Dover Beach

http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/dover.html

The theme of the poem is mostly the loss of faith and human misery. The poet is deeply disturbed with the growing misery of humans and expresses his negative thoughts through “Dover Beach”. The line ‘the sea meets the moon-blanched land’  gives hints of the light of the moon to be pale, possibly because of fear and thus it suggests negativity as it can be compared to the popular idiom ‘his bones blanched the beach’. This gives an image of disturbance and the poets feelings of destruction and negativity reflect in this line. Also, the poet’s feelings are portrayed through the description of the sea’s sounds and movement. The sound of the sea is described as ‘grating roar’, suggesting that the sea is screaming in anger or is furious at the state of the world. The last line of the second stanza, ‘eternal note of sadness,’ clearly tells us the feeling of the poet. The poet points out through this line that sadness has always been and will always are in existence and this shows us that the poet has no hope and his mind is full of pessimism. The poet is depressed and he conveys this depression through the description of the sea.

The poet emphasizes on the complete loss of faith throughout mankind and again, compares it with the movement of the sea. The lines, “the Sea of Faith lay like folds of a bright girdle furled,” tells us that the poet used to have faith and the word girdle means that faith was wrapped all around in layers, suggesting feelings of security and protection. The poet tells us that now he doesn’t feel protected or secure. It shows us his helplessness over human misery and his loss of faith. His belief is decreasing gradually and his mind is evaded with only images of darkness and negativity.

The faith of people is described as to be retreating slowly and eventually there is no hope left at all. The phrase “vast edges drear” gives hints that the poet feels that the world is coming to an end and the word edge suggests falling or dropping. This can be assumed as the fall of the human race. The poet feels that everything in the world is nearing its end and that the loss of faith indicates this end.

The last stanza is full of bitter thoughts and it clearly and openly tells us the feelings and emotions of the poet. The poet writes that the world which seems so beautiful and glamorous is actually not such in reality. He says, “Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light.” He thinks extremely negatively and gives no hope to the people, especially the youth. He ends by writing that we will all struggle and fight with each other and this seems as if man will slaughter man in the end. The poet is a pessimist and looks at the worst side of everything. He doesn’t feel like things can be changed and shows no signs of happiness or contentment in his life. He definitely seems to have lost a lot of things in his life.