The Sea as Metaphor & Symbol in Dover Beach

In "Dover Beach," Matthew Arnold (1998, p. 723) introduces the dominant image in the first line of the poem: "the sea is calm tonight." The sea is both a symbol and a metaphor, referencing the "eternal note of sadness" as well as the "Sea of Faith (Arnold, 1998, p. 723)." The poem in essence reflects the religious philosophy and the loneliness and isolation that Arnold is said by critics, including John S. Reist (1993), to have experienced. Arnold's belief that the human condition in his own era had been diminished by hopelessness due to a loss of faith (Schow, 1998) permeates the final lines of the poem which concludes with a pessimistic lament.

Just as Arnold's "calm sea" glimpsed beyond the fringe of Dover Beach between the cliffs of England and the French coast is a sea stirred by waves, the Sea of Faith was also once a nourishing and full body capable of supporting human hope (Schow, 1998). By using the image of the sea as a metaphor for the Sea of Faith, Arnold appears to underscore the fact that man floats in his life on a series of waves that move in and out, bringing him closer and closer to happiness only to pull him away again.

The voice of the narrator is clearly that of Arnold himself (Wyne-Davies, 1990). Arnold says to his reader and to the person to whom the poem is addressed that he hears "Sophocles long ago/Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought/Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow/Of human misery (Arnold, 1998, p. 723)."

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