by Cicely Richard

Created on: July 08, 2008

In "Dover Beach," poet Matthew Arnold set this poem on the beach of the same name. This is the narrowest point on the English Channel where the lights of the French coast is only about 20 miles away. The speaker uses descriptive language to set the mood of the poem. This allows the reader to understand what is going on in his head as he is looking at nature. "Dover Beach" illustrates how descriptive language is a useful tool to determine the setting and situation, literally and figuratively, in which the speaker is located.

In the first stanza, the speaker informs the reader of his exact location and the time of day. He speaks of Dover Beach at night and the immediate mood he is feeling. He says the bay is tranquil and the night air is sweet. It is so quiet that "you hear the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back and fling" (lines 6-10). These lines tell readers that at present he is in a calm mood, taking in the beauty of the night on the shore of the beach. However, the mood slowly changes as the poem progresses.

In musical terms, the speaker describes how the mood shifts from being tranquil to something entirely different. He describes it as a cadence, which is a rhythm that that has a consistent tempo. He describes it as "tremulous cadence slow" bringing "the eternal note of sadness in" (lines 13-4). The mood changes from one of tranquility to one of sadness. Thus, just as the mood of a particular situation can change according to the beat of a song, so quickly the mood of this literary work changes.

When a person is in a particular place, even if they are trying to be in the moment, they have the tendency to think about the past. The speaker of this poem, because of the sad mood he finds himself in, reminisces on other time when the mood was the same. He speaks of his mind being "the turbid ebb and flow of human misery" (line 18-9). Just like the past is filled with sadness, so the present is also like a wave, flowing back and forth. This illustrates that sadness is hard to escape, even when in a place that is supposed to be tranquil. Nevertheless, as quickly as the mood changes to sadness and melancholy, other emotions can sweep in like a wave.

In the last stanza of the poem, the speaker seems as if he is holding a conversation with someone. He is not alone on the beach as it seems in the previous stanzas. This conversation goes through a menagerie of emotions. He says "love, let us be true to one another! For the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreamsvariousbeautifulnew" (lines 29-32). Unlike the beginning of the poem, where sadness prevails and the past brings back unhappy memories, the speaker has a happier outlook for the future. He hopes that everything will be like new.

This poem proves that the setting and the situation in which a speaker find himself in can determine the mood of the poem. It also illustrates that one setting can also be a catalyst for shifting moods in a person; from progressively sad to one of hope, especially if another person is experiencing the situation with the speaker.

Sources:

The Norton Introduction to Literature, 5th Edition

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