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Matthew Arnold's Melancholy in "Dover Beach"

Summary:

Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" explores his melancholy stemming from a perceived loss of beauty, goodness, and faith in the world. The poem is imbued with pessimistic imagery, such as the "grating roar" and "turbid ebb and flow of human misery," reflecting a world devoid of joy and love. Arnold links this sadness to the decline of Christian faith, suggesting life is ultimately tragic and meaningless without it, capturing a broader nineteenth-century nihilistic sentiment.

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What is the main issue causing Matthew Arnold's melancholy in "Dover Beach"?

The central issue, that is pretty general and vague, that is the focus of Matthew Arnold's melancholy in "Dover Beach " is the perception that he holds of the loss of beauty and goodness in the world around him. He feels that all virtue, appreciation of the finer beauties of life, and kindness have disappeared from the world that he lives in. He feels that "the Sea of Faith" (probably referring to the vast amount of belief in the goodness of mankind) has left the earth, leaving only the "naked shingles of the world." The naked shingles of the world is a symbolic reference to how when goodness, and people's belief in mankind's ability to love has left, it leaves the world exposed to all sorts of cold "weather" (wars, evil, misery, woe). He feels that because all "joy...love...light...certitude...peace...help" has gone, we as humans are left completely and...

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totally alone. We are alone, on the "darkling plain" of the world, while all around us is misery and war, and we are left to fend for ourselves.

It is a rather depressing take on the world, that all goodness has left it, leaving us to each struggle individually for meaning and happiness. That hopelessness and aloneness are the central issue that saddens Arnold in his poem "Dover Beach".

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What words in Arnold's "Dover Beach" relate to sadness?

Considering Arnold's "Dover Beach" veers to the side of pessimism, there are lots of words that relate to sadness. With the exception of the first stanza that focuses on the positive aspects of the sea, the negative images begin in the second stanza and never cease. The second stanza focuses on the negative aspects of the ocean with its "moon-blanched land" and its "grating roar" and its "tremulous cadence slow" bringing the "eternal note of sadness in." Even in the third stanza when the speaker mentions the past, sadness still stands paramount with the "turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery."

Of course, the crux of the poem stands in the two metaphorical stanzas at the end, both of which contain many words of sadness. Stanza four, that focuses on the "Sea of Faith" is very sad indeed. 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.

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What causes sadness in line 14 of "Dover Beach"?

In the last line of the first stanza of "Dover Beach," Arnold refers to the "eternal note of sadness." This note is a sound made by the sea, but, despite the melancholy tone of the poem at this point, it is not clear what causes the sadness. The speaker goes on to say that this note of sadness is not only eternal but universal:

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery.

At the end of the poem, the speaker goes on to equate the sadness he feels with the decline of the Christian faith. This, however, is somewhat more specific than the sound Sophocles heard before the Christian faith began. The cause of the sadness in line 14 is what the philosopher and classical scholar Miguel de Unamuno called "the tragic sense of life." This is the idea that, in the absence of religious faith to redeem and make sense of it, life is inevitably tragic, meaningless, and futile. Arnold expresses this nihilistic view as one which is universal and eternal but which arose with particular force in nineteenth-century Europe because faith in Christianity was collapsing at the time. "Dover Beach" is one of the leading expressions of this idea of philosophical nihilism, which can be found in nineteenth-century poets and philosophers from Tennyson to Nietzsche.

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