Analysis+of+Dover+Beach

The main theme behind Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" is the idea that earth used to be full of faith, but change has negatively affected the value of faith in humans and in God. In the first stanza, the speaker is describing the beauty and tranquility of the ocean and the waves that he sees as he is observing Dover Beach. However, his reference to the light of the lighthouse that "gleams and is gone" portays a certiain changing for the worse (4). He no longer sees the beauty in the world, only a glimpse of what humanity used to be. This idea is further explained in the last line of the first stanza when the speaker says, "bring/ The eternal note of sadness in" (13-14). The tide changing brings in this new wave of life where faith and morality gone from the earth, which brings the speaker an eternal sadness. In the second paragraph, the allusion of the historical figure in poetry, Sophocles, relates to the last line in the first paragraph because he, also, was said to have heard this same note of sadness in one of his own tragedies. In the third stanza, the speaker refers back to the world when it was once joyful and full of Christian faith which served as the background to humanity. However, he describes how humans retreating from religion and morality has left behind an unlovely, secular world. The last stanza opens with the line, "A, love, let us be true/ To one another" (29-30). It can be inferred that the speaker is talking to his wife due to the fact that Arnold wrote this poem as he was observing Dover Beach while on a honeymoon with his wife. He is telling his wife that, in the midst of all this religious destruction and secular lifestyle that has consumed their world that seems beautiful on the surface, they must cling to eachother and their faith.