludes pessimistically as the speaker makes clear to the reader that all the beauty and happiness that one may believe they are experiencing is not in fact real. The world is actually without peace, joy, or help for those in need and the human race is too distracted by its own ignorance to see where true assistance is needed anymore.