Biography:

Matthew Arnold- born Dec. 24, 1822; died April 15, 1888

Worked as a school inspector, a job which allowed him to travel the countryside

He married Frances Lucy and had six children

Arnold was a literary critic, and later attained the position of Professor of Poetry at Oxford

As a literary critic, Arnold praised pieces with “high seriousness” and “high truth,” epitomized by authors such as Shakespeare and Milton, while he did not value works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

In his work as a critic, Arnold published several books: On Translating Homer, Last Words on Translating Homer.

In addition to being a literary critic, Arnold was also a social critic, and published his Culture and Anarchy as a social criticism book

Arnold was also a religion critic, and published Literature and Dogma on the subject of religious criticism

Arnold’s poetry was a blend between the Romantic and Modern styles because of its description of nature along with pessimism. His first book of poetry was titled The Strayed Reveler, which did not receive high acclaim when it was first published.

 

Literary Devices and Their Effects:

Tone- melancholic tone grieving the loss of religion in the world

Created by: gloomy diction- tremulous cadence (13), eternal note of sadness (14); dark color imagery of night (35) and the dark sea

Meter/Rhyme Scheme- there is no meter or rhyme scheme or meter in this poem, which adds to the chaos and disorder Arnold predicts will come if religion disappears from the world.

Extended Metaphor- throughout the poem the sea acts as an extended metaphor for the world, and undergoes the transitions from light to dark that the world would experience with the loss of religion.

Acting in tandem with the sea metaphor, light acts as a metaphor for religion throughout the poem.

As the sea is a metaphor for the earth, the pebbles being thrown about by the sea are a metaphor for the people, lost in the world without religion.

Polysyndeton- the polysyndeton in line 9 elongates the list of the trials of the pebbles, emphasizing the suffering of the people without religion in the world.

Personification- the personification of the sea in line 14 heightens the pathos of the poem by attributing the human emotion of sadness to the sea.

Allusion- mythological allusion to the story of Aegeas and Theseus; Aegeas died needlessly when he wrongly thought that Theseus was dead. This allusion represents the needless death of religion, Aegeas, and the suffering of the world that will follow, Theseus.

Metaphor- the Sea of Faith acts as a metaphor of a time when religion was not questioned in society, and alludes to the Middle Ages, one such time when religion was respected in society.

Asyndeton- the asyndeton in line 25 emphasizes the list of adjectives and heightens the description of the ocean’s roar.

Anaphora- the anaphora in the fourth stanza emphasizes Arnold’s nihilistic view of life without religion through the repetition of “nor”

 

Historical Information:

The Victorian Era witnessed change in many facets of society due to developments in technology, medicine, and science. These developments led to a change in the way people viewed religion, namely that they lost interest and belief in religion. Though Arnold did lose some of his interest in religion, he warns against the complete loss of religion in Dover Beach.

Also during the Victorian Era, there was a re-emphasis on the patriarchal society as there was an increasing trend of women entering into more areas of society. Arnold was a proponent of the patriarchal society.