Summary of ‘Dover Beach’

The poem ‘Dover Beach’ is composed by the Victorian poet, Mathew Arnold. His poems are often sad and express melancholy. This poem depicts the conflict between religion and science which existed in the Victorian age. ‘Dover Beach’ deals with the dual theme i.e, Religion and Science which symbolizes optimism and pessimism respectively. Poet has used ‘sight and sound’ imagery in this poem. The poem can be broadly divided into two parts.

First part- Optimism

The first part is about the beautiful and pleasant scene of Dover beach which is bathed in full moonlight. The sky has touched the horizons and wind is blowing swiftly. Everything seems perfectly pleasant. Poet calls his beloved to enjoy the scene. According to the poet, religion is superior to science, so he compares the beautiful ‘sight’ with religion. He praises the past period which gave importance to Religion.  Though there were barriers and differences among people due to religion, poet ignores it and thinks that people were happy because they were more connected to god than today. Hence, the pleasant sight of Dover beach is the symbolism of happy past. In this way the ‘sight’ imagery conveys symbolism and contributes as an essential element to the poem. Here we can observe the first theme i.e, Religion.

Actually,sadness and happiness go hand in hand everywhere. But poet is optimistic about past and pessimistic about the present and future.

Second part- Pessimism

Soon there is shift of mood. In the second part of the poem, poet hears the sound of pebbles and regards it as sad reality of the world. Once, Sophocles, the ancient Greek writer stood on this sea shore and experienced sorrow in the sound of pebbles. In the same way, poet feels a kind of negativity in the sound of pebbles. He thinks that development of science and technology has made people loose faith in God. The sound of the pebbles stands for sorrowful present. And therefore the ‘sound’ imagery is used to symbolize ‘pessimism.’ Even though Science has made great discoveries, the poet does not like it because he thinks that scientific development has made people skeptic and has diverted their faith in god to Science. The poet says that the beautiful sight of the Dover beach is only a mirage of the religious past and it is soon going to disappear due to development of science.

The above lines express poet’s opinion about the present. It means, even if the world looks happy, it is full of sadness. There’s no love, joy, positiveness and peace, and people have become unhelpful to each other. The poem ends on a pessimistic note. Hence, ‘sight and sound’ imagery conveys symbolism of optimism and pessimism which is interwoven with the dual theme of religion and science, and it contributes as a contrasting element to the poem.