Matthew Arnold Tone

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Question 1 The first six lines of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach suggest a peaceful, comfortable and relaxing tone, this is suggested trough the images of the "calm" sea, "full" tide, "tranquil bay" and "sweet" night air. The "fair" moon also contributes to simple, nature inspired lines. The first six lines appear to have an iambic rhythm which adds to the tone, as well as the fact that some of these lines rhyme sometimes, such as line 2 and 6 with "fair" and "air." The tone of the poem sounds conversational, which may be because of the use of enjambment, for example, line 2 flows into line 3 - "the moon lies fair / upon the straits." The use of the comma in line 2, "The tide is full, the moon lies fair," slows the line down and forces the…show more content…
"The Sea of Faith" also refers to line 25, where the tone changes to one of sadness, "Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, / retreating", this creates an image of the faith disappearing. The metaphor and simile is effective because it creates this beautiful image of the high tide of faith before the people's faith in God and the Christian religion started to dwindle in the Victorian era because of the major advances in science. The metaphor and simile is also effective because it conveys strong emotions to the reader through the images of the ocean and the bright…show more content…
The waves "fling" the pebbles around, and just like the pebble people's faith are influenced by different events, this may refer to the sadness in stanza 3 because of the people losing their faith in the Victorian era because of the advances in science. In stanza 2 Arnold wrote that Sophocles also heard the pebbles and it reminded him of "the turbid ebb and flow of human misery." The "naked shingles" may refer to faith being stripped away and revealing the sad reality of life. The pebbles are described as a "roar" as the waves fling them, which may imply that we all are fighting against influences but getting
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