religious faith no longer sustains people during troubled times.

In the face of this world of sorrow, the speaker tells his “love” that they should “be true” to each other. Despite the uncaring world, which can offer them, ultimately, “neither joy, nor love, nor light / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,” the two of them can offer these comforts to one another amid the struggle and melancholy of life.

The main conflict in "Dover Beach" is between faith and faithlessness. In the third stanza of the poem, the speaker refers to a metaphorical "Sea of Faith," which he says once surrounded the earth "like the folds of a bright girdle." This image suggests a past in which faith was ubiquitous and comforting. The "bright[ness]" of the faith also connotes positivity and hope. In the second part of the stanza, the speaker says that he can now only hear the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the aforementioned sea. The implication here is that faith is withdrawing from the lives of humankind.

The faith and hope that the speaker attributes to the past is in conflict with the hopelessness and darkness that the speaker sees in the present moment. In the fourth and final stanza, the speaker describes the current state of the world, which appears "To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new." However, in reality, the world has "neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain." The repetition of the word "nor" emphasizes how bleak the present is in contrast to the aforementioned past. The source of this multiform negation is the loss of faith which Arnold describes in the first three stanzas.

The speaker of "Dover Beach" is thought to be a poet who acts as the voice of Matthew Arnold; apparently, he stands at an open window of an inn where he is afforded a clear view of the straits of Dover on the English Channel. He addresses his lover, a silent audience: "Come to the window, sweet is the night air!"

Robert Browning once expressed the role of the poet as a person who has been sent to remedy "the misapprehensiveness of his age." In "Dover Beach," written as a dramatic monologue, a poet expresses his thoughts on the beauty of the scene that reminds him of the disconcerting conditions of his time. His heart is drawn to the beauty of the scene, but his mind must heed the historical sounds of the surf, sounds that Sophocles heard on the Aegean, a sea that experienced many wars. Then, as he hears the water rub the beach, Arnold's speaker reflects upon the "ebb and flow/Of human misery." 

"Dover Beach" is a dramatic monologue. In a dramatic monologue the speaker is not necessarily the author, but most critics suggest that the speaker is a poet who does express some of Arnold's own beliefs. At least, we can say the speaker is (probably a poet) with his lover, looking over the straits of Dover toward the French coast while contemplating humanity, faith, and love. 

In a dramatic monologue, we (readers) know who the speaker is addressing by clues in the speaker's monologue. In the first stanza, it is unclear whether the speaker is speaking to another person, to himself, or if he's thinking (as an internal soliloquy). It isn't until the fourth stanza that the speaker actually addresses someone: 

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems 
To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

We might be inclined to suggest that the speaker is addressing a personified "Love" or the abstract quality of love. But since the speaker repeats the word "us," it is much more likely that he is speaking to a lover, his "love." So, although there are no clues in the first stanza, the clues in the fourth stanza imply that he's been speaking to his "love" throughout the entire poem. 

"Dover Beach" is a philosophical monologue, and for much of the time the speaker seems to be talking to himself. In the first stanza, however, he asks another person to come to the window, and in the final stanza he begins with these words:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!

"Dover Beach" is a dramatic monologue and may safely be regarded as the expression of Matthew Arnold's innermost thoughts. The poem is an extended meditation on the status of religion in mid-Victorian society, but Arnold's thoughts are fragmented, diffuse, and not altogether coherent. Though expressed in poetic language, they are placed on the same level as our own. When most people think, they don't do so in neat, polished sentences, and Arnold is no different. Nonetheless, the poem does provide an insight into what kind of person Arnold is—thoughtful, serious, and perhaps a tad melancholy.

Arnold's ruminations are also brought down to earth by their close connection to his immediate natural environment: in this case, a shingle beach at night. It's instructive that Arnold chooses to express his thoughts not through a traditional poetic structure but by using an experimental form. It's as if he's floating a potentially dangerous idea, one with truly alarming repercussions, which the usual rhythms, rhymes, and stanzaic forms of classical poetry are inadequate to contain.

Arnold's use of dramatic monologue represents a complete symbiosis of form and substance. This means that the experimental nature of the poem's construction is directly reflected in the air of uncertainty and apprehension conveyed by the lyrics. The light, both natural and artificial, has gone out, leaving us shrouded in darkness. At the start of the poem, the moon provided us with solace, but it no longer does so. Now nature is no more a source of beauty, but a metaphor for a darkening world from which the old uncertainties of the Christian faith are slowly retreating.

Arnold's gloomy prognosis hints at profound implications for poetry too. Perhaps poetry in its more traditional forms is no longer able to give voice to modern man's inner voice, a voice increasingly skeptical and uncertain. As the subject of the poem changes so too must its means of expression. After "Dover Beach," English language poetry was destined never to be the same again.

