Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold and Dulce Et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

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Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” invites the reader to determine if they, like the speaker, would isolate themselves to preserve their present ideologies; while Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” implores the reader to evaluate what they consider to be worthy of glorification. While the two poems are distinctly different in both time period and setting, Arnold’s poem is better interpreted by the extension of the imagery presented in his last stanza by the war setting in Owen’s “Dulce”. The imagery used in “Dulce Et Decorum Est” expands the reader’s understanding of “Dover Beach” by further illustrating the powerlessness of the position one is placed in, and that there is no difference between physical and mental isolation from the realities of change. In “Dover Beach”, the speaker describes how beautiful his life was before his ideals were shattered. It is set during the Industrial Revolution, where religion was challenged by the introduction of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The speaker feels powerless against these changes, as shown in the line “Swept with confused alarms o...

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