Irony, Images, and Illusions in Dover Beach

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Irony, Images, and Illusions in Dover Beach

In the poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold there is a lot of irony,

appeal to the auditory and visual sense, and illusions. The tone in this poem is

very sad and dismal, but he shows us how to keep faith and hope in spite of

that and how important being honest, true, and faithful to one another, really

is. Throughout this poem, Arnold mentions all of these traits and ties them all

together.

The irony in this poem is the main plot of the poem. A man has taken a

woman to a beautiful beach in France. There they look over the cliffs at the

beautiful ocean, the moon is full and bright, and the night-air is calm and

peaceful. She thinks that she is going to this romantic place to be wooed by

this man. Instead he turns to her and talks to her about Sophocles. She, not

understanding what exactly is going on, later realizes that he was getting to

the point of having each other and always being there for one another.

The poet uses visual and auditory images to mainly help the romantic,

fantasy-like place. “The sea is calm, the tide is full” and “Of pebbles which

the waves draw back, and fling,” is an example of images that appeal to the

visual sense. While “ Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land” and “With

tremulous cadence slow, and bring...” uses an auditory sense. “Come to the

window, sweet is the night air,” can apply to both senses. Sweet can mean

angelic or precious to qualify to be an visual image, or it can mean almost like

a melodious tune.

Illusions are used in this poem as deception for the girl that the man

is trying to hold a non-romantic conversation with. A theory is portrayed in

this poem by Plato, the world is an illusion. In many case this that falls true.

In the first stanza of the poem , the surrounds of the two people is discussed.

Words like calm, tranquil, sweet, and eternal, are used which seem to foreshadow

a lovely romantic evening. As the poem continues on, the evening is spent

talking about anything but love. The final topic of discussion goes much deeper

than just love. They end up talking about how the world is sometimes so

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