While the speaker and his companion could be any two English lovers, it is supposed by many that the speaker of "Dover Beach" is the poet himself, Matthew Arnold, who, with his new wife, spent their honeymoon at the Straits of Dover near the time of the poem's writing (1851).

It seems apparent in this dramatic monologue, though, that the speaker is pensive and troubled as he gazes out to "where the sea meets the moon-blanched land." He hears the "grating roar" of the sea as the pebbles of the beach are flung back by the sea's new waves after having been pulled off the beach. As he recalls how Sophocles heard in the sea's "tremulous cadence" the ebb and flow of "human misery," the speaker may well be anxious about how the societal changes made with the Industrial Revolution may affect English society.

In the fourth stanza, it is clear that the speaker is disturbed about the "Sea of Faith" which sounds 

Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Thus, challenges to traditional religious beliefs wrought by new evolutionary theories, as well as the social ills of industrialization that beset England seem reflected in the speaker's contemplation of the ebb and flow of the sea and the melancholy mood that the sea creates.

"Dover Beach" appears to have been written around the time of Matthew Arnold's honeymoon in Dover in 1851, and it is addressed to his "love," particularly in the final stanza. However, the note of melancholy in the poem, which grows to despair by the end, seems more appropriate for a declaration of unrequited love than for the consummation of a marriage.

This is because "Dover Beach" is about the unrequited love of a one-sided relationship between man and God. The speaker mourns the time when "The Sea of Faith" surrounded the earth "like the folds of a bright girdle furled." Now, the sea of faith has withdrawn, leaving the world naked and helpless. The speaker wants to love God and derive meaning and purpose from the Christian faith, but he no longer believes that there is any God to return his love.

In the final stanza, the speaker says that he and his beloved should be true to one another but for a bleak reason: They must love one another because there is no God to love them, nor is there "joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain" in the faithless world. The two lovers stand as a synecdoche for the whole of humanity. People must love one another because if they do not, there will be no love at all in a harsh universe.

Using vivid images of the sea to do so, Matthew Arnold writes his poem about a world bereft of all beauty, truth, and optimism.  In fact, there is only one positive stanza in this poem:  the first one.  This first discusses the positive images of the ocean where the “sea is calm” and the “moon lies fair” and the “tide is full.”  This is where the happy images end, however, because the second stanza refers to all of the negative sea images with its “moon-blanched land” and its “grating roar” and its “tremulous cadence.”  The negativity continues with the third stanza where the negative aspect of the sea even pervades the past, specifically during Sophocles time where it continued to affect the “turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery.” 

Of course, the importance of the poem stands in the two metaphorical stanzas at the end.  Stanza four, that focuses on the "Sea of Faith" is very intent on its pessimism.  Where there was faith in the speaker's mind, now there is nothing.

Now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night wind, down the vast edges dream / And naked shingles of the world.

Finally, as the speaker begs for lovers to remain true, sadness stands paramount yet again in one of the bleakest statements in the poem.  The world that once seemed beautiful and new is now bereft of beauty and happiness.

[The world] 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 / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.

"Dover Beach" is obviously not a poem to cultivate happiness within the reader.  What is interesting, however, is Arnold’s ability to allow the sea images to pervade his poem whether it is in the midst of happiness (of the first stanza) or of misery (of the rest of the poem).  Arnold is certainly a master of imagery!

The setting of the first stanza is the Straits of Dover, a strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel. It is at the East End of the English Channel where it joins the North Sea. (This is near the location of the Chunnel, the Channel tunnel that runs under the sea from England to France.) The persona, or speaker, is undetermined, but it is probably a man who is speaking to his companion, a woman he loves.

Since Matthew Arnold and his wife honeymooned at Dover Beach in 1851, it is commonly believed that Arnold's first draft of his poem was written near the time he and his wife stood on the cliffs and looked over the English Channel toward France's coast, some twenty-six miles away, where the beacon light of Calais shone. For these reasons, Arnold and his wife are the supposed models of the speaker and his companion. Nevertheless, the couple could be any two lovers, depicted in a pensive moment of their early lives.

Arnold's poem is written as a dramatic monologue, a genre which has only one speaker, but there is a silent audience of one or more persons. Thus, the effect is more powerful than if the speaker were only musing to him/herself. As he peers across to a country which once conquered England in 1066, and that pitted its kings and kingdoms against those of England for over a century (1337-1453, the Hundred Years War), perhaps the speaker senses the notes of sadness to come, such as the ills of the Industrial era of his age, as well as those that already accompany the sea's "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar."

The speaker in Arnold's "Dover Beach" does not identify himself in any way. It might be assumed that the voice is that of Arnold himself. Certainly, we can infer from what is said that this person is someone concerned for the future of his country now that the "Sea of Faith" has begun to ebb away. He is someone who feels confused, shaken, and unsure of which way to turn, certain only that humanity and its inherent "melancholy" has been much the same since the days of the Ancient Greeks.

