Alliteration In Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach'

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Chaos Comes Together In the poem, “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, the speaker begins the poem enjoying the sight of the ocean from the cliffs at Dover Beach. While admiring the view the speaker analyzes humanity and the world. Through this analysis we see a crisis of faith happen as the speaker realizes that within life there is no certainty or guarantee of happiness as chaos reigns supreme. Throughout the entirety of the poem, “Dover Beach” alliteration is used extensively. In the first stanza, the speaker says, “Gleams and is gone;” (4). Alliteration is also used a little farther down in the same stanza when the speaker says, “Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,” (32). The use of alliteration within the poem adds to the overall …show more content…

An element that aids the imagery, making it more vivid and clear is the use of figurative language. The use of the metaphor at the beginning of stanza three strikes a powerful visual image, “The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore,” (21-22). The comparison of the sea, and faith both of which were found at varying corners of the world gives the reader a sense of the sheer depth of emotions the speaker is experiencing. In the middle of the final stanza, Arnold uses a combination of rhyming, a simile and alliteration to work towards the poems conclusion. The speaker says, “To one another! for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams” (30-31). These poetic elements combined not only create a dynamic element of imagery, as well as bringing about emotion, but it reinforces the lyrical tone the poem possesses. “Dover Beach” is a dramatic monologue, written in an open form, yet it contains interesting elements of form within the poem itself. Each of the four stanza’s are composed of different lengths. The first stanza contains qualities of an English sonnet; although it has no pattern of rhyme, it does have fourteen lines and posses a turn within the emotion and tone the poem has in the final two lines of the

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