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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2008 08:50PM by anolleb.
Anolleb, you sabotage yourself by declaring that you are "not good" at answering questions like these. It isn't difficult, especially if you realize that there's usually no right or wrong interpretation of a poem. It's more a matter of forming an opinion based on what the poem says. It just has to be your opinion, for which you can give some reasons.
How about reading the poem again several times and then having a go at answering these 6 questions? Post your proposed answers here, and the Emule contributors can offer help by commenting.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2008 08:50PM by anolleb.
Well the ranks of the contributors seem to have thinned lately. Must be a result of the recent interruptions to Emule.
Might as well put up the poem:
Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confus’d alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
So, let's look at the questions (there are actually 7 of them, not 6) and your tentative answers.
!. What did the sound of the sea suggest to Sophocles? "human misery".
Yes, though you could elaborate by quoting the poem exactly: "the turbid ebb and flow of human misery".
2. What is the controlling image of the poem? "the sea or the sound of the sea".
Sound can be a poetic 'image'. To be more precise however, I suggest the sound referred to in the poem is not just the sound of the sea, but rather the sound the sea makes washing in and out of massed pebbles on the beach. I don't know whether you live inland far from the sea, Anolleb, or have ever visited a shingle beach and heard the waves on it as described in the first stanza. They make a distinctive sound.
3. How would you describe the speaker's view of the world? "It's not what it seems, its not all peace, joy, and love".
Yes. But I suggest you could draw on the last few lines of the poem to expand your answer.
4. What's the mood of the first 6 lines? "calmness".
Yes, I'd agree with that. Maybe also contentment or pleasure in contemplating that calmness.
5. The mood changes, when does it change, in what line?
You haven't answered that. Where do you find the first discordant note (upsetting the initial mood) in the poem?
6. What does the mood change to...? "more like anger? And negativity?"
Negativity, yes in a sense, but that's a very general and therefore rather vague description. Melancholy [sadness] or pessimism or even despair might describe the mood more accurately.
7. and why [does the mood change]?
This may be harder than the other questions. You haven't tried to answer it. What is in the speaker's mind, i.e. what is preoccupying him, that predisposes him to interpret the sound of the waves on the shingles as sad, and to express despair about the world? I suggest the answer is indicated in the poem, but you should try to find it for yorself before I tell you what I think it is.
Ian
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2008 09:26PM by IanAKB.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2008 08:50PM by anolleb.
Annoleb, a poet doesn't belong to a movement in one poem. It's a description applied to a poet's work generally in the context of the poets he/she associated with and who inluenced him/her. Any such classification is likely to be a bit rough and ready, failing to take into account individual differences.
Arnold is usually assigned to the Romantic Movement. Broadly speaking, that refers to a number of 19th Century poets who followed a new fashion of focusing in their writing on feelings (particularly their own) and imagination.
Dover is the place in England nearest to France, famous for its high, white chalk cliffs. From the top of the cliffs on a clear night you can see the lights of the French coast. I can't see much relevance of those facts to the theme of poem, but maybe I have missed something. My guess is that he picked "Dover" simply because that's where he was when he got the idea for the poem, and "Beach" because the poem described a beach from which he could hear the swell sounding in the shingles. And "Dover Beach" made a neat title.
Look up "lyric" and "lyrical" in a dictionary, or in Google, and then decide for yourself. Lots of references on the Internet, for example:
[www.tnellen.com] />
"iambic pentameter"?! If you weren't a serious 12th grade high school student, Anolleb, I'd say you gotta be joking. Look up iambic pentameter in a dictionary or on Google. There are some iambic pentameter lines in Dover Beach, but surely it's obvious that the lines vary greatly in length, meter and rhythm.
What about your answers to the outstanding questions you raised earlier?
Ian
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2008 04:49AM by IanAKB.
yeah well, im not in 12th grade and im not joking. i was making sure anyways and i didnt feel like looking it up. isnt this for homework help? jeez stop complaining loser.
The idea is that we help you to do your homework, not do it all for you.
I believed you were in 12th grade because someone with a username rather like yours and claiming to be in 12th grade posted a very similar enquiry on another website a couple of days before you posted here.
[tinyurl.com] />
Must have been one of those amazing coincidences.
Btw there's nothing wrong with being in 12th grade. Anyone at that level can be presumed to be a serious student. That was my point.
Anyway, I'm happy to stop losing time trying to coach you. Plenty else to do.
It is good to see the world running true to form:
One request assistance
Another attempts to provide the requested assistance
The first party then pees on the second party’s leg
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Clare Booth Luce