We know that the speaker is not alone in this world — he is in love, and he addresses this love in the final stanza of the poem. He expresses a wish that he and his lover should be "true" to one another as a means of finding some certainty in a world which seems to him now a "darkling plain" filled with ignorance and confusion. The two lovers, we may assume, are standing on the titular Dover Beach together.

Scholars tend to conclude that the speaker and the listener (auditor) in the poem are based on Arnold and his wife. It is likely that Arnold wrote the poem on the coast while he and his wife were on their honeymoon. However, there is nothing in the poem that directly points to the young man being Arnold and the woman/auditor being Arnold's wife. So, within the context of the poem, the speaker is any young man and the auditor is the woman he is with. 

In the poem, the man/speaker looks out from the coast towards France. He encourages his lover/companion to look with him. He comments on the melancholy sound of the waves and compares it to a similar line in Sophocles' Antigone. The speaker then laments the loss of a religion to unite people. To compensate for that loss, the speaker suggests to his lover (auditor) that they should live for each other: 

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Although the world has nothing to offer ("neither joy, nor love, nor light," no unifying religion, and a world "Where ignorant armies clash by night"), the speaker clings to the idea of love as life's saving grace. 

The poem starts off as a description of an evening by the seashore.  Listening to the waves, the poet (Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888) suggests his partner listen as well and draw a parallel to the sound of the waves, and consider that they sound like the "turbid ebb and flow of human misery," the same sound heard long ago by Sophocles. He notes that the "Sea of Faith" which once covered the world ( a reference to the Catholic Church before the Reformation?) is now retreating.  The central theme of the poem suggests a loss of faith, and finally, suggests that the only thing that matters is that both individuals "...be true to one another," and make their own decisions about how to navigate through an amoral world with its constant conflicts ("...ignorant armies clash by night.")

In the first stanza, Arnold describes very beautifully a placid evening.  He seems to be looking out his window, watching the moon and listening to the beach.  But then it turns melancholy; he says that the waves lapping at the shore "bring the eternal note of sadness in."  In the next stanza he continues on the sad note, saying that Sophocles heard the same noise ages ago and " it brought/Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow/Of human misery".  From here, Arnold draws an analogy.  He says that the earth used to be full of Faith, just like the seas are full.  Then he says that unfortunately, "now I only hear/Its melancholy, long withdrawiing roar."  He states that faith has retreated, and it is disppearing from off the earth.

His states that in this world that "Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,/Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain" the only thing that we can really do is "to be true to one another".  Overall, the theme of the poem is very sad, that faith and goodness are fading in the world, and evidence of it is all around.  So, we must be true, loving, and kind to one another.  

In this poem, the speaker laments that the once unifying power in the world (religion, and Christianity in particular) is no longer relevant. The speaker seeks a substitute for this loss of unification. He looks for something that will fill the void that the loss of faith has left behind. He looks to his companion, thinking that maybe love for another will satisfy his empty feeling. 

The speaker uses the metaphor of the sea to represent religion. The sea (oceans) literally connect all the continents and thereby, all the people of the world. This is a metaphor for religion. Christian faith, according to the speaker, once had the ability to unite people across oceans and continents. But in his modern age, religion no longer provides the answers he seeks. He feels no unity with humanity. 

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,

Another perspective on Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" involves thinking about the actual geographic setting that Arnold is focusing on, and the symbolic significance of what he sees (or doesn't see).

Dover Beach is located on the southeastern coast of England. The European continent lies to the south/southeast of it. Arnold references this in lines 3-4 by writing "on the French coast the light/ Gleams and is gone." While this is a reference to a specific area, the light is also symbolic of the light of knowledge and progress, of new ideas entering into the world. In this way, Arnold's work takes on a somber tone as the light disappears. The tone is carried on as the narrator finds himself isolated as lines 12-14, describing the motion of the waves which

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Stanzas two and three expand on this idea, referring to Sophocles hearing the sound "of human misery" and the following discussion of the Sea of Faith, which

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,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

This is a poem that starts out sounding like a nice poem about nature and maybe love.  But it soon turns to one in which the poet is really showing despair about the way the world is.

In the first part of the poem, the speaker is just enjoying the sights and sounds of the sea.  He tells his love to listen to the sounds.

But then he thinks about how this same sound had made Sophocles think of how much people suffer -- how their lives are sort of tossed around by the waves like the pebbles.

So then the poet starts thinking about how Christian faith used to tie everyone together the way the ocean does.  He is sad that the world is not like that anymore.

He hopes that love will help make sense of this world, but he ends the poem on a down note -- he thinks that nothing can really fix the confusion and pain of the world.