Faith And Faith In Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach

Faith and doubt were all prominent factors in the Victorian Era and the twentieth-century. The questioning of religion became a common concern for many after Charles Darwin published his “On the Origin of Species” in 1859 (Flesch 1). His theory was that humans were evolved from something instead of created. This book was based on science and fact, which resulted in the weakening of the church and the public’s beliefs. This was a problem for most of the people in England who were Protestants because the majority of take everything in the bible literally. Many poets of the Victorian Era and twentieth-century thoughts on religion after Darwinism protruded through their works. Hopkins, Arnold, and Larkin are all poets who wrote about questions and certainties they had about what mankind’s point is to be on earth, and what happens in “life” beyond death. All three of these men were highly affected by their personal insecurities. While each author expresses a different view on the extent of faith lost, they all believe that religion has diminished for themselves and the general public.

In “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, you can sense the struggle Arnold has to regain his faith after his had been lost. “Dover Beach” portrayed the central thought for most of the people during the Victorian Era, which was struggling while yearning for answers to gain back their faith. In the beginning of the first stanza in the poem you see words such as “gleams,” “calm,” “fair,” and “tranquil” (Arnold 1387) all giving the reader a feeling of contentment from looking out at the sea (Keenan 5). The sea starts off as only a visual symbol, and gradually turns into auditory imagery. As Krieger points out in a poetry criticism, everything seems perf...

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...k, Not Day” you can see just how much pain Hopkins feels being disconnected from God. He takes a lot of the fault himself and that ends up paining him even more. Though he is trying extremely hard to make a connection, he is getting nowhere. In “Aubade” you can see the fear the speaker has with the question, “What will happen if I die and there is no God?” In this poem, religion was seen as a type of security blanket instead of something realistic.

Each of these poems speaks for the entirety of the Victorian Era and the twentieth-century. It wasn’t just poets who had doubts and struggles within their religious beliefs, but the common man felt the same way. Hazy faith was a prominent topic and thought that everyone struggled with, and each of these three poems show very different views on how a person might have seen and reacted to their religious situation.