Two Poems on Dover Beach

Hecht's The Dover Beach and Arnold's Dover Beach employ a variety of elements of poetry to illustrate the tone of the respective speakers. From alliteration to allusion, both poets use elements of poetry to add impact and meaning to their respective speaker's attitude toward their subject. In Dover Beach, Arnold's speaker is melancholy and timid, his hopes of finding genuine love as indecisive and eroding as the wave tossed "pebbles" that "begin and cease" with "tremulous cadence slow" and bring with them the "eternal note of sadness" (Arnold 1). In Hecht's The Dover Bitch, Arnold's speaker is mocked to a certain degree for his attitude and mood in Dover Beach. This is achieved by providing us with the perspective of the beloved in Arnold's poem, one which is not thrilled with the melancholia of the speaker's observations in Dover Beach, "To have been brought / All the way down from London, and then be addressed / As sort of a mournful cosmic last resort / Is really tough on a girl" (Hecht 1). In both poems, the poets use a variety of elements of poetry to achieve the distinction in tone, attitude, and mood between the respective speakers.

The structure of Arnold's poem is significant in underscoring the melancholy and ambivalent tone and attitude of the speaker. The poem is a piecemeal patchwork of partial sonnets. According to Touche, "The first two sections each consist of 14 lines that suggest but do not achieve stri

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