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Since the birth of our world, we have recorded plentiful amounts of changes to it. We have acknowledged this change through events such as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and the ice age and even climate change. This, however, is not the only change we see within the world. We have also seen various alterations in society. It is because of these different changes in humanity that people have lost happiness and faith within multiple aspects of life. In the poem, “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold ardently questions faith through evocative imagery, multiple lines of anaphora, and ambivalent diction to bring a perspective that the world is changing and people are losing faith.
Throughout the poem “Dover Beach” the author uses multiple forms of imagery to convey the main theme of faith. The author’s use of the many lines of evocative imagery is what shows readers that losing faith is occurring. “The tide is full, the moon lies fair.” (Line 2) Arnold begins the poem by laying out what his surroundings are like. They are peaceful, serene, a stress-relieving environment. The descriptions he uses to show how faith is still there and that there is nothing that would change it. This sea that he is witnessing is pure and has not been changed or lost. This is short-lived, however, and Arnold beings by describing change is near. “Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling… / With tremulous cadence slow, and bring / The eternal note of sadness in.” (Line 10-14) Arnold expresses his sense that change is near and that it will affect faith drastically. The author recognizes this repeating action occurring with the pebbles along with the waves crashing on the shore and relates it to eternal sadness and relates it to the slow-moving away of religious faith.
Arnold continues to write different phrases of this evocative imagery, which still contributes to the main theme of the loss of faith within the poem. “The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full… / But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.” (Lines 21-25) The author compares humanity’s faith and joy and love to the sea. However, he can only hear its slow retreat which is why he compares this action along with the pebbles as faith being lost which allows us to imagine waves along a beach and we can hear this action. This action reminds him of a time where the world used to have faith Arnold believes that there are too many events that occur and people just begin to lose faith which shrinks this so-called “Sea of Faith.” This is also where we see the author convey his message that religious faith has lost its density. “And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.” (Lines 35-37) Arnold’s statement allows us to imagine a dark plain or field which then is filled with conflict and clash. This evocative imagery is where Arnold brings his views on what could affect this loss of faith, which used to be enveloped within the world and its people. He interprets that the new changes within science are what is causing people to lose faith within the world and that it will only cause conflict.
Although the imagery provides a different insight into how the world is changing, the multiple lines of anaphora the author uses throughout the poem further develop the recurring theme of the loss of faith. “So various, so beautiful, so new.” (Line 32) Arnold’s repetition of so in these lines allows us to get the full strength of what the world used to be like a feel like. He is saying that the world used to be so beautiful and new but now it has begun to change and that change is not giving the same feeling. Instead, it is conveying the feeling of loss of faith and conflict. “Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light.” (Line 33) This is where the author has begun to change his tone which shows us that he really feels saddened by this loss of faith. He believes that the world looks like it had all these beautiful qualities to it but in reality, it never did. It had no joy or love. He continues to express these feelings by using anaphora when he says, “Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” (Line 34) This last line where Arnold goes so far as to say that if we continue to lose faith that the world will no longer have peace or help us recover from the pain of losing our religious faith. The author’s use of anaphora is what really emphasizes the poem and his stance on how humanity’s loss of faith can not be masked and that it would only cause pain if we continued to stay on this course.
Building upon the message of faith being lost as the world changes, the authors ambivalent diction is able to completely tie his perspective together to the readers along with the imagery and anaphora. Arnold began this poem by instilling an atmosphere of calmness and peacefulness which he related to the time before the change occurred within society. The entire first stanza, except for the last line, where he changes his tone. “The eternal note of sadness in.” (Line 14) This change in his tone from peacefulness to sadness is when the author starts showing his theme of faith being lost. This provides the readers with mixed feelings since he began to talk about the world having all of these beautiful qualities, but really all it brings is darkness. This same ambivalent diction that the author began using continues to the second stanza when he says, “Sophocles long ago / Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought / Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery.” (Line 15-18) Arnold goes deeper into that thought of how the world brings sadness and compares it to the same feeling Sophocles had and how he thought of the same misery and sadness that the author is feeling. This is also where we can see the religious aspect start to develop within the poem along with how the other feels.
This same ambivalent diction continues throughout the rest of the poem. When the author began talking about the sea of faith and how it used to be once full but had began retreating. This is where we can clearly see the author expressing his deep and strong feelings of how the world has begun to lose its faith. This was contributed by the author stating “But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear.” (24-27) The author says he hears the sea just sadly retreating and describes how it sounds when he says the “long, withdrawing roar…” that it is creating. Arnold believes that the Sea of Faith is beginning to get smaller and smaller as it disappeares into the dark. The author then says, “Ah, love, let us be true / To one another! for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams,” (Lines 29-31) Arnold calls to his loved one who is with him and tells them that they need to be true with one another and be honest and try to keep that faith that is being lost elsewhere within the world. The author again uses his ambivalent diction and is happy within these lines since he is with the one he loves. The author continues using that same diction when he closes the poem and says, “Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.” (Lines 36-37) When Arnold uses these lines to end the poem he is describing his feeling of how that when the world does loose faith and begins to start to have conflict with one another that there would be numerous struggles due to that science which is causing people to lose faith. Throughout the entire poem the author’s use of different feelings and his ability of using this ambivalent diction is what truly conveys the theme of faith and how the world is losing it.
c is one the entire world could relate too especially with the theme of loss of faith. With viruses such as the Coronavirus breaking out throughout the world and how poverty and conflict has enveloped many areas of the world we can see how faith in some areas of the world have been lost. We can also see how some places of the world are beginning to lose that faith as well. Arnold’s use of evocative imagery, anaphora along with his use of ambivalent diction is what truly ties this entire poem together and shows us how losing faith can have irreparable damages.
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