Comparing Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Gerard Manley Hopkins'God's Grandeur

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Recommended: An Essay on Nature in English Poetry

Comparing Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Gerard Manley Hopkins'God's Grandeur

Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," and Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur" are similar in that both poems praise the beauty of the natural world and deplore man's role in that world. The style and tone of each poem is quite different, however. Arnold writes in an easy, flowing style and as the poem develops, reveals a deeply melancholy point of view. Hopkins writes in a very compressed, somewhat jerky style, using sentences heavy with alliteration and metaphors. His tone, though touched with sadness and perhaps even anger at man, unlike Arnold's poem, reveals an abiding sense of hope. Basically, each poet is presenting a very different view of Faith, and consequently of man's ultimate condition.

Matthew Arnold begins his poem by describing a calm, beautiful scene. Dover Beach is lying "fair" in the moonlight. It is high tide and he sees the coast of France and "the cliffs of England... / Gleaming and vast, out in the tranquil bay." All seems lovely and quiet. According to Baum's research on the date and circumstances of the poem, Arnold is probably speaking to his new bride (86) as he says, "Come to the window, sweet is the night-air." But gradually the reader senses a shifting of mood and tone. Now he describes the "line of spray... / Where the sea meets" the land as "moon-blanched." And the tide, tossing pebbles as it comes, is a "grating roar" with a "tremulous cadence slow" that "bring[s] / The eternal note of sadness in." This melancholy mood grows deeper as he thinks of man's long span of history-- "The turbid ebb and flow / of human misery."

In the next stanza beginning with line twenty-one, Arnold gets to the reason ...

... middle of paper ...

... in a sky that is brown, not completely black because God's Spirit is hovering in love over the dark world still, like a mother dove brooding over her nest.

Obviously, both poets recognize the darkness in the world; and both see love as a light in the darkness. Arnold's love is human love from one individual to another and even that seems uncertain. The redeeming love Hopkins speaks of is God's love for man and His creation. That love is unchanging and indestructible--an abiding hope in the darkness. What a difference faith can make.

Works Cited

Baum, Paull F. Ten Studies in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold. Durham: Duke UP, 1961.

Boyle, Robert S.J. Metaphor in Hopkins. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1961.

Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading Reacting Writing. 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 1991.

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