Free Essays on Dover Beach

Truth What appears to be true and what actually is true are two very different things. â€Å"Dover Beach†, written by Mathew Arnold uses an exquisitely calm ocean filled with tension to present a position of appearance verses reality. In the poem â€Å"Grecian Urn†, author John Keats creates an illusion of mortality painted on the urn verses the immortality of true life. Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses appearance verses reality when Young Goodman Brown discovers the true evil nature of mankind in what seemed to be his good friends and fellow townsmen. â€Å"Dover Beach† is about a beautifully calm sea, although when looking underneath the surface, it is a world full of hidden turbulence. Arnold starts the mood with the essence of tranquility and serenity. Dover Beach is described as, â€Å"calm [that night], the tide is full, the moon lies fair,† and all seems right. The appearance of Dover Beach at this time is only of what the human senses can envision. Arnold looks beneath the surface of Dover Beach and unveils the true nature of the sea. When Arnold stops to really listen to the sea, â€Å"[he] only [hears] [the sea’s] melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.† Arnold justifies the theory that things are not always what they appear to be. Arnold announces to his lover that, â€Å"[our] [world] of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love.† Though the world may disguise its self as pure and true, it is really tainted and fraudulent. John Keats’s poem, â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† compares the perfections of a painting on an urn to the imperfections of true life. The painting on the urn portrays the outer beauty, which is ultimately unobtainable, that mankind strives for. The paintings are like â€Å"a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf- fringed legend haunts about thy shape of deities or mortals.† The urn is beauty preserved while real life ages and dies, no matter how hard mankind... Free Essays on Dover Beach Free Essays on Dover Beach Truth What appears to be true and what actually is true are two very different things. â€Å"Dover Beach†, written by Mathew Arnold uses an exquisitely calm ocean filled with tension to present a position of appearance verses reality. In the poem â€Å"Grecian Urn†, author John Keats creates an illusion of mortality painted on the urn verses the immortality of true life. Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses appearance verses reality when Young Goodman Brown discovers the true evil nature of mankind in what seemed to be his good friends and fellow townsmen. â€Å"Dover Beach† is about a beautifully calm sea, although when looking underneath the surface, it is a world full of hidden turbulence. Arnold starts the mood with the essence of tranquility and serenity. Dover Beach is described as, â€Å"calm [that night], the tide is full, the moon lies fair,† and all seems right. The appearance of Dover Beach at this time is only of what the human senses can envision. Arnold looks beneath the surface of Dover Beach and unveils the true nature of the sea. When Arnold stops to really listen to the sea, â€Å"[he] only [hears] [the sea’s] melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.† Arnold justifies the theory that things are not always what they appear to be. Arnold announces to his lover that, â€Å"[our] [world] of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love.† Though the world may disguise its self as pure and true, it is really tainted and fraudulent. John Keats’s poem, â€Å"Ode on a Grecian Urn† compares the perfections of a painting on an urn to the imperfections of true life. The painting on the urn portrays the outer beauty, which is ultimately unobtainable, that mankind strives for. The paintings are like â€Å"a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf- fringed legend haunts about thy shape of deities or mortals.† The urn is beauty preserved while real life ages and dies, no matter how hard mankind... Free Essays on Dover Beach Matthew Arnold’s dramatic monologue â€Å"Dover Beach† portrays the way in which perceptions are deceptive. The use of technical qualities, symbolism, and imagery helps to support the speaker’s thoughts between what is seen and what is real. Rhythm and meter are the most important devices in â€Å"Dover Beach†. These mechanisms allow Arnold to use words as a way to portray the speaker’s struggle. Figures of speech, sounds, and irony of words are also used. Line one; â€Å"The Sea is calm tonight† has a gentle rhythm that can be compared to the â€Å"ebb and flow† of the sea. With this description one can imagine a beautiful beach with water lapping upon the shore. The second line also gives the image of a calm sea. It is not until line three that the rhythm is broken. This line begins and ends with an iamb but the middle is broken up. The choppiness in the sentence is a foreshadowing of potential problems to come. In the fourth line the poem’s rhythm continues to be broken up, but shortly after is recovered in line five. The rhyme scheme is: ABACD, with only the first and third lines rhyming. This lack of pattern is used to provide an image of struggle within the speaker. In the second stanza, the number of feet per measure does not project a pattern. This is supposed to create a sense of misunderstanding. The false impression of the rhythm covers the inner struggle in the speaker. The sounds of Arnold’s poem help convey the speaker’s internal quandary. â€Å"You hear the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling†, this quote gives the stanza an acoustic value. â€Å"On the French coast the light gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, glimmering and vast,† portrays a visual picture of what is present at the scene. Arnold utilizes pleasing words to the ear when blissful times are present and harsh ones at time of depression and sadness. The sounds of the poem do not only display t... Free Essays on Dover Beach â€Å"Dover Beach† Essay In â€Å"Dover Beach† by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the narrator is in a house on the beach, and he is looking out the window at the sea and the beach. It is dark out. The lighthouse and the moon provide the illumination. The man is speaking to a woman in the house with him. The poem is a dramatic monologue, it tells a story. The sea serves two vital purposes in the poem – it is used as both a setting to set the mood, and as a means of contrast. Matthew Arnold wrote this poem in 1867. The beach house in the poem is somewhere on the English Channel, most likely on a piece of beachfront called â€Å"Dover Beach†. Some very eminent aspects of this poem are pebbles, Sophocles, the â€Å"Sea of Faith†, the Aegean Sea, and â€Å"ignorant armies†. Guy Montag recites â€Å"Dover Beach† in Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, to link the parallel conditions of human hopelessness and misery. The first part of â€Å"Dover Beach† portrays the vista the narrator is viewing as he looks out upon the sea. The â€Å"sea is calm†, and the â€Å"tide is full†. The moon and a French Lighthouse illuminate the shoreline, the â€Å"naked shingles of the Earth† where the land meets the sea. The â€Å"cliffs of England† are visible. This first part of the poem sets the dismal, depressing tone that dictates the poem from this point on. It also introduces two vital parts of the poem. It conveys the geography and setting, and it also connects the back and forth, back and forth motion of the pebbles with the hopelessness of the world. Even though the sea is calm, the waves are still drawing back and flinging the pebbles on the shoreline. The â€Å"grating roar† is the waves of the English Channel striking the shoreline. This motion of the pebbles caused by the waves â€Å"begin, and cease, and then again begin, with tremulous cadence slow†. It is this repetitious and unavoidable cycle of the pebbles as they are dominated by the waves of the sea that...