1. Dover Beach Imagery and Rhetorical Devices in by Matthew Arnold
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2. Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. [5]
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! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, [10]
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Imagery: The first stanza of the poem introduces the theme by a series of images that suggest a quiet and pensive mood.

3. Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. [5]
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! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, [10]
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Imagery: In the sixth line, we get an image of action that suggests a partner for the speaker.

4. Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. [5]
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! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, [10]
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Imagery: The sound imagery in this section is reinforced by the Syntax, which mimics the sound of waves.

5. When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. [5]
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! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, [10]
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Symbolism: Out of nowhere, the sound of the ocean is associated with sadness, foreshadowing the “human misery” of the next section.

6. When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Dover Beach
Sophocles long ago [15]
Heard it on the Aegaean, 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. [20]
From the Antigone of Sophocles: "Blest are those whose days have not tasted of evil. For when a house has once been shaken by the gods, no form of ruin is lacking, but it spreads over the bulk of the race, just as, when the surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of Thracian sea-winds, it rolls up the black sand from the depths, and the wind-beaten headlands that front the blows of the storm give out a mournful roar."
When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Allusion: the reference to Sophocles suggests that human misery is as inevitable as the waves of the sea, and it comes and goes the same way. This is a complex analogy.

7. When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Dover Beach
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, [25]
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
metaphor
simile
Personification
metaphor
metaphor
Question to consider: Arnold was an atheist. What is his attitude toward the melancholy retreat of the “sea of faith”?
When you are done with this stanza, click to continue.
Figures of Speech: How many can you spot in this stanza? Click to see the answers after you have tried.

8. Dover Beach
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems [30]
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain [35]
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
simile
simile
Enrichment: The most prominent rhetorical device in this section is a rare one that you did not study. Polysyndeton is a repetition of conjunctions, and Arnold repeats the conjunction nor to great effect.
This concludes the presentation.
Imagery: Arnold uses a complex simile to create a powerful picture of the chaos and despair of the modern world.