Situation and Setting: What happens? Where? When? Poetry Situation and Setting: What happens? Where? When?

Terms and Definitions Sometimes identifying the poem’s setting is important to understanding the speaker, as when a speaker reflects on events that are long past. The setting is the time and place in which a poem is situated. Sometimes the setting of a poem is vague or unspecified. Spatial setting: the place involved Temporal setting: the time involved Situation: what goes on; what is happening

Rita Dove’s Daystar What do we know about the speaker? What is the situation? Spatial setting? Temporal setting? How would you describe the tone of the poem? Audio

Allusion, Occasional Poem, Referential Poem An allusion is a reference to something outside the poem that carries a history of meaning and strong emotional associations. A poem written about a specific occasion is called an occasional poem, and such a poem is referential; that is, it refers to a certain historical time or event.

“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold Since the setting of “Dover Beach” is so important, it is useful to know that Dover is in southwestern England, at the narrowest point on the English Channel and about twenty miles from the coast of France.  Because of its proximity to the European continent, Dover historically has been a site of both commerce and military defense.  Iron Age Britons, Romans, and Saxons all constructed fortified structures in Dover, and, more recently, the British government coordinated many military operations there during the Napoleonic Wars and during World Wars I and II.

Matthew Arnold Biograph Although the poem wasn’t published until 1867, scholars believe Arnold wrote it in 1851, at the time of his marriage to Frances Lucy Wightman (the couple honeymooned in Dover).  Readers sometimes assume that the poem’s speaker should be understood to be Arnold and the speaker’s addressee to be his new wife, though this hypothesis of course cannot be proved. Arnold’s ideas about spirituality, science, and culture are also relevant to understanding the poem.  Arnold was skeptical about the existence of an all-knowing deity, though he seems to have retained some respect for some of the traditional values of Christianity. In the mid-nineteenth century, when Arnold wrote “Dover Beach,” new discoveries in the fields of biology, geology, and medicine led many British intellectuals to question established religious ideas about the literal truth of the Bible and about humans’ relationship to the natural world.  Arnold devoted much of his career as a writer and critic to arguing for the importance of “high culture” and worrying that the British populace had become too materialistic and conventional to appreciate sophisticated artistic and intellectual work. 

White Cliffs at Dover

“Dover Beach” Discussion Questions Audio 1. The poem has a speaker and a listener. How would you describe the speaker? What do you know about the listener? What clues does the poem provide about their relationship? 2. How does the speaker describe the seascape, both in terms of sight and sound? How does his reaction to the view and the sounds outside his window change over the course of the poem? 3. How would you describe the mood of the poem?

“Dover Beach” Discussion Questions, cont. 4. By the end of the poem, the speaker has decided that the world cannot provide joy, love, light, certitude, peace, or help for pain. Does he offer any hope or consolation beyond this bleak assessment of the human condition? If so, what? 5. The final four lines of “Dover Beach” share an end rhyme, making them stand out from the more irregular rhyme scheme at work in the rest of the poem. What is the effect of the contrast between the formal tidiness of these rhymes and the chaotic bleakness described in these lines?

“Africa” by Maya Angelou Audio What is the situation in this poem? Setting? What choices do you see Angelou making? (think of the literary devices we have been discussing this semester) What do you like about this poem? What resonates with you? What is the difference between the verbs “had lain” and “has lain”? How do these differences affect the meaning of the poem?