Seven Vasaris of Twenty Elven

I would just like to say, before I post this, that I hate my English teacher with my heart and soul.

Now, "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

"The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

Let's start with the first stanza:
Personally, I think the first six lines have a calm, slightly happy, tone to them. The mood is light and calm, but I can picture the setting being dark, so it has this foreshadowing to darkness. I can, almost, see foreshadowing in the actual text as Arnold writes, "the light/Gleams and is gone;" which is the only sad part (in between lines three and four). The lines eight through fourteen are more sad and depressed, but just kind of disappointed, really. [Ebb: a flowing backward or away; decline or decay]. In these last few lines, Arnold addresses the back and forth pattern of the oceans waves and refers to it as the way people come and go to faith. (I will now allude to the Mormon reference of the hand: There are five prophets to be true to God and in between them are the low spots where people fall away from God. Rise and fall of faith.)
Some figurative language here is the personification in line two ("the moon lies fair"). This not only personifying the moon by giving it the ability to lie down, but personifies it by calling the moon "fair," in the sense of being beautiful and young. Like, the way a woman would seem fair. The next is in line six, when the speaker states, "sweet is the night air!" This is gustatory imagery, but describes a touch imagery thing. When I think of sweet, I think of that classic sugary taste from a lollipop that is sugary, but not too overwhelming, so it's pleasant. However, when I think of night air, I think of that soft breeze that's just too cold to be pleasing, and raises the goosebumps on your arms. But, this synaesthesia, used by Arnold, portrays and odd sense of warmth at night. It's kind of comforting, even though it shouldn't be at all. In line nine, there is hyperbole as Arnold says, "you hear the grating roar/Of pebbles." Come on, seriously? Unless it's a tsunami, the pebbles are not roaring with the sea. Get it together, Arnold. And in line ten, the speaker writes, "waves draw back and fling". This is a metaphor for the pull and push that people have from the goodness of religion.
The first stanza also helps to identify the speaker and the listener of this DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE. Place is identified in lines one through five as, obviously, being Dover Beach (in England). The speaker, which is oddly William Arnold, is in his home with his wife and addressing her. We see this in the way he says, (in line six) "Come to the window," so it must be someone in his home.

Stanza Two:
Stanza two follows promptly along with the end of stanza one, mimicking it's mood-disappointed. Arnold mainly refers to how humans, through the centuries, come and go with God, and thus, see happiness and tragedy. The flow of the ocean is also stressed in this paragraph. This overall metaphor (which keeps appearing throughout the monologue that could be a badly formed sonnet, since it isn't argumentative, could be considered conceit, but don't count on it).
SINCE ALLUSION IS NOT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: The two allusions in this stanza are in line fifteen and line sixteen. Arnold alludes to Sophocles and Aegean. sophocles is the author of Antigone, and I guess Aegean relates somehow too. [Antigone stuff and Aegean sea?]. Okay, scratch that. Anyways, Sophocles talks a lot about human misery in his plays especially, but he stresses (to quote bitch), "rising above misery and tragic circumstances." Then, when Arnold says (in line sixteen), "Heard it on the Aegean" he i alluding the Aegean Sea, which is below the Mediterranean. (Makes since that Sophocles would hear it there, considering he was Greek).
I can only find one figure of speech in this stanza and is in lines seventeen and eighteen. Arnold says, "turbid ebb and flow/Of human misery". This goes along with the overall metaphor (which, once more, is the rise and fall of human faith blah blah blah).
It's more of an external perspective of the loss of faith.

Stanza Three:
I feel that stanza three is when Arnold goes back and reflects on how people were with solid faith. Arnold seems very nostalgic, especially with his word choice. When Arnold uses phrases like, "Was once," or "But now" he implies that he is reflecting on a time he once knew and comparing it to the time that is present. [Girdle: a lightweight undergarment, worn especially by women, often partly or entirely of elastic or boned, for supporting and giving a slimmer appearance to the abdomen, hips, and buttocks; furl'd: to gather into a compact roll and bind securely, as a sail against a spar or a flag against its staff]. Arnold goes on about how the sea (faith, religion, goodness, et cetera) was once large and expansive (as it should be), but that now the ocean simply is "getting smaller" and leaving pebbles behind (because they want to leave; the pebbles are people). [Shingle:a thin piece of wood, slate, metal, asbestos, or the like, usually oblong, laid in overlapping rows to cover the roofs and walls of buildings.]
There are three (four-ish) figures of speech in this stanza. First is in line twenty-one, when he says, "sea of faith." This is obviously a metaphor. (Please now refer to anytime I have mentioned the overall metaphor previously). The second is in line twenty-three as he says, "like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd". This refers to how the ocean was, in the good times, and strengthens the connection between the past and present. This also clarifies the speaker's mood, being sentimental/nostalgic, about the past. The third is from line twenty-six to twenty-seven, "the breath/Of the night-wind". This is personification because wind can't have breath. It has no lungs; it cannot breath. But, this personification does help to illuminate the feeling of the wind (especially relating back to line six-with the night air reference there). The fourth figure of speech (which is kind of sketchy) is the last line of the third stanza (line twenty-eight). "And the naked shingles of the world." This is possibly a metaphor roofs tops, but I can't figure out what it would go with. However, it could just continue on and be details to the overall metaphor.
The whole stanza refers to how faith was once strong, but is now sad and exposed by human greed and stupidity. (Okay, not stupidity-I can't back that up. But it always feels like poets are trying to say it but never do!)

Stanza Four:
In stanza four, I feel that lines 29-32 portray happiness, hope, light, and positive emotions. Arnold, here, using words like: love, dreams, beautiful, new. This diction is here to sharply contrast the rest of the stanza. The rest of stanza four (lines 33-37) is worried and depressed. This part leaves a tone of anxiousness and fear (like impending doom) upon the reader. [Or, maybe just some sadness.] The diction here is incredibly different from the beginning of the stanza, with words like: neither/no/nor, darkling, confused, struggle, flight, ignorant, clash, night. Anyways, the first two lines (29-30), seem to me like a plea. Or, asking questions like Why? Is it really that hard to get along? I see as more of a desperate call out to the world. I see a lot of anxiety in the diction of the second-to-last line (36), when Arnold writes, "confused alarms of struggle and flight". This seems very anxious to me because it makes me picture war alarms and people running around and trying to pull it together.
Figures of speech here are kind of complicated, but both anaphora. The first example of this is in line 32, when he says, "So various, so beautiful, so new" where So is the word repeated. In lines 33-34, Arnold writes, "nor love, nor light,/nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain" where Nor is the word repeated. Anaphora is typically used to place stress on important phrases and use certain words to tie them all together. So, here, Arnold is stressing the different moods in the stanzas with back-to-back anaphora.
This last stanza covers the speaker's views of appearance versus reality. (The two moods of the stanza relate back to that). Also, in lines 33 and 34, I wonder if Arnold is suggesting that people are better ambivalent than emotional.

Other Sources:
"Dover Beach" Analysis
"Dover Beach" Analysis
"Dover Beach" Analysis

'Tried begins to fall away,
but true stays to pity.
With hope just like Tinkerbell,
it flies away fickle.
Late nights and green highlighters,
they complete the broke stream.
And along toys jingle,
when mother sings this song.'