Critical Appreciation - "Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold)"

"Dover Beach" is one of the representative poem of Arnold. He tries to show the lack of faith and certitude in a world which is materially expanding wide. It begins with an objective description of the ebb and flow of the wave in the sea. He recalls Sophocles who used to hear same kind of song tuned into human misery. He comes to the present and says that human misery due to lack of faith has not decreased but increased many-fold.

In the past, the sea of faith had encircled the earth and there was no melancholy, no sadness and no misery. But there is no more sea of faith now. Therefore, the world has become more like dream world and their is neither love nor joy, nor light, nor certitude etc. Everywhere there is confusion, struggles and fights among each other. Man is like a soldier fighting with an unknown enemy in the darkness, without any purpose of fighting. The only compensation in such a situation is "love". So he request his lover to be true to one another.

The poem can be divided into two parts. On the first part he talks of the resounding of waves on the pebbled beach. It is just the background which later leads to real consequence. In the later part he expresses his deep feeling about the real situation in the world that is changing rapidly with the growth of science and technology. The world has changed to be strangely unreal. It has many varieties in it, it has become more beautiful and fresher but it lacks all positive virtues like love, faith, peace, certitude etc.