Essays on Matthew Arnold

The poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold was written in nineteenth century, when the new era of industrialization and progress began and the usual world started to change. The social order and values became more dependent on the historical processes of Victorian era, while the religion and faith faced crisis. The historical background of the author caused the focus of his poetry on the themes of decay, alienation and depression. Facing the changes that were happening, seeing how two absolutely different worlds clash have stimulated Arnold to write “Dover Beach” that expresses the attitudes and moods of English population ...

We have read such a wide variety of texts that it hard to pick out with confidence those that have influenced me the most or had the biggest impact on me. On reflection though, I have realized that there are some texts which I will remember for a long time – and those texts are ones which use language in a significant, interesting and original way.

So for me a very memorable text is Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” which uses fairy tales elements – even in the words she uses – and yet also manages to evoke a modern setting in ...

Work Cited

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." Trans. Array The Norton Introduction to Literature. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. 704. Print. Summary: Matthew Arnold wrote his poem “Dover Beach” in 1867 after his marriage. It is believed that Arnold addressed this poem to his wife. The title and the descriptive opening lines of the poem refer to the shore in Dover, a ferry port and town in Kent, where Arnold and his wife had their honeymoon. In fact, perhaps Arnold composed the poem while sitting on Dover Beach, watching the sea with ...

1) Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde's many poems, plays and novels poke subtle fun at the Victorian mainstream, addressing the faults and the problems inherent within that society. Many of his works deal with the decadence and beauty of the Victorian upper class, as well as how empty and duplicitous that society is. By painting detailed portraits of flawed and overly vain characters, he shows the Victorian aristocrat as someone nearly inhuman, and far from sympathetic. In many ways, it transcends the nature of the Victorian mainstream by holding a mirror up to it and pointing out its flaws, whether ...

An Analysis

Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) was a highly influential English writer and thinker of the Victorian era. ‘Dover Beach’ (1867) remains one of his most famous and anthologized poems. According to Mazzeno (40) it is a poem “full of doubt and despair.” This paper will prove Mazzeno’s assertion, explain the reasons for it and also demonstrate how it affects Arnold’s choice of imagery and structure. ‘Dover Beach’ is a classic expression of the mid-Victorian crisis of faith. Firstly, the context should be noted. Dover is the English sea port closest to France and, if the weather is good enough, the ...

In Saundra Segan Wheeler’s scholarly article “The motive of return in Matthew Arnold’s writings,” she discusses Arnold’s passions and drives towards writing, taking influence from important literary figures such as Aristotle and Voltaire. Wheeler compares Arnold to the writer Longinus, who “interweaves language of his own with that of the authors he admires,” making him very much a product of his influences.

Wheeler then goes into an in depth examining of Arnold’s writing. “Arnold, the poetic craftsman, is commenting on the reductive nature of broad-based praise” in works like “Merope,” and Arnold also “advises his reader ...

Introduction

In poetry, every piece of work is unique in its own way. However, most pieces of poems follow standard forms. Poems can be entertaining and or educating, depending on the poet’s choice of the role of the poem. The special characteristics that are shared by all poems include:

In poetry, there is the emphasis of important words, which may lead to creation of rhythm or repetition. In this work, I have analyzed four ...